Douarnenez, Audierne and Camaret

After 6 days at Brest, all the classic boats motored out of the harbour into the channel, accompanied by a flotilla of modern day-sailers, yachts, ribs, speed boats, naval ships and helicopters.

Unfortunately there was no wind at all so after a short but hectic drift, everyone either started their engines or took out their oars. Nora had towed me and Falanda out of the harbour and once it was decided that we were to motor, we kept Falanda under tow and I jumped aboard Nora. It felt embarrassing enough, however I was also glad not to be left completely useless with the high speed ribs and the 80’ sailings trawlers. It was hectic until we reached the bay of Douarnenez, at which point the wind picked up, everyone separed slightly, Nora let us go and we enjoyed a lovely sail across the bay.

Falanda was berthed in the inner, fishing boat harbour, which was otherwise filled with racing boats meaning that there was no one ever really there. Nora was rafted up inside the southern breakwater, alongside the other Colin Archers, and Radiance was anchored just off the pilot cutters on the main pier.

In Brest, most of the English boats had been berthed on the end pontoons of the plastic boat marina, which was slightly weird, especially when no one had the codes to get in or out of the gates. Dournenez, however, was a lot more involved with the boats, the music was good and we had lots of fun. Me and Falanda sailed around to the anchorage and rafted up alongside Radiance for a bit. The anchorage was still really busy and it seemed to be the perfect place to be, we could sleep at night if we wanted to, swim around the boats in the morning and it was idyllic.

My mum and brother joined my dad in Douarnenez, just in time for rain to start. There was a blow coming in on the last night of the festival so me and Jake rafted up in front of Nora for a night before leaving the next morning for Morgat. We ended up leaving the harbour still rafted up to Nora, Radiance and Robin in his Mariholm Folkboat for some reason. This meant that detaching once we hoisted the sails became slightly more stressful that it had be, but soon we were racing across Douarnenez bay towards the anchorage.

It was Jake’s first proper solo sail on Radiance and it was my first time seeing Radiance under sail. Her tanned sails looked lovely next to Nora’s cream ones, and we had a great sail despite the slight competition between Jake and my dad. They had been betting for months on who had the faster boat, as they had never actually sailed against each other.

This was all great fun until Nora’s bobstay collided with Radiance's wind vane, ripping up part of the (slightly rotten) stern deck. Luckily no major damage was done and we were soon anchored up in Morgat. After inspection to Radiance, we decided to carry on to Audierne the next day alongside Robin.

We had a lovely sail back across the bay to the Raz du Sein where the wind dropped off almost completely and we were left drifting slowly for the next couple of hours. We eventually got around with the last of the tide, and I started to understand why my dad used to get so stressed out about this headland. One particular time when I was young we had got the tide wrong and ended up in that exact spot for hours and hours. I don’t remember much except for being excruciatingly bored, and my brother looking out and saying ‘they’re really big waves mummy’.

We got into the anchorage at Audierne as it got dark, each found somewhere to anchor and then had a meal aboard Nora. We had hoped to bring all three boats upriver to the pontoons in order to do some work on Radiance the following day, however the Harbour Master stated that the French law wouldn’t allow an engineless boat up the channel.

Leaving Falanda at anchor, we motored Nora and Radiance up the next morning. Marcus and Freya kindly lent us some wood and tools, and soon the hole on Radiance’s stern was all bodged up with Douglas fir and epoxy.

Nora and Radiance then joined Falanda back on the anchorage and we had a lovely week anchored off the beach. I re-learnt how to splice, and soon every rope on Falanda and Radiance had been cut and then spliced back up. We also walked around to a particular headland, where there was a seaweed festival taking place. It seemed to us a slightly odd celebration however everyone was in good spirits and the locals took great pleasure in watching the seaweed be stacked and then burnt.

We set off early, and sailed slowly towards the Raz with what little wind there was. Some hours later, we had reached the most tidal point, when the wind died and I lost steerage on Falanda. Kindly, Nora turned around to tow us and at the offer of breakfast I decided to jump aboard. It was a particularly calm day so I hadn’t considered the chop brought on by the tide and jumped off of Falanda's bow, just as a wave kicked up Nora’s stern. I only missed by an inch however ended up hanging from the tow post with my legs in the water. My first thought was of the orcas that had been reported in Dournenez Bay two days previously, and was convinced that they were about to eat me.

They didn’t eat me, and soon I was back onboard Nora and making pancakes for breakfast. We arrived in Camaret a few hours after that, went for a swim and found a nice bar. On the third night at Cameret I was onboard Radiance making dinner when we heard some screaming outside. It was about 11pm so quite dark but looking out there were about 10 teenagers onboard Falanda, jumping into the water with inflatable mattessess of all things. I paddled over and tried in my best french to scream that 'she is my home' and that I live on her and that there are important things on her. They were completely spooked by the crazy English girl with one oar and were halfway back to the beach when I reached Falanda.

No harm was done to her but they had thrown a few things over the side, including one of my boots. I only have one pair of shoes and they are my boots so luckily I found it washed up on the beach the next day. The tiller was dangling off the side deck deck about to fall in when I arrived so I was glad to still have the tiller.

Other than that Camaret was good, we had lovely weather, swam a lot and I tried to fix my tan which stopped at my shoulders - not a great look in a bikini.