Dandelion 76

 

The De Crac'h river is Breton to the core. Just one hundred miles, by sea, from the Ile d'Yeu and the Vendee. In character, it is a world apart.

This morning, Stargazer set sail into an indigo dawn.

The sun glinting on Pornic's roof tops.

Tall, boiling, clouds swim across the skies. Bearing wind and, sometimes, a fine mizzle.

Stargazer romps across the Loire estuary. Her skipper tucking in, and then releasing, reefs. As squalls roll through.

Donning and shedding waterproofs, with equal regularity.

Stargazer slaloms between wind farms. . . .

. . . .headlands, reefs and islands. To make her way into Quiberon Bay.

Neck and neck, with the fourteen (to Stargazer's nine and a half) metre Sylfide, for most of the passage. Our ways finally parting, with Sylfide astern. She bearing off for the Golfe du Morbihan.

Stargazer standing into La Trinite. We ride the flood upriver. Between lush green banks, dotted with stone cottages. To moor below the bridge.