Crossing the English Channel is almost always a long thing, so leaving early is essential. We were up at 0500 and slipped our mooring in Salcombe by 0530. The morning greeted us with a cool, grey, misty hue and other than us, only fishermen were making their way out to sea. We soon lost sight of land as the visibility was poor (less than five miles), with a very gentle breeze – not enough to sail.
The actual sighting of other vessels becomes quite exciting – although the photo of this fishing boat doesn’t belie anything of that ilk! The most important thing is to keep away from these guys; one doesn’t want to fall foul of their trawled nets! Soon we encountered several ships, although this part of the English Channel doesn’t have delineated Shipping Lanes it is still essential to keep a good watch. The visibility dropped to about 2 miles, but our AIS system kept us informed of local maritime traffic.
Gradually the wind came in and we were able to sail for about 3 hours; coupled with this came the rain, so keeping wrapped up and warm was essential. I always start with several layers including my thermals on days like this and I was just about warm enough! The rain cleared after about four hours and then we were back to motor-sailing. Eventually, everything calmed down considerably and we could play a game of Scrabble (Bob was the winner this time).
We kept our spirits up as the French coast beckoned and just before nightfall we shouted “Land Ho!” – however, arriving to an unknown destination in the dark can be very disconcerting and disorientating – there were so many flashers and little blinky lights to identify! Finally we tied up at 2345 local time – the total journey had taken just over 17.5 hours.
Day 6 greeted us cool and grey – continuing with showers – some quite heavy. We re-fuelled and checked in with the Marina. Then we set off for the Gare Maritime to get “stamped in”. Roscoff being a ferry port, was all set up for traffic and ferry passengers/freight etc. The signs were appalling, but after a quick phone with the Douane (French Customs) we located them and presented ourselves and our “PAF” form. They took our photos and right hand finger prints (for their biometric system) and we had officially crossed the border.
Being a Sunday, time was pressing on and the shops mostly close at lunchtime, so we hot-footed it into town (only about a mile) for our stores and then decided to treat ourselves to our first French meal – such superb cooking – langoustines, hake and creme brulee, and the necessary pichet of white wine – bien sur!
The tiredness caught up with us then… but later the Scrabble Challenge continued, resulting in another draw (Bob was a bit miffed – I was thrilled)!
On Monday we got out our new to us electric Brompton bikes – wow! These are a serious bit of kit and worked really well.
The weather was much better and we took our time to explore Roscoff which has been a seafaring centre for centuries.
The church – L’Eglise Notre-Dame de Croaz-Batz was built in the 1500’s paid tribute the sailors and the sea especially with the sculptures of vessels placed on the outside walls of the building.
Later on I was able to explore the beautiful botanical gardens – which were very close to the marina, the first blooms of spring were now appearing, an impressive cactus house and several interesting sculptures!
Cactus House
Interesting Sculptures
Beautiful Blooms
Roscoff Marina from the Gardens