From Brest to Douarnenez
It began early, like all good adventures. I’d
barely laid down my head to sleep than I
was up again, to the sound of the alarm. A
sleepy-haired Frenchman rafted up
outside me had to be roused before I
could slip out into the mirror-smooth
Rade de Brest on the ebb tide.
Some of the smaller craft were already
well out in the offi ng. There were
traditional yoles, being rowed serenely
downtide with their little mizzens
dangling over the stern. Small lug-rigged
dayboats had their sails out in the hope of
trapping what tiny breeze there was –
they were catching more of the early
morning mist, I suspect.
Also underway was one of the bigger
beasts, the Nao Victoria, a Spanish replica
of the top-heavy carrack that took
Magellan around the world in 1519-21. This
is the boat that had scented the entire
Penfeld River in the centre of Brest with
the smell of pitch pine and Stockholm tarin the heat of the previous day. The tide
sluiced us all along through the narrows
of the Goulet de Brest, with its rocky
danger right in the middle, then out
across Camaret Bay. Numerous other craft
were joining from moorings and
anchorages along the way, with a fl otilla
of small boats out of Camaret itself. By
the time we reached the fi rst headland,
turning south through the rocky
Toulinguet passage, there were pilot
cutters, “voiles latines”, skiff s and punts all
jostling along quietly. Astern, the Goulet
was now a wall of sailcloth, speckled tan
and white.
I anchored up in a bay between
Toulinguet and the Tas de Pois (Pile of
Peas) to the south, a headland of fi ve huge
granite stacks, which the fl eet was to sail
through. More and more boats turned the
corner, heading south. There was the
Bristol Channel pilot cutter Marguerite, the
French langoustine fi sherman Skellig andWest Country trading ketch Bessie Ellen.
By the time Thalassa shoved into the bay, I
was ready to rejoin the parade.
The odd racing boat with laminate sails
had the advantage of being higher on the
wind than the fl eet, but as the channel
narrowed between Peas number two and
three, all advantage fell away. Here might
was right, and the bigger boats demanded
way from the smaller boats, which weaved
their way back and forth to stay in clear
water. The channel between the sheer-
sided rocks is only 75m wide, and boats
slowed to a crawl, engines running and
headsails furled to squeeze through. It felt
as if we were all bubbles in a bottle of
Breton cider, being funnelled through the
narrow neck of the pass to explode out into
the bay on the other side. Here, the cliff s
were fringed with spectators; the water
thronged with charter boats, launches and
the green-and-orange lifeboats of the
Société Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer.WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS SAM FORTESCUE