Monday 11th May – Day 14
The day dawned bright and we had slept so well as the storm had gone – yesss! Ouessant was bathed in the early morning sunshine as we made our way out of the Baie and turn towards the mainland. This is not as easy as it might sound as there are many rocks in this area and navigation has to be done precisely. For once the NE wind gusting only up to 23 knots was absolutely in our favour and we only ran the engine for less than 10 minutes at the beginning of our journey and for only about 30 minutes at the end.
Today was one of those Million-Dollars-a-Minute-Sailing-days – we had the best sail from Ouessant to Camaret which lasted about 4.5hours and this was utter joy to experience! One reef in the main and we started with a full genoa (front sail), but also reefed her down. Reefing the sails is important to help you keep control in gusty conditions; it means that less sail is up. We were averaging speeds of between 5.5 – 8 knots on this passage. (If you are travelling at 5.5knots, you will cover the distance of 5.5 nautical miles in an hour – a nautical mile is shorter than a land mile – just saying – not going into any more detail on that here!)
On arrival at Camaret, after re-fuelling, we came into the Port Vauban Marina (named after the large Vauban Fort). A dredger was busily working amongst the pontoons, pirouetting around, and it continued it’s noisy work for the rest of the afternoon.
After a quick lunch, we went and checked in with the Port and then hot-footed made for the showers. They were in rather temporary looking cabins and weren’t the best facilities that we had encountered, but they were a hot shower – I was thankful for that!
A walk into town, we passed the local sights of Camaret – distinctly out of season:
Some old wrecks along the way (I know the feeling!)
The beautiful little Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Rocamadour, outside and in:
A seafaring sculpture outside the chapel