Brest or Bust!

It was the picture of tranquillity and calm as we awoke at anchor in New Grimsby Sound (between Tresco and Bryher) on Sunday morning.  

New Grimsby Sound

This was the day we planned to set off for France, headed for Brest (127 miles away) to check-in to the European Schengen Zone and start our progress southwards.

However, looking towards the seas north of us, we were surprised to see a mass of white breaking waves - indicating windy conditions and a rough sea..  In view of this, we put a reef in the main and gingerly motored out into this rough water to take the west-going tide and the passage around Bryher leading to St Mary's Sound that would take us away from the Scillies.

We were shocked at the violence of the sea and we had a hard beat in WSW F5-6 winds as we edged round the clusters of rocks to the west of Bryher with the Bishop Rock lighthouse standing guard to seaward of us.  Both Doug and I privately wondered if it might be better to seek shelter in the Cove between the islands of St Agnes and Gugh rather than pushing out on a long passage in these conditions.

We discussed this option but the seastate improved as we entered St Mary's Sound, so we decided to continue our voyage after all.

We set a course for the top of the Chenal de Helle that would take us inside Ushant to join the Chenal du Four leading to the Rade de Brest.  The seas in the English Channel remained very lumpy for the rest of the day and the wind was a steady W F4/5 making it a hard day's sail!  We were aiming to enter the Chenal de Helle at the start of the south-going tide on Monday (10:00) and this meant we must not arrive too early.  However, Rapport had other ideas and her super-clean bottom plus the speedy wind strength and direction meant we were soon exceeding our planned passage time.  The only answer was to reduce sail and try to slow her down - easier said than done!

We sailed past the traffic separation schemes off the Scillies and then Ushant, where clusters of ships were entering or exiting these lanes and were very glad of the assistance given by our AIS system to warn us of collision risks.

Weary after the night at sea (on 2 hr watches) we were only a little early off the French coast as we made our way towards Brest through Monday morning.

Daybreak off the France

The tide was against us to enter the "Goulet de Brest" so we sought shelter in the quiet Anse de Bertheaume to the west and thankfully dropped anchor here.  After a hearty English fry-up we sank into our berths to catch up on our well-earned sleep.

Anse de Bertheaume - zzzzzz

We decided to wait until Tuesday to enter Brest as it would be too late to deal with the Customs formalities on the Monday.  So more time to sleep!

French Warship - Normande as we entered the naval port of Brest

We motored round to the Marina du Chateau in Brest early on Tuesday and headed ashore to meet the super helpful and friendly Customs officer.

Marina du Chateau - Brest




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