Departure from Brittany; Hello Spain

Katie Auth and her friend Rachel, also a teacher in Brest this year, did not disapoint us. They were excellent tour guides even though they had only been in the city for a few days. After going out for some beers on Thursday night we headed down towards the town hall where we heard that many students gather on "the steps of liberty". This was an amazing sight to be seen - at least 1000 sudents were gathered enjoying the evening on the steps in front of the town hall. This group, mostly just relaxing with a few beverages, also took to racing recycling barrels with wheels and handles on the ground down the long sloped granite town square. The students were very friendly and long conversations kept us busy late into the night.

We made big plans with Katie and Rachel to cruise to Ile d'Ouessant that weekend. Because they had to work late Friday, we caught the morning tide from Brest to Camaret, just outside the narrow tidal channel that leads to Brest Harbor, where the girls were going to meet us by bus. Unfortunately French transportation doesn't always run on its published schedule, and when Katie and Rachel's bus left 15 minutes early, we had to come back to Brest the next morning to pick them up.

We made it to Ile d'Ouessant in the early afternoon, which left us plenty of time to go onshore and explore the westernmost island in France. The town of Lampaul looks out over the beautiful bay where we were anchored, and we watched the sun set before returning aboard. The next morning we had a beautiful sail in 15-20 knots of breeze back to Camaret, from whence, barring a brief misunderstanding with the French bus system, Katie and Rachel took their leave.


In addition to trash can racing, other notable French pastimes include pastries and sailing. Here are the top five reasons why French sailors get it done!
#5: Wonderfully ridiculous launching ramps. Three 200ft wide lauchning ramps were included in the 2000 slip marina at Oceanopolis Brest.
#4: Wednesday afternoon at 2pm the harbor was alive with every floating contraption imagineable, including Open 40s, canting keel minis, 29ers, Europe dinghys, lasers, windsurfers, and all kinds of unnamed vessels.
#3: They're not scared of light weight! Many of the boats in the marina were minis or open class boats that were used as racer cruisers.
#2: The Brittany coast is unforgiving - with twenty foot tides and strong westerly breeze, the rock infested harbors take the utmost care just to navigate.
#1: They dont work, they just sail!


After Katie and Rachel left, we spent a beautiful three days in Camaret, a small fishing and tourist town just to the west of Brest. Departing for La Coruna on Wednesday September 24th we happend to pass by three French frigates. While wondering what was going on the VHF radio started shouting to us in French. The English version of the message came quickly after, calming us now that we understood they were just conducting underwater demolition nearby. With a quick change of course we skirted the demolition area and headed off to La Coruna.

The weather for our passage was wonderful until we neared the North coast of Spain too early in the morning. Trying to slow down we continued at 7.3kts with half of our jib out. This night was made particularly interesting by the large spanish fishing fleet that was working off the coast. As the sun rose and the fishing vessels came into view rather than being simply blips on the radar and lights bobbing in the seas the wind died down and we were able to enjoy our arival in La Coruna.

After a few days unwinding from our journey and climbing the Tower of Hercules we headed East for an adventure to Cedeira. This is a small town in one of the most beautiful natrually protected Rias I have ever been. Upon our arival we decided we would postpone our return to La Coruna a day and spend some time exploring the area. The beach and the river were amazing. As we rode the tide up though the estuary in the raft we enjoyed the sun and calm high pressure. The town too was a relaxing place a little off the pace of the bigger city La Coruna.

With two nights and a day or relaxasion behind us we head back to La Coruna where my dad was flying in to meet us and join the boat for a week. With his arival we cleaned and prepared the boat along with trying to find some local knowlege about the crusing grounds to the south. A nice couple from the area invited me aboard their boat to show me where we should go. The older man spoke english and his wife was more than happy to have him translate for me. Her recommendations have proved helpful and their translation of rocks and reefs is a classic mix up. As he was explaining the entrance to harbor after harbor she would interject and make sure that I understood how many unmarked stones there were. "Be careful of the stones, Be careful of the stones" he insisted. The coast from along the north western section of Spain is called "the coast of death" for a reason - there are lots maybe tons of stones!

Good bye for now. We are off to the South!