More or less parked off the NE corner of the island – to get into Baie du Morbihan and Port aux Francais, we have to sail a big circle – radius about 25 miles – from the NW to the SE and then NW into the Baie. Another series of waypoints transferred from paper to digital. We have almost no wind after copping 30 kts for a lot of the day and making huge progress. The Examiner is back from her holiday. We left L’Oiseau to try to get to P a F in the short window between fronts. The one behind us has speeded up and will arrive around 0900 utc so we have about 12 hours to sail about 40 miles – too risky to use the engine at night with all the kelp around but should be ok after first light when we have some chance of seeing the stuff. The next one after that, in about 48 hours, has 50 knots in it.
The silence of another lovely, hazy starry night cut by Berri’s thumping and banging in the gentle swell and the sounds of the birds around us. There’s one that makes a noise like a road rage car horn, then the usual grrooaaks and phnaaarks (albatrosses, I think) and squeaks. I see them occasionally in the dim reflected light from Berri’s masthead light – fleeting wraiths in the gloom.
Several hours later – I think we cracked it. Ain’t we been lucky?? We have just entered Baie du Morbihan with about 12 miles to P a F. Misty sunshine, Kelp! You think you’ve seen seaweed? We snuck in through a narrow channel on the chart, saving about an hour, between huge forests of the stuff covering perhaps 500 metres square – and then there’s all the loose mats that must be spotted and avoided. Berri’s well travelled Q flag flying but haven’t got a French Southern Territories courtesy flag. That would be one for the collection! If, of course, they let us land. Watch this space.
The logs ramblings can be cryptic, so we have added:
As a man sows, so he shall reap. ....................................................