The Brittany Adventure comes to an end

 

We escaped the heat of the Paimpol harbour walls and spent a final night on a visitor's mooring at the entrance to La Corderie, on the west side of the Ile de Brehat. This allowed us to leave for the Channel crossing early the following morning, without the tidal constraints of the Paimpol lock, and we enjoyed the sight of a traditional Breton gaff-rigged boat drifting past us in the very light evening breeze.

 

With a 10-15 knot easterly forecast, we left at 06.00 the following morning, motor-sailed for the first hour until the breeze kicked in and then had an almost perfect close reach back to Dartmouth.

The navigator was very pleased with himself - the fixed compass course he'd calculated allowed the tide to take us west for 6 hours and then back east for the following 6 hours. Although Maunie's track across the ground isn't the shortest, it's actually more efficient (and therefore faster) than it would be fighting the tide to sail the straight line.

We averaged 6.7 knots for the 94nm passage which was a very good result, considering we'd had a couple of hours at only 5 knots until the breeze became properly established. We had a few ships cross quite close ahead and astern of us but otherwise it was very easy sailing, at least until we closed in on the Dart estuary where we had some quite challenging squalls to contend with.

Back in Dartmouth, we had a night on one of the visitor pontoons to allow us to retrieve and refit the chains and lines onto our mooring. We had taken them off when we left because, from previous experience, they would have been slimy and covered in weed after a month left in the water.

We had a couple of days in the sunshine to do a few boat jobs and pack away everything after nearly a month aboard. We're pleased to report that the new Jackery lithium battery 'power station' system has been a total success; the ability to use the electric kettle, toaster and induction hob, plus vacuum cleaner and hairdryer, whilst at anchor or on a mooring was a great benefit. We used very little gas for cooking and it was good to be using free electricity - with the additional Jackery solar panels adding valuable power.

We'll be back aboard Maunie for some shorter trips over the rest of the summer but, in spite of the slightly interesting weather, our French trip was a great success.