 | 26 th to 30 th of July 2018 - Back to Lorient |
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| Crew : | Andy and Helen | |
| Destinations : | Kernevel Marina. | |
| Distance : | 6 miles |
We woke to no wind at all. Given the lack of an engine, there was no point in leaving immediately as we needed to have steerage, especially when we entered the harbour. At around 1200 Andy looked toward Lorient with the binoculars and saw that boats appeared to be sailing. We got all our sails up and left the anchorage very slowly. We just about had steerage and made between 0.5 and 1.5 knots for most of the way until we got near to the harbour. Andy could see wind to the west very slowly making it's way toward us. Just as we got toward the first navigation buoy it arrived, our speed picked up to 3 knots and we could sail in on a beam reach. We also had help from the tide which we knew would be in our favour until about 1700. We called up the marina as we passed the Citadel at Port Louis and one of the harbour masters said he would be at the entrance to meet us with a tow. There were yachts coming toward us which was quite disconcerting once we had the Genoa furled away as they would be assuming we were motoring. The tow was very straight forward and we were both relieved to be alongside after a 4 hour sailing worrying we would have to drop the anchor in the middle of the entrance channel if the wind died completely.
Andy quickly got to work ordering a reconditioned starter motor from home, talking to Barry at DFJ Automotive. He was incredibly helpful, so we could feel reassured we had the correct item. It looked like we shouldn't be here for too long. We used the local ferries to visit Port Louis and it's impressive citadel. We did wonder whether we made the right choice of going to Kernevel Marina as the small town of Port Louis was very pretty and there were more places to eat in and a useful market. However we knew Kernevel marina and trusted them to help us park the boat with no engine.
We were treated to a great view of the longest Lunar eclipse of the 21st century on the evening of 27th before the clouds came in.. The clouds stayed for a few days, bringing rain and strong winds so we were happy to be tucked safely away in the marina.
Th starter motor arrived exactly when we were expecting it. Andy installed it and a new relay, it all worked first time. We had filled up once more with food and water and were ready to leave again.
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