Douarnenez to Morgat

Douarnenez 28th July - 3rd Aug

We decided to stay in Douarnenez until all of our extra crew arrived. Since it was all going to coincide at the same time we realised we would need an extra sleeping berth. Douarnenez is quite a big town and not too touristy so it had all the DIY/chandler stores necessary to help us with a few bits and pieces.

Firstly Ali took the top off the sitting room table and put runners underneath the top of it so it could be pulled out. The next day Ali must have looked quite a sight as he went to the building store on his folding bike to get some wood to extend the couch into a bed. He arrived back at the boat in the pouring rain with wood strapped to the bike. He said that there were a few people laughing as he tried to get it all tied on at the store you can see why in this picture! The shower hose had burst the night before so we had to fix that also and Ali even made (yes made) a new shower curtain so that we don’t have to crouch down to have a shower when rafted to another boat. I have been busy finishing off sewing the poppers underneath all the couch cushions and putting Velcro under them to keep them from slipping off the chairs at sea. Kaylee in particular finds this a very good game to play when we are on a starboard tack as she jumps hard on to the cushion on the couch and it slides off onto the chart table with her on it. Hopefully this will put a stop to that.

Ali has been so proud of all his modifications he has been dragging unsuspecting French yachties onboard to have a look. I think he met his French equal in Pasqual a fellow Hanse sailor as they were on each others boats, borrowing tools, swapping stories and oohing and aahing at each others home improvements for a day or so. There are quite a few old boats tied up in the river lock with quite young couples renovating them quite a task as some of the boats have not been in too good a state to begin with.

It was nice and sunny one day so we went to the little beach just around the other side of town. We could cycle there as it was promenade nearly the whole way there. The girls had a fun. Kaylee is always braver in the sea and was trying to swim with Ali. Alisha was perfecting her sandcastle skills. There was a large boat race on in the bay which wasn’t moving very quickly because of a lack of wind.

We met a nice couple called Graham and Rita who were berthed along the pontoon from us. They had a lovely 'Island Packet' boat when we were on it Kaylee needed the loo and Ali offered to go with her as he didn't want me to be jealous of their toilet - I was!! They told us about the UGRIB weather forecasting system on the internet which you can download the files onto your computer. They seem really good I will tell you after we cross Biscay if they were accurate!

I decided it was time to lose a lot of hair and booked a hairdresser appointment. I was going to go really short but thought I might just wait until I could converse with a hairdresser somewhere as all we could manage was hand signals. It was funny sitting trying to speak when all you knew was cava and cava bien and some smiling (which I wasn’t doing when she burned my ear with the hairdryer and stuck her talons in my eye!)

We spent Thursday tidying up the boat for Daniel arriving. The girls could hardly contain themselves all day long and were nearly at bursting point when he arrived at tea time. They jumped all over him and the poor boy was assaulted at the crack of dawn each morning until his cousin Shannon and her boyfriend arrived on Sunday evening. The girls were a little shy with Matt at first but within an hour they had their jewellery box out and had decorated him. Luckily he is a good sport.

There was a free concert at the skate park on Friday night. The flyer we got said it started at 6pm so we thought it would be one of those events that started and finished early. We duly turned up with a picnic tea and some refreshments at 6pm to sit and wait as the only ’customers’ there for at least an hour before any music was heard. It was a rather strange affair as the main stage was decorated with a skull so we presumed it was a death metal concert but around the site were crepe stalls and art stalls and a tea and coffee tent. The crowd eventually started arriving and we were surprised to see that many were really quite old. There was blues band playing in the bar which Ali thought were amazing - apparently they were like Doctor Feel good (whoever they were!) Then the main act came on, the heavy rock band who seemed a bit tamer than the skull deco would suggest as the only words I got was a ‘bon soir’ every now and again. Alisha and Kaylee had a good night as they managed to play with quite a few different kids after going around saying Bonjour a lot.






Daniel and I went to the hyper market on Saturday afternoon which was to say the least like a trip to heaven or my personal idea of the place! There were two whole aisles of cheese and the delis were amazing. Fortunately we had to carry back anything we purchased and take Kaylee home so that curbed our spending slightly. We shouldn’t have gone when we were hungry!

Sunday was spent trying to create some space for Shannon and Matt who were arriving at tea time. Daniel and I reorganised all the lockers and under bed spaces and we managed to get it all stuck in. We went out for a meal at night and most of us had ‘le menu dejour’ which was very yummy. We prepared for leaving on the high tide at 5am to go to the isles de sein. Ali and I tried to sneak around not waking anyone but when Ali went down to the bridge to give the toilet keys back to the harbour master there was no one there and no one to open the gate…….. So it was back to bed for a few hours!

Mon 3rd August

We left Douarnenez this afternoon in mist and rain and decided to make a short hop to Morgat to wait for the wind to change to cross the Bay of Biscay. This should happen on Wednesday morning! See next instalment for the full horror of ’The Bay’