Not a Moment too Soon.

 

A boat romps out of Granville, as if to greet us. The breeze is building fast.

Stargazer has been circling beneath the Pointe du Roc for the past half hour, waiting for sufficient depth to go in. The headland will shelter us when the next gale blows in from the north. Today the wind and waves are building from the south - it can offer us no respite.

We hold station, stemming the tide, off Le Loup. The marker for a rock which lurks just below the surface. Inshore of it lie shoals. Stargazer will need a seven and a half metre rise of tide to cross them.

I eat lunch with Stargazer nodding, as the building swell rolls beneath her bow. Watching as the dark strip of harbour wall thins - and the water level rises.. 

This morning the forecast had changed. The window between the last blow and the next was closing. Winds of thirty five, gusts of forty, knots are now due by evening. 

There should still be time for us to make Granville, before it arrives. 

Stargazer threads the Grand Jardin channel out of St Malo, as soon as there is light. Reaching in fourteen knots of breeze. We circle, to avoid meeting the morning ferry in the rocky narrows. Then put to sea.

I hoist our Normandy flag. We are bound for the Cotentin peninsula, leaving Brittany. The wind builds to twenty knots. With some help from the tide, Stargazer is making seven knots - and ahead of schedule . Flying. I drop the main, to try to match our arrival time to half tide at Granville . Stargazer slows to five knots, under jib only.

At twelve thirty, half tide, we run into port. Not a moment too soon. The storm front has arrived . Behind us, Le Loup is surrounded by breaking seas.

I snug Stargazer down in front of the twin domes of  St Paul's church. To ride out the blow.