In my opinion Brest is not the most attractive of ports, but we did stay just over 2 days for a little rest so it couldn’t have been that bad. We were in the Marina du Château which seems to be the more industrial of the ports available, and we started exploring the day after we arrived. More out of necessity than choice to be honest, as after seeing how attractive the Ushant lighthouse had been, I wished to spend a little longer exploring the Brittany coastline rather than head straight out across the Bay of Biscay.
Mooching along the coast would involve more charts, and although we have them electronically if everything goes pear shaped you need paper ones too, so off we went to look for a chandlers. One would think that next to a massive port would be plenty of sea shops selling normal stuff at 4 times the price found elsewhere, but no. The first place we found made masts (vaguely along the right line), the second garden machinery, the 3rd generators and the 4th rather randomly provided liposuction. And so on. By this time Lee had managed to find something useful which was Google Maps. Lee, however is not the best at directions on land, and this combined with being aimed at by cars, Franco being a dick, me moaning about my back and it being hot all made to an unsuccessful trip and we returned to the boat empty handed for a beer. That afternoon we went for a walk into Brest. There are some beautiful things to see, but being restricted access due to a certain furry land shark meant we could just admire them from outside. So here is the museum. And that was that.
We carried on having a look around and found some much needed tablets called Mercalm. If you don’t know what these are they are most definitely not for seasickness as that would be really weak for people who have just decided to live on a boat. After buying 6 boxes from multiple chemists, which I very generously decided to do so as not to deplete their stock, we trundled off back to the boat. There was a bit of a moment when Franco needed to do his business and decided to do it right where the tram goes up and down the street. This resulted in Lee trying to wrestle a shitting dog about to be mowed down by a fast approaching vehicle shouting at him in English, being watched by the French with an angry, Colombian dog thrown in for good measure. Franco brings us so much joy. If anyone else wants to share in his love let me know and we’ll ship him anywhere in the world so you too can also enjoy him.
Back at the marina we had lunch which was clearly going to be moules frites.
At the marina we met some fellow Brits who we invited onboard and spent a great afternoon with them. They are a young couple called Kirsty and Reece who are off to the Med with Reece’s Dad, Cap’n Ron, to sail and go rock climbing. After Kirsty was introduced to martinis the afternoon ended fairly quickly. We had something to eat, got in bed, watched Frasier and went to sleep.
Early in the morning about 0100 hrs I heard the sound of a bow thruster. Not normally something too interesting but it was a LOT of bow thruster, very late and a miserable night so we went up to see what was going on. There was a Hanse 53 trying to find somewhere to moor, but without much joy. We decided that even though they were a lot bigger than us, for 1 night it would be fine for them to raft up alongside us so off we went down the pontoon to wave a torch at them to guide them over. Another boat had the same idea, and were also shining a torch at them. As the other boat was bigger they won and we jumped onboard to help them raft up. Lee was telling them what to do (as he is now a learned sailor having passed a couple of courses and been sailing for 6 whole years), at which I suggested if they had just crossed Biscay in a 53 foot boat I thought they would probably know what they were doing. Sometimes I should really just keep my thoughts to myself.
The next morning we met the new arrivals only to find out that he had never sailed a boat before, only dinghys. He had flown down to Portugal to buy a boat sight unseen and he did not know what tides were as they lived near a lake. It seems Lady Luck had until that point guided them safely to the entrance to Brest across Biscay only for them to bizarrely also find something they liked so much they had to spend 3 hours looking at it before moving into the river.
We enjoyed breakfast with Dörte and Jens from https://tendrel-sailing.de/ who are also heading down South where Lee learned that other people actually sit down to eat a meal, talk, and don’t just survive on scrambled eggs wolfed down like his throat is about to be cut.
After that we fueled up and said goodbye to Brest to carry on our adventure.
Loving the articles Sam – keep them coming.
Brest – yes!!!! a fairly eventful week spent there between Christmas and New Year fixing my wind instruments before heading out for a ‘bit of a sail’!
Dear God man it was bad enough in the bloody Summer!!!!
Keep em coming – I can hear it all happening – LOL!