Monday sailed to Lezardrieux past Ile de Brehat – thru another minefield of rocks. Had an incident when a French boat bumped into us twice as he tried (badly) to moor up. Fortunately no serious damage I think but not impressed. But just like their car driving in France, a few bumps while sailing seem to be just accepted as fair game! In a bar in Lezardrieux noticed another particularly French approach – this time re enforcement of Regs prohibiting smoking in bars etc. A sign in the bar indicated smoking is allowed only by those having something to eat or drink!!

Tuesday we had a new experience – we set out about 0800 and were back in the same port by noon! Early weather forecast had not been good but I decided to go out and see how bad things were. When we got out of the estuary the seas were quite rough and later forecast was for gusts up to 35knots – time to turn around!!

Over the next 3 days we sailed from Lezardrieux to Trebeurden, L’AberWrach (passed the world’s tallest lighthouse Ile Vierge) and Brest. Wonderful coast – esp the rose granite rocks. We had quite fresh winds and as always along this coast strong tides so we made fast passage times even although mostly the wind was from dead ahead and we had to tack upwind (why does the wind always seem to be blowing directly from where one wants to go?!). Weather mixed but one excellent sunrise (conveniently on the day we got up at 0500!!). Uneventful passage past Ushant and through the notorious Chenal du Four but sobering to see so many shipwrecks (literally hundreds) marked on charts. In bad weather (which it gets often) this would not be a good place to be. The worst disaster was I believe the sinking of the Drummond Castle in fog in 1896 – only 3 survivors from 246 mostly women and children who had been evacuated from South Africa during the Boer war.