The Spell of Ille de Brehat

Jumble of Granite and Sea

A breeze ruffles my hair as I breakfast in Stargazer’s cockpit. We’re surrounded by craggy castles of rock standing in moats of rippled sea. Stargazer swings to her anchor adjusting herself to lie more comfortably; to balance the tug of the tide as it gurgles past against the playful shoves of the arriving sea breeze. We’re lying amidst a jumble of granite and sea off the south west tip of the Ile de Brehat. The mingled sounds of birdsong and the joyful Breton shrieks of children playing on an old boathouse slipway on the main island carry across the water 

Brehat Sunset

This morning I awoke to a mysterious, enchanted, soft fizzing, popping song from beneath Stargazer’s hull. Air bubbles escaping from the kelp beds close below our keel, the song of shrimps? Our arrival last night had an almost magical quality. After the long beat down from Guernsey a grey smudge on the horizon gradually resolved itself into: tumbles of golden brown granite; forests of navigation beacons, booms, towers and cardinal marks; inviting beaches, alluring pools, enticing anchorages. The setting sun highlights the natural pinks, reds and browns of the rock before sinking in an orange ball behind the black silhouette of a black tree crowned crag. By then Stargazer has gently felt her way in among the sheltering rocks and found herself a sheltered pool to lie in overnight whilst the tide drains silently away around her.

The breeze builds from playful shoves to a full sea breeze fed by the warming rays of the sun. The tide is making too. Stargazer is tugging restively at her anchor, straining at the leash, eager to be on her way. I finish my breakfast and make sail. We won’t go far today though. A spell has fallen over me. I must stay a while; explore more of Brehat’s delights. We head east to start a gentle anti clockwise circumnavigation of the island. La Chambre anchorage, on the south coast, slips past to starboard: Tall angular towers of rose pink granite, green trees, blue sky and sea. The turreted pink granite houses are oddly at one with the scenery; man made reflections of the natural forms surrounding them. The tide is up, cloaking Brehat’s hard craggy body with the soft shimmer and sparkle of the sea. We thread our way through a maze of markers, booms and buoys warily watching depth gauge, chart plotter and the swirl of the tide.

Breton Lugger outside La Corderie

We’ve timed it right. The tide draws us hungrily down back the west coast of Brehat towards the Trieux  river and on to Lezardrieux if we choose. Today though Brehat’s spell is still on me, beckoning us in to La Corderie on the north west tip of the island. Or as far in as a full draft boat can get at spring tide. We reach in under sail. Circle, tacking and gybing round on our chosen spot just west of the Men ar Fav beacon. It’s the classic spot and we have it ourselves! We circle imitating our swing on the long scope of anchor chain that we’ll need to cope with the height of tonight’s tide. I want to be sure that Stargazer will lie in the soft embrace of the sea tonight and not grind on the hard rocky bones of Brehat! The depth gauge says it’s too tight for comfort. It’s actually not that sheltered here either in this breeze. We harden up and I steer, disappointed, back out into the main channel. My spirits revive at the sight of a traditional Breton lugger foaming her way past Stargazer. Waves, greetings and smiles fly across the water.

"My" Desert Island

We feel our way back in among the sheltering granite in the long comet tail of shattered rock, golden sand and sparkling blue sea streaming downriver west and south of Brehat. We won’t have the bulk of the island to shelter behind tonight. But once we’re in our pool, and the big tide sucks its cloaking waters back out to sea, the sand and the crags will be our shelter.  I watch the anchor plunge down from our bow, through water as clear as the air above it, and bite on a sandy bottom. The tide drains away and Stargazer and I are left in our lagoon, cocooned by sand and rock. I row ashore. Sit on “my” desert island beach; watch Stargazer curtsey at her anchor to acknowledge the final buffeting crescendo of the sea breeze before it, like us, settles down for the night.

HARRY NEW YEAR

Flapper - Christmas wreath & chestnut glow

The festive glow of Christmas warms me as we lie on the still water waiting for Poole Bridge to open and let us out. Out to banish the housebound, slightly over fed and cooped up feeling that I have. Out to let Stargazer spread her wings in the crisp winter air. The sun is low. It brings no warmth to my hands and face that peep out from the protection of woolly hat and waterproofs. It warms the view though; brings out a deep chestnut glow from the varnished hull of Flapper as she lies alongside with a festive wreath hoisted up her foremast to salute the season. It colours the water a warm indigo blue. A light westerly breeze wrinkles the surface of the water to give it the gnarled texture of a weather beaten face.

An unseen hand raises the bridge and Stargazer glides between its pale blue arms. Arms raised as if to wave us bon voyage. On the Quay the fairy lights and the dog walkers already seem part of another world. Ahead lies the harbour, Brownsea Island and the limitless promise of the sea. There’s a chill, chill wind today though so today I’ll just taste a sip from the sea’s cup of limitless promise. I know that I can take a deeper quaff of the intoxicating liquor if I choose. I choose though to save that deeper quaff for the long days of the summer. Today’s sip will revive my summer dream and sustain it alive through the winter. What could be more fitting than to take that sip on New Year’s Eve?

White cliffs echo the lapping of the blue waves

I hoist full mainsail and genoa off the Quay and we reach down past Brownsea. The ebb is just starting to make, invisibly lifting us down the deserted harbour. Out past Brownsea Castle; the white washed walls repainted magnolia by the winter sun, a dark green, almost black, Christmas tree loafing  outside the walls on the foreshore, winking at us with coloured lights. Out past the chain ferry clanking back and forth laden down with cyclists, busses, cars, shore-side cares. We’re out in the Swash Channel now. Harry, Old Harry the chalk stack, beckons us on out. Studland Bay opens to starboard. The sun lights the cliffs enticingly, gives the beach and the pastel huts huddling on it an alluring appeal. We glide in silently, preserving the tranquility of the deserted anchorage to drop anchor under sail. I sit in the cockpit and absorb the atmosphere; drink in the sounds of the bay as I warm myself with hot soup spooned straight from a steaming pan. We’re tucked into The Yards, the classic Studland anchoring spot: snugly sheltered from the wind, an intimate view of Old Harry and not too far to row ashore. The white cliffs echo the rhythmic lapping of the blue waves at their feet and the soft melodies of the songbirds hidden in the dark woods above them. From astern, behind Harry, come the raucous, hard edged, cries of gulls and the occasional solid crump of a wave as the reef uncovers.

we sailed into the mystic

The evening sun plunges rapidly behind the village as if eager to welcome the night, the New Year. I climb below to warm my bones, write up the log, read, eat, daydream a little and listen to music. Van Morrison fits my mood: Into the Mystic from Moondance.

“We were born before the wind,

Also younger than the sun,

Ere the bonnie boat was won we sailed into the mystic,

Hark, now hear the sailors cry,

Smell the sea and feel the sky,

Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic.”

The limitless promise of the sea kept alive through the winter, ready for a New Year, new cruises.  

Harry New Year !

As I climb back into the cockpit just before midnight a sickle moon has risen and Jupiter is just setting. There’s a sparkle of frost from Stargazer’s decks to answer the sparkle of the stars in the deep, dark velvet of the night sky. I toast the New Year stood on the bow; toast a new season’s cruising.

Disaster at Sea



Windless Braye Harbour

Braye harbour on Alderney is gently coming to life. There’s no hurry. The tide won’t turn south through the Alderney Race until mid-morning. That’s what we’re all waiting for. After five days of Bank Holiday rain and gales we all independently had the same idea in the early hours of yesterday morning: Trust the forecast. Make a break out from the South Coast harbours and anchorages that we’ve been sheltering in. Head out across the Channel bound for the Brittany ports. It was a good decision. A collection of boats converged on Braye yesterday afternoon after a sun and spray drenched reach across the Channel in 25 knots of breeze. Their crews arrived tired and fulfilled. Crews now happily stretched out in the morning sun eating a leisurely breakfast and waiting for the tide.

“Mingarry” a, bigger, sister ship to Stargazer slips her mooring ahead of us and gently motors past.

“Hello Stargazer. Do you remember us?” they hail

“ Yes, Trebeurden last year wasn’t it? Where are you headed this time?” I call back

“ Yes Trebeurden. St Peter Port and then west round the Corner hopefully. How about you?” comes the reply.

As the boats separate I raise my voice to shout back “St Helier probably.” We wave au revoir – until the next time.

I slip the mooring line and take Stargazer out to the fairway under engine. The moorings are tightly packed and the wind is light and fluky. There’s too much to go wrong to sail off. We sail out of the harbour to make up for it though. Up goes the mainsail followed by our orange and blue cruising chute. Oh for a picture of us gliding out over a turquoise sea, our white hull and orange sail set off by the grey black of the stone and the cloudless powder blue sky!

Le Quenard

There’s still some westbound tide running in the Swinge outside the breakwater. We hang suspended between powder blue sky and turquoise water, sometimes gaining a little on the black and white salt cellar of Le Quenard lighthouse, sometimes losing a little. The tide turns and we’re off, sucked down into the Alderney Race. Our tide driven motion puts a breeze across the sails and they belly satisfyingly. Stargazer heels, comes alive, her helm tugs in my hand and the bow wave gurgles her delight. In no time, it seems, we’re abeam La Corbiere at the south west tip of Jersey. That’s our turning point for St. Helier our planned stop for tonight.

Do you know? I really can’t feel enthusiastic about heading into St Helier. It’s too soon to end this magical sail. I want a night in a proper rocky, rural harbour not in a city centre marina. The forecast is for a big blow tomorrow anyway. I need to be happy to stay put where ever we end up tonight. I want to keep sailing. I’ve just had five days sat around weather bound on this cruise already. A third of my precious, much looked forward to, holiday gone! Let’s take a look at the tides: I reckon that if we keep this pace up and carry the southbound tide to the bottom of the Minquiers we could be in St Cast by 23.00. Hopefully there’ll be a bit of twilight to see us in. If not I’m sure I stuck some waypoints down when I visited the harbour while it was being built last year. There’s probably a sketch chart in the new edition of Reed’s Almanac that I’ve got aboard too.

Reaching south under cruising chute

It feels like a good decision. Actually, I think I know deep down that I’ve just told myself what I wanted to hear. I know we’ll lose the tide before we’re past the Minquiers. I know the wind will ease. I know we’ll arrive after dark. I hope for enough of a glow from the lights ashore to grope our way in. Actually it’s a bad decision! I don’t admit any of this to myself though so I enjoy the continuation of a glorious sail. The sea is a deeper blue now, ruffled by the breeze, a slight swell mounding up as the water climbs gently up over the Minquiers reefs lying unseen below the surface to port. The sails are starting to slat as the swell rolls under us. The breeze is easing as the afternoon turns to evening. I slacken the sheets, halyards, outhaul to belly the sails more and help them to embrace the frail breeze. Seems like a good moment to cook supper. I eat a Stilton and Broccoli quiche in the cockpit watching the sunset and wash it down with some strong black coffee. The view intensifies the flavours. It’s a fantastic gourmet delight. Food always tastes better at sea!

The breeze comes round astern and increases. I hand the chute and pole out the jib. Stargazer rolls down the swell. The chuckle of the bow wave is back and the deck drains are gurgling merrily. That’s the sound Stargazer makes when she’s back up to six knots and enjoying herself. Dusk is inexorably falling now. Cap Frehel, with its two towers on top making it look like a sea snail crawling towards us, is a grey brown blur on the horizon. A small white sail is beating out flashing pink in the last of the sun’s rays as it pitches in the swell. It’s time to switch our navigation light on. In we run. The chart plotter says seven miles to go. No sign of those waypoints that I thought I’d put in to mark the harbour entrance though. Never mind. We’ll soon be in. Darkness falls. We’re heading into blackness. We’re on a dead run under poled genoa making seven knots. St Cast, I now discover on checking, is not in my new edition of Reeds. It’s not on my charts either; it’s too newly built for that. I carry on. That’s a bad decision! That’s a really bad decision! At least I drop the pole and furl the genoa though. Our blind rush through the dark onto an unlit lee shore slows to five knots.

In hindsight my two best options would have been either to lie off Cap Frehel until moonrise or to head up and sail the fifteen or so miles east to the Grand Jardin lighthouse marking the entrance to St Malo for which I was carrying full charts. I did neither. I’m going to blame tiredness and not a land lubberly “run to schedule” mentality for what happened next. Maybe it was a mix of the two!

As I steer Stargazer through the darkness the bit I remember most about St Cast entrance from our last visit is that the only hazard in the bay is the Bourdinot Rocks. They lie just east of the Pointe de St Cast and are lit. Soon I pick up the flash of their beacon on the port bow – just where it should be. I confirm their location relative to our position using the chart plotter. The brightness of the chart plotter blinds my night vision. I switch it to “night” mode. It’s a bit hard to read like that but I’ve got my night vision back. That’s a disastrous decision! We sail on keeping the Bourdinot Rocks well off to port to be on the safe side. I’m starting to see some red and green flashes ahead too. They are just where I’d expect the fairway approach buoys to be. We stand on in. I lose sight of the green flashing light. It must be behind a wave. It’ll reappear. It doesn’t reappear. I can still see the red one though. Keep on going. That’s the second disastrous decision! If I can’t see the light it’s behind something solid. My tired land lubber brain isn’t thinking about that though. Its thinking about a good night’s sleep securely tied up alongside. It’s just after midnight.

Point de St Cast

The wind is still driving us in from dead astern and we’re running in under the mainsail at five knots. The sea is very flat now. The sigh and swish of the swell has been swallowed up by the silence and the dark of the night. It’s been replaced with gentle a sucking and seething sound. A soothing swoosh like waves caressing pebbles on the shore. There’s a smell of seaweed coming from the blackness ahead. SOUNDS LIKE WAVES CARESSING PEBBLES ON THE SHORE! SMELLS LIKE SEAWEED!  I put the helm hard over. I control the gybe racing style, sheeting the boom over and surging it out as it whips over me as I stand crouched in the cockpit. Stargazer heels and rounds up, turning in her tracks. As she turns the beam of our stern-light picks out grey rock. Never mind trying to miss the Bourdinot Rocks. I’ve come within metres of sailing Stargazer onto the Pointe de St Cast instead. I switch the plotter back to “day” mode. The familiar look to the chart returns. It shows our course track arcing across the north-west tip of Pointe de St Cast.

Thankful to be alongside next morning

I stand back out to sea sobered. Glad to be alive. Glad to still have Stargazer afloat beneath me.

I round up and drop the mainsail. Slowly, carefully we turn under engine, pick up the red and green flashes of the fairway buoys. I keep both visible, one on each side of our bow. I’m so thankful, so very thankful.

Surfing with Dolphins. Iles Chausey 5.9.10



Granville by day

I awake to a general creaking and groaning aboard Stargazer. There’s the firm slap of swell breaking under the counter. It’s 04.00 and the alarm has just gone off. I can tell two things from the sounds as I lie in my bunk and prise my eyes open. First: the wind must have come round into the South East overnight. That explains it blowing straight in through the mouth of Granville harbour. The only direction Granville isn’t sheltered from. Second: the tide must have covered the retaining sill.  That explains the swell getting in. That’s good news because by the time I’ve had breakfast and rigged up we’ll have enough depth to head out. Today we’re making for the Iles Chausey for a tranquil night or two at anchor communing nature.

With a lively swell under us and the wind gusting to 25 knots our manoeuvring off the berth is not text book! It involves smart casting off of a short mid-ship line, followed by quickly building up the engine revs to minimise prop walk whilst rapidly gaining steerage way. It works and Stargazer and I head out into the darkness between harbour walls that are a sort of hard black against the soft black of the night. I glance down at the chart plotter and set the autopilot on a course to take us just North of La Loup beacon. Once we’re past the rock that it marks we’re in deep water and everything calms down: me and the short nasty chop. We’re at sea! We’re free!

There’s a sickle of moon to light our way and the sky is furry with stars. There’s enough light now that my eyes have adjusted to stow the fenders, tidy the decks and hoist the mainsail. Away from the funnelling harbour mouth the wind is a “Jolie Brise,” a perfect force 4. Full main and full genoa it is then! Stargazer reaches west towards the dawn. She lopes along in her comfortable long legged way. I duck below and brew cocoa to warm me as I watch the orange red orb of the sun hoist itself over the horizon. It’s going to be a beautiful day.

Iles Chausey

The low morning sun colours the sea a deep ink blue and glints off white of the crests that are forming as the wind rises, giving them a tinge of pink. There’s a bit of spray coming back from the bows now, sparkling as it arcs up. I should really take a reef but I hold onto full sail for another mile until we bear off around Le Videcoq cardinal mark for the Iles Chausey. The wind is driving a steady army of white backed waves before it now. It’s an army that’s marching towards our intended anchorage. We stand off to take a look at the entrance. Through the binoculars I can see a crowd of masts standing up above the rock of the islands. The anchorage looks quite full and the masts seem to be rolling. There’s white water around the entrance by the look of things too. So it looks as if there are three good reasons not to head in. Maybe it’s not going to be such a beautiful day after all. I feel deflated. The whole reason I’d headed east to Granville was to have a couple of nights anchored among the Iles Chausey.

I leave the genoa furled as we bear off onto a run up the west coast of the islands in 25 knots of wind while I think up plan B. Actually coast is a misleading description. The islands seen from seaward are a loose alliance of brown and back dragon fangs of rock, fringed with white surf jutting  apparently randomly, through a boiling blue black sea. We’ll return one day, when the wind’s not in the South East, to anchor in their craggy splendour I promise myself. Today we stick to “the white bits” on the chart (deep water!), dodging the pot buoys. The sea flattens off in the lee of the islands and we pick up some favourable tide. Stargazer is under mainsail only but making 9 knots over the ground. I know what Plan B is now too. As soon as we’re far enough north to clear the islands we head back east to duck behind the Minquiers reefs and make for St Helier on Jersey– which seems our best bet for tonight.

Dolphins alongside

I’m enjoying the sail again, helming subconsciously. Stargazer is running downwind with the swell lifting her along. The bows lift as a trough roll under us. Correct the helm. Stern lifts. Accelerate. Hear the crest hiss through. Gently pull the helm towards me. A sigh as the trough passes under us. Push the helm over. Up we climb again. It’s a hypnotic rhythm in time with the sea. I hear a sharp slap and a splash. I look over. There riding on the wave with Stargazer is a line of grey pointed snouts. Dolphins!  There are at least twenty, perhaps thirty dolphins.

Jump for Joy!

Close alongside three dorsal fins appear from under the boat. I stare over and three dolphin eyes stare back. I feel connected. Who’s watching who? They dive under the bows. I follow them forward. Stargazer is now carving somewhat erratically across the waves under autopilot. The sea below her forefoot is thick with the pale forms of Dolphins rolled over on their backs two or three deep. Inches away from that ever moving bow; surfing, cavorting ahead around and under Stargazer. Letting us join their game, inviting us into their world. They streak playfully this way and that, playing dare with the keel. We’re surfing along together; the dolphins and Stargazer. “OK anyone can surf” the dolphins seem to think “if you want to join our gang let’s see you do this” and they start to leap. Long writhing, twisting, muscular, joyful leaps - “match that.” We can’t and they tire of us. Stargazer and I sail on elated, privileged to have been a part of the dolphin’s world for an hour. My heart is full of an emotion that isn’t quite joy, it’s more a mixture of awe and love.  A beautiful day after all and spent communing with nature too.

Naming Stargazer

Yesterday I’d been lazing deliciously in the cockpit after the passage from my home port of Poole: soaking up the afternoon sun, watching the bustle of St Peter Port inner harbour, following the light dancing across the water, revelling in that sense of freedom that comes with the first landfall of a cruise. I idly turned the pages of Yachting Monthly; Idly until I spied a picture of the new Hallberg Rassy 310. It was love at first sight. A phone call was quickly made to Transworld Yachts. We agreed to meet up in three weeks’ time at the 2009 Southampton Boat Show. I’d view the new 310 in the flesh, consider matters carefully and rationally, weigh things up. The reality was that I was smitten. I’d found my new boat and knew it as I rigged up the next morning and pointed the bows south.

That day we carved across a long swell hard on the wind under a blade jib with two reefs in the main. The sea was a glorious deep blue-green marbled with white. A fine mist of spray lifted back from the bow painting fleeting rainbows as the sun caught it. Astern the smudges of first Guernsey and then Jersey dropped below the horizon. Ahead the slim grey finger of the Roches Douvres light beckoned us on towards the craggy intricacy of the unseen Brittany shore.

We look as if we might just lay Treguier on this tack I think to myself. There might be space in the anchorage under the chateau this time. Mind you; we’ve got the westbound tide under us now, so maybe we could carry it for a beat down to Trebeurden? I’d love to make it “round the corner” to Camaret on this cruise. Maybe Morgat too if the weather holds. My mind roams free - exploring the possibilities. The next thought appears unprompted: “Stargazer.” Stargazer? Hmmm….Stargazer: a Navigator, or a Mystic, or a Day Dreamer. Stargazer could be all three.  A name that captures the essence of a magical Cruising moment and all those other Cruising moments just like it; past, present and future. “Stargazer of Poole”: the name for my new boat.