Brest Maritime Festival

After waiting five days for gales to calm down, we had an amazing trip across the Bay of Biscay. There was just the right amount of wind – enough to get us moving nicely without kicking up too much sea. This lasted for the whole three-day trip and we sailed all the way, motoring only the final two hours into Brest. We didn’t see many whales on this trip but had quite a few dolphin visits, with some spectacular leaps out of the water. John's wife Fiona met him here and they jumped ship to go camping in quieter quarters.



We arrived on the second day of the Brest Festival and were immediately in the midst of chaos. Almost 2000 boats were crammed into the harbour, all different sizes and types and from various countries. There were classic yachts, working boats, sailing dinghies, Old Gaffers, luggers, square riggers and super-fast race boats. Not to mention the fishing boats, ferries, trip boats and ribs whizzing about the harbour on their daily business. We met up with old cruising friends and made some new ones too.



The streets surrounding the dock area were cordoned off to form a vast festival ‘site’ full of tents offering all sorts of goodies: T-shirts, beer, ice cream, crepes, moules-frites… There were displays of French boat-building, Norwegian shed construction, Irish peat burning, Newfoundland rescue dogs in action, Vietnamese woven ‘basket’ boats. huge mechanical smoke-breathing dragon got dragged through the streets,

Every day, the water outside the harbour was full of colourful sails doing ‘manoeuvres’, and each night at 11pm, hundreds of boats paraded in the harbour, with laser lights playing over the sails and Breton music broadcast through loudspeakers.

Ed hit it off with Katie!

The Whittons of Topsham joined us for the week. Maria felt queasy sailing around the harbour in a force 1 so she and Ed went for a drive in their van for a couple of days leaving Grace to learn the ropes. We did a day-sail to nearby Camaret to escape the masses and had a lovely lunch ashore with John and Fiona and a relaxing afternoon on the beach (plus a chilly swimin the sea).


We went for a midnight sail to watch the Bastille Day fireworks and joined in the evening parade for working boats. Dave had great fun up the mast setting off hand flares given to him by the organizers, until they told him enough was enough!

I also found time to carve and paint a wooden plaque or ‘toile de mer’ to add to the collection of over a thousand from all the boats that have entered the Brest festival since its beginning twenty years ago.



It has been a great way to end our three-year voyage and we are now on our way back to the UK. Instead of joining the fleet sailing to Douarnenez today, (which is the wrong direction), we headedg north to l’AberWrac’h, and from here we will head straight back to Torquy. We should be back in British waters sometime on Saturday.