Although Brest is a lively town with lots to see, many activities and good restaurants we had to stay longer than we wanted due to the lack of an acceptable weather window to cross the “Golfe de Gascogne” (French) or the “Bay of Biscay” (English) or “Pleg-mor Gwaskogn” (Bretton) or “Bizkaiko Golkoa” (Basque). There are […]
The weather window for the 70 miles from Roscoff was again very short. We left 0200am on Nov 06 and sailed into the “Rade de Brest” at 0100pm after an uneventful sail with 6 hours favourable tide, leaving Roscoff, but the tide on the nose in the “Chenal du Four”. It was a trade off.
Leaving Cherbourg for Roscoff is all about managing the strong currents around the channel islands. We plotted a course North of Alderney and Guernsey. On the chart plotter you can see that we were North of the plotted course, for two reason; A) heading 20 degrees further South would make the genoa become unstable and
We left Dieppe Wed Oct 23 @ 0800 am for the 20 hour 115 NM sail to Cherbourg. It was a nice sail, wing on wing with full main and Genoa for 13 hours, whereafter the wind died. We motored the last 4 hours and arrived Thu 0200 am. We had been in Cherbourg before
We tried to leave Boulogne twice before but returned to the safety of the port after sticking our nose outside the breakwater. It was the sea-state that made us return. The bashing and slamming is not good for the boat, nor for our morale. We were exploring our comfort zone. The waiting paid off and
We left Dunkirk on 14 Oct at 0500 am to ensure we had the tide in our favour when passing Cape Gris Nez, the French side of the Strait of Dover were the English Channel is at its narrowest. We arrived in Boulogne Sur Mer around 11.30 am in what was a motor-sail against 10
When these doors open at 0425 am on Sat Oct 12, 2019, our world cruise begins by leaving the Netherlands into the Westerschelde and heading for Dunkerque in Northern France. It is not the best part of the year to sail South through the English Channel and we know we have to negotiate the weather
Leaving Netherlands for Dunkerque Read More »