Tuesday 24 May, 2016

Bay of Biscay, North Atlantic Ocean 47.36.4N 04 10.6W

Today's Blog by David  (Time zone: BST+1; UTC +2)

Joining me on this leg of the trip are Peter a veteran of the World Tour, Ted Bainbridge (a veteran  of the Fiji – Mackay leg) and Chris Watts, skipper of ‘Evrika’, a classic Swan 65, who was appointed Lord High Substitute by its owner, and our planned fourth crew member, Richard on account of Richard having sought to leap one tall building  too many in the Arctic Circle. Ashore, in Benodet last night, it was evident that the crew had melded into a close knit team …………

Benodet is a lovely town, but like  so many other towns in Brittany, it was so quiet that it felt like everyone was away on vacation! We had our pick of the restaurants and settled on a window table with a panoramic view of the harbor in the evening sunshine and enjoyed an excellent meal chosen from the reasonably priced Menu de Matelot.

The weather forecast for the next few days is a bit of a Curate’s Egg: ‘ Good in parts’.  A fresh easterly today and then slack, wet and variable with thundery showers pretty much for the rest of the week.  While we will get to Span rather earlier than necessary, today’s Easterly was too good to miss so, much as we would have liked to stay and explore Benodet,  we concluded we should get on with it.

After a reasonably early night, our departure this morning was delayed only by the Boulangerie’s opening hours before we set off south,  out of the harbor entrance. …..

…… out into the Bay of Biscay,  but with a warm croissant and coffee breakfast treat in store.