A little cryptic this week, but our French friends call the English Channel ‘La Manche’ which translates to ‘the sleeve’. This is because the shape of the channel resembles an arm or the sleeve of a jacket or jumper. With less ado... we’re stuck in L’Aber Wrac’h on the north western tip of France waiting for a replacement low pressure oil return hose before embarking on the Channel du Four down to the Rade de Brest. We did try to order one from the one man band ‘Chantier Navel’ in Roscoff but got completely messed around and consequently lost five days over a long bank holiday weekend. Instead we’ve got DHL delivering one tomorrow via DTR, a Dutch company who, fingers crossed, seem to have their stuff together.

There’s no clouds here, but it is blowing a hooley every day, maybe it’s a local acceleration zone, when we came in via the Grand Chanel our calm and pleasant sail turned into a white knuckle ride for 20 minutes before we flattened out and moored up, unfortunately on the outside of the visitor pontoon, but fortunately the winds are NE not SW so we’ve, not yet, experienced any major swell coming up the river. Sp while the winds blow, and we wait for DHL we are even more fortunate to be at the centre of the Trans Manche. This is a voyage across the channel around a cardinal (buoy) near Plymouth and back. We’d estimated it would take them about 36 hours but we’ve been surprised that the first solo sailor (Victor La Pape) got back in less than 20 hours. We hear from locals that his boat and this competition is a right of passage to the Vendee Globe race with similar hydrofoils and carbon ‘everything’ .

With his boat heeled over at 45 degrees with full sails close hauled up the river I think of my mum, “Me Julie”, who likes to quote her friend affectionally known to us as “Reefing Rich” that you go faster with a reef in. Me thinks Rich and Victor need to have a little chat. Victor, congratulations on your sail, Janine had you down from the get go as first prize. She’s good at spotting winners, that’s why she chose me, I hope. And Vitctor, sorry if we confused you 50m before the finish line with the air horn, we were trying to say well done and thought the finish line was further down, turns out to be at the narrow point between the oyster farm, marina entrance and the shallow ground, practical!

We now wait for the classic 35m Moonbeam yacht to make its final approach. After a slow start, an opps, Me Julie we don’t talk about Bramble Bank moment, Moonbeam lifted off the sand with the rising tide and departed two hours after Victor, and has made a fantastic recovery for an old girl with timber mast and 11 crew managing cloth sails in the comfort of a glossy teak interior who finished with a similar total journey time. Very impressive! Janine has been glued to the race tracker and has taken every opportunity to applaud the finishing crew as they zip past our floating brick. While they do 8 knots up wind and 11 knots down wind, we do 4 knots upwind with the dishwasher on, and 5 knots downwind with a three course diner in the oven! Yes, it’s frustrating. We might not heel over but we do dance around like an elephant on stilettos.

With the race infused entertainment almost over we dash out several times to help short handed crew of all nationalities moor up in the choppy waters to the unforgiving outer edge of the solid pontoon. Some seem to be more prepared and calm, read ‘less panicky’, than others. We’re not meaning to be complacent as we know it is nerve wracking coming into a new marina that you’ve never visited with wind gusts blowing 30 knots and tides pushing the boat around, but after being here a few days we conclude that those who take a slow and steady approach seem to fair better.

So now we are no longer tracking the race, but instead we are tracking our DHL parcel that hopefully contains the replacement oil hose. With that in hand we will begin surgery on the starboard engine and wait for the winds to moderate before departing for Brest or Camaret-sur-mer. Either way, timing, wind direction and sea state will be important for a comfortable ride.

In the mean-time we have started to explore further from the boat with our latest package, a pram for the dog... seriously!? With the pram weighing in at 15kg and the dog 10kg, and a dog bed and some other paraphernalia and we have Janine’s variation of tractor pulling up hill too. She likes to keep me fit. A good 10k exercise cycling on an empty stomach to a quiet/crowded beach, large separate groups of retirees in team-like outfits ‘sea-walking’, three times a week!

Latest YouTube video blog out tonight at 5pm... DONG THUMP up the Jaudy!