Ouessant and into Biscay

Above is a photograph of the boat docked on the inside berth in St. Peter Port Guernsey to give you an idea of the craft that would be carrying myself and the other three crew south.

While refueling the dock master mentioned in passing conversation that he was about to return home to spread some weedkiller on his lawn. I asked him if he thought it would rain and he gave me a knowing look. By 4 a.m. the next morning it was dark and overcast and dawn was an hour away. The rain had already begun on the previous watch and through the damp and murk we could make out the the lighthouse of Ile de Batz blinking away on the north West Brittany coast. Eventually, the growing light from the approaching dawn revealed, through the greyness, more of the low French coastline stretching out along our port side.

By mid morning we had reached the Ouessant and the Point de Creach leaving it a respectable distance to port. This coast is somewhat notorious and the proliferation of lighthouses do it justice. As we stretched away from the coast into the Bay of Biscay the other lights in the Mer d'Iroise became visible on the Ile de Molene and Ile Beniguet. The tides, very strong in this area, swept us noticeably from west to east and the water boiled and turned on itself racing towards the Passage de Fromveur. The day showed some promise at that point and indeed it did brighten up as we left the coastline behind.

Because we were operating a watch system of four hours off and four hours on, it was decided to have lunches at 2 p.m. and evening meals at 8 p.m. It was thought that this would not interfere greatly with rest times and more importantly food would be served inside the routine of the watches and not sporadically at various times through the day. On one passage I did, the designate cook insisted on cooking the main meal on his watch and not at at set time. Because it was a rolling watch system we were eating our main meal at midnight after 8 or 9 days. It was mad but given the individual involved it was often hilarious.

Lunch was to be a toasted ham, cheese and tomato sandwich. With no toaster I opted to toast the bread on the frying pan and this worked well (once I got the temperature of the pan right). All the ingredients were from the farmers market including the mixture of baked ham and smoked ham joints which were stunning. With good raw materials what could possibly go wrong?

Cooking for dinner was slightly more difficult because you are operating at a gas oven, which although gimbled, you were still being flung around a bit and playing the juggler with boiling water and fire at 30 degrees of heel is not often easy. Suffice to say, with fresh food, preparation is the name of the game and advance cooking is the way forward. After finishing my watch in the morning I would often cook one or two segments of the evening meal and do another if required while preparing lunch.

There is always a debate on whether to use prepared or dried foodstuffs as opposed to fresh. If you are racing obviously weight is a factor and cooking for large numbers on a boat like this must be made as simple as possible. However, cooking for four for up to three weeks, I believe a variety of good fresh food is essential.

Dinner on this day was chicken curry which went down really well, and stayed down! most of this was cooked the previous day so it was just a matter of reheating the curry and boiling the brown basmati rice to go with it. The only pain in this procedure is the draining of the rice from a large pot into a small sink.

By 10 p.m. we can no longer see the French shore and our next waypoint is off Cape Finistere, over a day and a half away.