A blow by blow (or calm by calm) account of a sailing trip from Portsmsouth to Gibraltar and Barcelona, returning via the Canal de Midi.

Wednesday, 1 September 2010

Rockin' on

We've done the last corner now, and are homeward bound.  We even caught a snippet of Falmouth Coastguard on the radio.  With Cathy and Ian we stopped at a couple of very pleasant Breton towns, and had some excellent seafood (and we even caught a mackerel, which made a dainty lunch for four).  It's an impressively rocky place this end of Brittany (Finisterre it's called, which I always confuse with the cape in Spain).  And they have some impressive lighthouses to go with them
This one, on Isle de Vierge, claims to be the highest in the world, at 77 meters.

We are now peacefully anchored in the Morlaix river - well anchored anyway, since the wind is howling round us.  It's the wind that has been the problem the last few days; we've had continuous strong Easterlies, with more forecast to come.  And where to we want to go, now we're round the corner?  East!  So it's slow, and quite hard going.  We've been up at dawn the last two mornings to get some help from the tides, but even then, trying to head directly into strong winds gets tiring. Or maybe we just get tired.

By the way, Steve asked what a backstay tensioner cleavis pin was.  Really!  For the really ignorant amongst you, its the horizontal pin towards the bottom of the picture.

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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5 September 2010 at 17:07

    Are you sure? Looks like a frontstay tensioner cleavis pin to me! I presume the mackerel catching was facilitated by barbed hooks - good you got one before the Iclanders clean them out.

    The PC from L'Aber Wrac'h just arrived - thanks so much, brought back good memories (beaches, seafood, no-one about in August) - sorry indeed that we missed you - by just over 5 years! I guess you have just arrived in the Channel Is. now, if on schedule. Hope the final push will be pleasant and that the wind is right for you. You will both have had a unique and memorable trip, and it was fun to watch progress on the blog - just sorry it wasn't in person(s).


    In September I'm in France, Germany (twice) and the US - that's how its been! Last month Austria, Hungary.

    Best wishes for a bon retour
    Colin and Katharine

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  2. Ian6 September 2010 at 20:51

    Nah! It's definitely a backstay tensioner cleavis pin. The ignorance of some people.

    Simon - I hope the wind is with you and look forward to your support on Zizek asap. I suspect there will only be two of us on Wednesday - Ann and me.

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