Raised the anchor immediately after the 07:03 forecast from Penmarc'h, and motored into Benodet hoping to take on water. Of course, all the outside berths were in use, but we spotted an English yacht with crew up and about, so asked permission to come alongside for 5 minutes. They were aiming at Camaret, which was going to mean some hard motoring.
Outside, we flew Mr Andrews in an Easterly F2, and headed slowly for the Basse Boulanger. As we rounded the buoy at the headland, we were joined by a school of dolphins, who played with us for half-an-hour, diving under and between the hulls. Ann tried to take pictures with her film camera; I knew it was a waste of time trying with the digital camera, because the time lag means I always miss them.
From Boulanger to the buoy off Penmarc'h was dead downwind, so we tacked right out to sea, now with a strong helpful current. Another cat seemed to be keeping station sailing the direct course, which had me wondering, until we heard his motor. Off Penmarc'h the wind reached a good F4/5, and we hit 11 knots. Wimp-like, we dropped Mr Andrews, whereupon the wind eased.
At first, we thought the wind might be sufficient to allow us to round the Point du Raz on the tide, but, by the time we were off Audienne at 13:00, the wind had veered and dropped to F2, and we calculated that we couldn't do it without lots of motoring. So we dropped Mr Andrews again and headed for Audienne on a close reach at 5.5 knots.
Anchored off the pontoons in Audienne
In
Audienne, we did as recommended by M le Capitain on the previous
occasion, and anchored fore and aft over the sand bank
immediately opposite the pontoons. As it turned out, he was a
having a day off - the season was now over - and we could have
tied to the pontoon for free anyway.
Lane in Port Croix
Ann
was feeling slightly off-colour, so I took the dinghy up the
estuary, under the (very) low bridge, to Port Croix. Both the
estuary and Port Croix are beautiful, and well worth the detour.
The steeple of the Port Croix church was the model for that of
Quimper cathedral, being hollow with numerous apertures allowing
you to see through it.