It was a nice way to spend the afternoon and surprisingly tricky as walks go, following the path in and out of houses bits of forest and avoiding tidal areas which added quite a bit to the distance. We found ourselves back on the beach and made our way back towards the cozy anchorage that had served us well for the last few days.
We retrieved our dinghy and invited Dave and Carol to the restaurant we had recently discovered. Dave kindly offered a water taxi in " trouble and strife" so we could pack our dinghy away ready for an early start in the morning.
The meal was delicious, Lynne having her first " Moules " after stealing mine to see if she liked them. Still managed to steal most of my mayonnaise though..........it was mustardy and had I think capers in it.
In the morning the forecast was for very light winds so I suggested to Lynne that we might be motoring to Lorient. Unfortunately as we negotiated our way out of Concarneau channel a racing fleet was returning so it was a bit hectic, it was also apparent that it wasn't a light wind day. The wind was in fact force 4 so we wasted no time in raising sail and giving Dave a bit of a race.
Dave radioed us and said that as he was as close to the wind as he could get and as he was heading in the right direction he would continue. Dave had told us the previous evening that he would head directly for Bayonne, a 240 mile trip that was going to take him two days at least but his schedule was pressing. So we took a last photo as he left us.
We had to go about as Lorient was directly upwind, this meant we would be beating or " tacking " in big Zig Zags towards our destination considerably increasing the distance and mileage. Dark Tarn put her shoulder in the water and a bone in her teeth and made a fast passage of six hours or so towards Isle de Groix.
As we reached the passage between the island and the mainland we entered a wind acceleration zone, as if we hadn't had enough already! We were forced to reef the genoa as the boat was badly overpowered in the gusty winds. Almost as soon as we reefed the wind died completely then backed and fell very light. We gave up on sailing at this point and started the engine for the last mile in the very crowded Passé de L' Ouest, one of the two channels into the harbour. As we approached the Citadel, an old fort defending the narrow entrance we decided to try for a place in the small Marina just past it. At Port Louis.
This turned out to be a happy decision. I had had reservations about stopping at Lorient as in general I am not a fan of big cities, or even small ones come to that! However Port Louis was just across the harbour from Lorient and had real charm. As we explored in the evening we discovered lovely little streets and a very laid back ambience.
Later we discovered a little bar built into the old walls adjacent to the Marina in an old arch, it wasn't very far to fall back to the boat!
Just our kind of place, of course Lynne still thinks it was very dark as she had left her sunglasses on!
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