The pavement cafes are deserted, save for an early morning delivery of fresh croissant, as we rig up.
Out in the Rouen channel our jolie brise, from the north east, awaits us.
Stargazer broad reaches down the River Seine, toward the sea.
Tugs jostle a giant container ship into position, behind the rock breakwaters of Le Havre, across the river to our north.
Clear of the land, the breeze pipes up to a force six . I tuck two reefs into the main. Stargazer gallops west, swooping across the swells in a welter of wind driven spray. The sun glinting off her foaming wake. Silver and white against the deep turquoise of the heaving waters.
We ride wind and tide west through the day. Past Deauville, Ouistreham and Carentan, down to the south. A long, charcoal grey, smudge of land. It separates the deep greens and blues of the tumbling waves from the cloudless stillness of a powder blue sky.
Our pace slows as the sun begins to set . I shake out the reefs. There is no hurry. Stargazer won't have enough depth, to enter St Vaast, until 21.00. We amble into la Petite Rade (the bay to the south of St Vaast), past the graphically named La Dent rocks. Sails just drawing, in the last of the breeze.
Stargazer anchors beneath a stone fort, topped by a moorish dome. The tide rises. A calm settles over the bay.
We slip past St Vaast la Hougue's Grand Jetee, as dusk falls. With a metre and a half to spare, between Stargazer's keel and the rocky bottom.
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