Fuzzy Logic

Fuzzy recollections revert to sharp focus, as I walk up the hill into Treguier town. I moored Goblin here, it must be fifteen years ago. All that remained, of that visit, was a collage of impressionist mind's-eye images. They conveyed only a blurred sense of the river's meandering beauty and of a proud historic town at its head. When I sought more detail, the images dissolved - dreamlike. Leaving only the exhortation, to return some day, echoing in the air.

The town square looks instantly familiar. I have no need to study the "you are here" tourist map, on its wall, to know where to wander. I do, however, discover that, in my fuzziness, I have been misnaming the river. It is properly called the Riviere Jaudy, not the Treguier river. 

The cathedral dominates the square and the town. It has done so since the sixth century, in one form or other. Much of this incarnation is mediaeval.

Its spire is pierced by openings, on all sides. From within it must outshine the starriest of nights. Daylight lancing down from the dark firmament overhead.

The square is open and leafy. It is easy to imagine it filled with the murmur of worshipful pilgrims, come to pay homage to St Tugdual. The Celtic born Welshman, driven from his home by the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. He found shelter, safety and a meditative tranquility at the head of the Riviere Jaudy. Protected from seaward by its rock strewn entrance and from landward by its hilltop perch. With a rugged beauty of its own.

In those times, the straggling streets jostling their way onto the square, would have serviced the needs of religious travellers and monks.

Now they furnish the requirements of a different kind of traveller. Many an English accent is to be heard, and red ensign to be seen, in the town and harbour. Alongside French and Dutch.

The Riviere Jaudy - which started it all, brought St Tugdual here and some of his pilgrims too - laps around the crag, on which Treguier is built. The sandy beaches, of its sheltered coves, issue an invitation to loiter and to linger. To watch the boats come and go, whatever the motivations for their voyages.

 Tomorrow the west bound tide starts to flow at zero six hundred hours (French time). We will have to squander an hour of it. It would be foolhardy to navigate out of the river without the predawn glow of light, with which to pick out the channel marks. The wind is forecast westerly force four. We will be able to get a slant on it, by tacking inside Les Sept Iles, down towards Perros Guirec, and later into the Baie de Morlaix - where the local flood should lend us a helping hand.

Sunrise at Sea

This is my view, over Stargazer's stern, as I write moored in Treguier.

We left St Cast three hours before sunrise. The moon just setting.The cloudless sky alive with stars.

Our breeze was a light easterly. Four to five knots. Enough to give us three to four knots of way, with the help of the cruising chute.

We 'sail the angles.' Zig zag our way down wind to help raise our apparent wind - and keep the chute filled with breeze. The distance sailed is greater than running direct downwind, but the speed is greater. Its a gamble whether the extra speed offsets the greater distance.

At five past eleven I realise that our tactics have not paid off.  The tide has changed. It is now pushing us back, instead of helping us forward. We are still eight miles short of our turning point into the Treguier river. The point we had expected to have reached by this time. I hoist the spinnaker pole and, belatedly, goose-wing the genoa. This allows us to run directly downwind, with the mainsail to one side and the jib to the other. Slower but more direct.

Stargazer makes good speed through the water, in a rising breeze. Five to six knots. But the tide is sluicing around the Heaux de Brehat at three to four knots. Progress is slow. We inch our way slowly but surely past the lighthouse. Metre by metre. The eight miles take four long hours to cover.

At last, at three in the afternoon (twelve hours after we st out), we can turn into the rock strewn mouth of Treguier's estuary. We are in time to catch the last hour of the flood tide in the river. The wind is on Stargazer's beam. She is racing along at seven knots over the ground. Life is good again.

We sweep in past classic Breton stone built channel markers. The waters hereabout so deep, the channels so narrow and the tides so strong that floating channel buoys will not suffice.

Craggy rock fangs cleave the water to either side of the fairway

Sandy coves beckon from the shoreline.

Tomorrow we have exploring to do. But first, food and sleep.

Rock Hopper

Stargazer slips in under the shelter of Cap Frehel's outstretched arm, at dusk.

Through the day we have reached fast, swooping over blue ocean swells - fresh in from the Atlantic. With their long powerful surfing rhythm. Quite different in character to the jabbering Channel chops, and the quarrelsome short steep North Sea waves, through which we have sailed. These have the long American drawl and a look of freedom in their glittering eyes.

Stargazer threaded her way between rocky outcrops and submerged reefs. Les Ecrehou, with small improbable houses perched atop them - if you look closely. Les Bouefs, Les Minquiers and the Iles Chausee.

Then we are in clear water. A fair tide sweeping us west toward Cap Frehel and the Brittany shoreline . I haul down the two lions of Normandy, from our starboard spreader, and hoist the Gwenn - ha - du. The black and white Breton flag.

The breeze, that has faithfully driven us all day, fades in the lee of the Cap. There is enough, though, for us to sail in through the entrance to St Cast le Guildo's harbour. We settle down comfortably for the night, beneath the rough stone mole.

This morning, through Stargazer's open companionway, I have a view of the harbour entrance, the beach and the town beyond.

An all-tide path has been built along the cliff base, joining town and marina. New since we first visited here.

I set off in search of fresh croissant for breakfast.

The tide is out and the search is on for a sea food lunch.

Today the winds are light. Resting after yesterday's heroic westerly five to six. As are Stargazer and I. Tomorrow an easterly three to four is forecast. Cruising chute weather.

We catch the morning tide. My alarm is set for 01.00. That will give us a fair tide, and daylight entry, into the magnificently rock strewn Treguier River. Brittany at its rugged rawest best.

Down to Business

It is Monday morning. The start of a working week. Cartaret sets about the serious business of leisure.  

High overhead, the wind shrieks. Pushed, protesting, clear of the harbour by the rock buttress of the Cap de Cartaret. The fishing fleet remain resting against the tall quay. Saving their strength for another, more clement, day at sea. Secure in the protection of the port.

For once, neither the fleet nor Stargazer hurry to catch the morning tide. It is a day to stay in port and to explore inland.

Among the harbourside cafes, business is quiet. A few locals, second home owners and French holiday makers frequent them. Many tables are empty.

Some touring camper vans visit too. Mainly French, judging from the registration plates. There is no influx of boat crews from Channel Islands, due to their lockdown. That trade is normally a staple, for Cartaret. The Dutch, German and Belgian boats, which we sailed down channel with, are either to the north, in Dielette, or to the south, in Granville. Or caught in enforced quarantine, after entering St Helier - to judge by the vhf conversations. 

I combine business with pleasure and walk inland to Barneville. The houses are still picturesque, but more 'lived in.' Family homes rather than holiday homes. The boulevards wide and leafy. The atmosphere rustic relaxed.

Barneville's town square is that of an well-to-do rural retreat in the summer season. Cartaret's clothing boutiques, art galleries and cafes give way to everyday-essential shops. I buy my daily baguette and some loaf bread, for Stargazer's larder. Fresh fruit and vegetables too - misshapen but packed with flavour, in the French way. And, with reserves running low aboard, I sample my way through some cheeses. A toothsome Roquefort and a Brie to mature, as we sail onward, are my reward. Our business is complete. Stargazer is fully provisioned, once more.

Tomorrow's forecast is for seventeen to twenty knots of breeze from the west. Which means that we will be beating in twenty two to twenty five knots apparent . The 'two reefs' weather which promises fast passage making. Stargazer will have enough depth to clear the cill at twelve thirty. 

Bird's Eye View

A Stonechat clings to a dry stone wall, buffeted by the breeze, at the tip of the Cap de Carteret. White wing flashes, and pale apricot belly, bold and bright in the morning sun. Clattering call just audible above the roar of the wind.

Surf thunders ashore onto the beaches below.

Where the retreating tide leaves keepsake pools, as surety of its return.

The honeyed dawn light picks out the fiery reds and ochres of the igneous rock; and the gold of the sea washed sand.

Out beyond the silver domed Cap, . . .

. . . ten miles distant, the north shore of Jersey is visible. A pale smudge. Were it not for the covid-quarantine, a cross tide hop to St Helier (twenty nautical miles) would resolve our tidal riddle of yesterday. The Channel Islands lockdown, however, remains in full force . Precluding that option.

The squat stone lighthouse on the Cap stands to attention, as a sentry must. Discharging its watchful warning duty.

Whilst the tricolore on the semaphore cracks sharply in thirty knots of breeze. Tomorrow the forecast is for it to gust to forty knots, from the south west . Tuesday looks more promising, for passage making purposes. Twelve to eighteen knots out of the west. That might enable us to make St Cast le Guildo before dark.

Riddle

Yesterday, I walked Cartaret's towering quaysides in the balmy heat of a summer's evening.

Wandered the manicured streets.

Watched as ten metres of tide hurried seaward. . .

. . . and the Ecole de Voile boats scampered home, whilst there was still water covering the cill - just.

Out at the mole, the visibility is clear and the colours deep and vivid. Truly golden sands, turquoise seas inshore and the deepest darkest blue offshore.

The hypnotic rhythmic rush of surf on sand fills the air. The unbounded curve of the horizon issues an invitation to imagine.

That clear visibilty, and those intense colours, foretold a blow. And a change to a less favourable wind direction. The changes we hurried around Cap de la Hague to out run. (Solid blue line). Today I'm down below, snug in Stargazer's saloon, working to resolve the riddle of our passage plan.  On deck the wind whistles and rain squalls drum. Across the port, halyards clang sonorously.

The first set of challenges are tidal. The tides in this area rotate, rather than run parallel to the coast. The tidal range is also exceptionally great. This means that many harbours may only be entered (or left) near high water. It also means that fast passages may be made with the tide, but that next to no progress can be made against it.

Another challenge is that the wind looks to have settled into the south west for a while. This means that we cannot proceed directly south west, as we would wish. (The closest that a sailing boat can sail to the wind is about forty degrees, once leeway is taken into account). I will need to find a way to give Stargazer an angle on the breeze, with a port (accessible at the expected time of arrival) at the end of each leg.

After much head scratching, I settle on a zig zag course down to St Malo, for our next passage. (Dotted blue line in Riddle picture). The alterations of course are timed to fit with the changes in direction of the circulating tides -  and to give us an angle on the predicted wind direction. For the middle leg, where we appear to be sailing directly into the wind, our steered course will be almost southerly, at forty degrees off the wind. The strong west bound tide, for those four fours, will push us the extra few degrees west - to give a south westerly course over the ground.

The tides are predictable. The wind we will only know on the day. That is the art of sailing -  creating a satisfying cruise, shaped from wind and tide.