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Kite surfers shred, off the beach.

Streaking across the bay at scintillating speed.

Scything through wave strewn waters.

Powered by their crescents of colour.

Whilst wing sailors soar above the tumult. Borne by their foils.

Throughout a sun drenched, spray soaked day of whistling wind.

When only the hardiest of cruisers put to sea.

Pen Duick V arrives in port, crewed by two officers of the French navy. Down from the Le Fret nuclear submarine base. Drawn, no doubt, by tomorrow's forecast. Which hints at a lull in the breeze. Perhaps enough for a passage, through the Raz de Seine, to be possible. 

(More here on the legend of Eric Tabarly and his Pen Duick's. Pen Duick V in particular).

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A stream, of sightseers, flows along the broad top of the sea wall. On a pilgrimage to view church, tower and moribund trawlers. Lowry stick figures, from my vantage point.

Beside the highest cottage in town. Following the Crozon cliff path.

Which winds its way amongst the pinks. With views to the opposite shore, of the outer Rade.

Both sides steep to, with their plunging cliffs.

A tanker steams in from the open Atlantic (top middle of picture), holding to the north. Bound for Brest, via the deep water channel, through the Goulet narrows.

All around the sun glints off wave riven rock. Sculpted into stacks and arches.

Incised into bays. By waves rolling in untrammelled from St John’s, Newfoundland, two thousand two hundred miles to the west.

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Rich golds and ochres bleed into sea faded pigments, on the hulls of Camaret's former crayfish fleet. Driven onto a lee shore, of catches depleted to the point of extinction, they form a sculptural set piece. Their colours toning pleasingly with the rose pink masonry, of Vauban's square set tower, and the creamy stonework of the squat Chapelle de Notre Dame.

Whilst, at the head of the harbour, old craft gain new life. Their paintwork fresh, their varnish bright.

Cottages, with pastel washed walls, climb away up a green clad hillside.

Clustered around winding cobbled backstreets. Built for man and horse, before the age of the car.

Clinging, as best they can, to the contours of the slope. Seeking out the easiest gradients, along which to ascend.

With height, the housing thins. Trees and shrubs crowd in.

Until the open cliff top is revealed. Robed with wildflower meadows. In motion to the rhythm of the tireless breeze. Yellow, white pink and green heads nod and jig before the blue sea and sky. To the tune of the sibilant waves, marching onto the shoreline below.

 

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The Figaro fleet is come to Camaret. That is the Beneteau built Figaro One Designs, in their latest foiling incarnation. Bedrock of the buoyant French short (usually single) handed offshore racing scene. Feeder class to the Mini Transats, Class 40's and IMOCA's. Today racing fully crewed.

The boats form up. Circling the start line. Testing their sail hoists. Finding the slant of the breeze. Which gusts, out of the Goulet de Brest, at twenty five to thirty knots.

Tactics are talked. This will be a stern test of mettle, for boats and crew. Preparation is all. Thinking through the options, in advance.

Timing runs are made, to the line. Boats already well powered up, under mainsail only. Whitecaps studding the waters.

The gun fires. The fleet crosses the line in unison. One unfortunate is squeezed out, to the windward end. And tacks away to re start.

No quarter is given. The racing neck and neck. The boats on the ragged edge of control. Driving hard.

Plumes of spray cascade aft, from the foils, as the fleet frees off, hoists spinnakers and flies seaward.

Before they are lost to sight, shooting the Toulinguet Passage. In the direction of Douarnenez.

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We sail amid the innocence of a new dawn. Colours clear and deep, the air briskly salted. Stargazer is slipping along in sixteen knots of northerly breeze.

Ile Vierge is astern, amongst its reefs. In a flame tongued dawn.

Stargazer skirts the saw toothed shoreline. Shaving off distance, as we round the western tip of Brittany.

 Steering south by west. Riding the tide. The breeze on our quarter.

To reach the head of the Chenal du Four.

In which the buoyage sports boiling wakes. As three and four knots of current sluice by. And where Stargazer's bows may finally point due south.

Pointe de St Mathieu is a clifftop silhouette one moment: the old abbey, the church, the semaphore and the lighthouse. The next, it seems, I can read the red on white lettering, on the light tower. Lest there were any doubt of our whereabouts.

Stargazer flies on. Hardening up, onto a fetch, around the formidable Vieux Moines (Old Monks). 

Sweeping across the last of the Brest ebb.

Into Camaret.

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The Brest based boats arrive in a bevy. Having ridden the tidal escalator, of the Chenal du Four, north from their home port. Out for the Ascension Day long weekend.

A hail from astern announces the arrival of, the French flagged, Foggy Dew (an Elan Speedwave 350). She was last alongside Stargazer, sheltering from a frost-tinged north easterly gale, in Dover. On, it transpires, her delivery trip, from IJmuiden to her new home in the Rade de Brest. 

In L'Aber Wrac'h a holiday mood hangs in the air. The sun is out and the breeze has built steadily through the day. Still from the north and now of passage making proportions. Auguring well for the possibility of  Stargazer's sailing south tomorrow.

 

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A sleepy seaside town, endowed with a special significance, by the tidal cycle, for vessels on passage to and from Biscay. Certainly southbound, when the run of favourable tide is shorter. Roscoff to L'Aber Wrac'h is one, helter skelter tide. L'Aber Wrac'h, through the Chenal du Four, to Camaret the next. 

Silver sands and tranquility are the order of the day, in the Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels), a five minute stroll from the port.

Where the dinghies tug at their moorings. As a sea breeze affectionately ruffles its water, to a deeper shade of blue.

A lane winds up from the harbour. Sunken between high hedgerows. Snaking toward the summit of the steep hillside. An ancient drystone, leading-line mark, limed and red topped, at its first cross roads.

The road levels, broadening to two full carriageways. Set about with slate roofed cottages. Spaced at an increasing frequency.

Until it reaches the village of Landeda.

A whitewashed church, with sculptural pierced bell tower, forms the central 'square.' Around it are arranged the apocryphal butcher, baker and, if no candlestick-maker, a small supermarket. Plus a Tabac and a Creperie, with sweetly fragrant smoke issuing through its open door.

A Breton rural idyll, living life at its own pace. Untroubled by timetables. Tidal or otherwise.