En France 56

 

Stargazer sails within a silver-grey sphere. Its precise dimensions difficult to gauge as the fog swirls and eddies.

Boats emerge, only to be swallowed once more, in its monochrome folds. Some remain visible on AIS. Most do not. Few are showing lights. The autopilot steers, whilst I keep a sharp lookout. Wiping an accumulated blur of water droplets, from my spectacles, every fifteen minutes or so.

The visibilty began to close in as Stargazer tacked, to clear the island of Groix. Having opted to pass it to seaward, to avoid its wind-shadow and in search of a favourable tidal eddy.

Today, the surf line shows more clearly, than its usually proud, jutting, granite cliffs.

Stargazer left La Trinite before the dawn. Following the occulting green and red flashes, of the fairway buoys, out to sea.

To catch the last hour of fair tide through the Teignouse Passage. A two knot tow west.

Out past Belle Ile and into a pallid dawn.

The west wind obliges with a heavily favoured port tack. It carries Stargazer to the eastern tip of Groix, before a short starboard tack is required.

Five miles later, Stargazer is able to return to port. On course for Benodet Bay.

The Iles de Glenan and the Ile Aux Moutons reefs slip by to port, unseen. Stargazer tacks, to clear Mousterlin point, which juts from the mainland shore, between Benodet and Concarneau. Both shrouded in a swirling veil of grey.

On port once more, a lone ray of sunlight pierces the murk. Revealing the silhouette of a low craggy shoreline, fringed with sand. Before a skein, of mist and rain hurries in, to snuff out the suggestion of bright colour, on this monochrome day.

The Perdrix beacon, its chequerboard masonry a reassuringly solid presence, amid this shifting amalgam of sea and sky, guides Stargazer safely in, through the reefs and shoals. To make her landfall in Loctudy.