Last Autumn my job situation gave the opportunity for a longer than usual holiday so Josephine and I set off from Portland harbour to sail south in my home made 15 foot sailing dinghy. We chose Portland as much as anything because the sailing centre there could provide long term car parking. We sailed down to St Malo, stopping at Alderney, Jersey and the Chausey Islands. We stayed an extra day at the Chausey Islands which I had long wanted to visit and they did not disappoint even though there can sometimes be a lot of visitors there. At high tide there is one main island about a mile long together with extensive islets and rocks extending several miles to the east. At low tide most of the sea between the islets disappears so you can walk for miles, keeping an eye open for the returning sea.

From St Malo we sailed up the Rance estuary to Dinon, and spent a day looking at this historic city. Then we converted our sailing dinghy into a canal cruiser to do some inland exploration. We took our British Seagull outboard specifically for use on the canals. We also used it on just two occasions at sea but in general I much prefer to sail or row so when we were becalmed at sea we first tried rowing for at least a couple of hours by which time the wind would normally re-appear or we would come in sight of a nice harbour and stop for the night. However I would not want to row through the French canals, the distances are a bit much. Crossing Brittany by canal is 247km which we completed on 3 gallons of petrol. So allowing for doing some river sailing the fuel consumption is comparable to a small car; a modern 4 stroke outboard should do better. The French canals that we traversed are amazingly under used. All the locks are in good condition and are operated by lock keepers. At intervals along the canal you come across purpose made picnic spots where boats can stop off, occasionally even with showers, power points and free electricity and yet there are few boats either on the move or even moored to the bank. The Brittany canals are idyllic and we particularly noticed how the lock keepers maintain flower gardens around the locks. Without exception the lock keepers were friendly and helpful and they keep in touch by phone so they always know what boats are on the move and make sure the lock is ready when you arrive. At Rennes, a large city halfway across Brittany, we joined the River Villaine navigation and somewhere between Rennes and Redon this river became wide enough that we felt it was worthwhile getting the mast up and sailing at least on those stretches where there were not too many trees to shield the wind. Below Redon it is definitely a sailing river and a very nice one at that. Roche Bernard was a particularly attractive spot and then after a few more miles we were at the tidal barrage and back in salt water, this time the Bay of Biscay.

We turned west along the southern coast of Brittany and after two days entered the Gulf du Morbihan. We stayed there for a week, a longer stay than intended, this being due to holing our boat by hitting a submerged iron pole which was something to do with the oyster beds - entirely my fault since the hazard was marked. Having holed the boat I made a second mistake by jumping off the boat with bare feet to push it clear and cut my foot on some sharp iron work on the seabed. The bottom of this dinghy is filled with foam so we did not sink; indeed we were not aware of the damage until the next day. The hole in the boat was mended in a few days, the time it took us to find a yacht chandler and acquire Sikaflex and other materials and to get the boat dried out on a sandy beach. The hole in my foot could have been a lot worse. We keep 'Jelly' shoes handy for these occasions, I must try to remember to use them - there is always the possibility of a broken bottle or discarded fish hook. With the repairs completed we went up river to spend a couple of days at Auray, another favourite place.

From the Morbihan we sailed to Port Haliguen on the Quiberon peninsular, about the windiest sail we had, dead to windward with spray flying the length of the boat. The next morning was flat calm so we rowed through the notorious tide race off the Quiberon peninsula without difficulty then rowed on down the west side of the peninsula. During the afternoon we motored for a couple of hours then a breeze sprang up and we sailed to Port Louis, within the Lorient estuary. Looked at the fascinating fortified town then sailed on to Doelan, then next day a long and very pleasant sail to Benodet. For the next two days we explored from Benodet up the beautiful river Odet but we did not make it right up to Quimper partly because the wind was so fluky where there were cliffs along the banks. From Benodet we sailed to Guilvinec which is a serious commercial fishing port with big stern trawlers parked two or three abreast along hundreds of metres of quayside (it was Sunday). Next stop was Audiern where we stayed three days waiting for a calm day to tackle the Raz de Sein. One of these days we rowed up the Goyen estuary to Pont Croix which turned out to be a most interesting small town with old churches and a small folk museum.

The harbour master at Audiern was very friendly and helpful and warned us that if we continued north we would probably be seen by naval vessels exercising from Brest and we might be arrested if we were too far from the shore. I was vaguely aware that there is a French law that small boats must not sail more than a certain distance from the shore but we had not given it much thought until then. As we approached the Raz de Sein on a fine calm day we were approached and hailed by a small warship but I don't think we were too far from the shore. A French yachtsman we met later on said it was more likely that they were interested in possible illegal immigrants, or perhaps they were just curious. The Isle de Sein was a fascinating place, although not beautiful. It is flat and low lying and is dominated by a surprisingly large village which covers a large part of the total area. Now it must survive mainly by tourism but in the past it was presumably a fishing community trading fish with the mainland. There is little space for any significant agriculture. We left the island in really thick fog, relying entirely on GPS to thread our way out through the surrounding rocks then the fog lifted slowly as we sailed on to Camaret, a very nice harbour which we had visited on a previous occasion when sailing in company with Roger and Helen Barnes in their Tideway sailing dinghy.

Next stop was meant to be Brest but we just missed the tide through the Ghoulet de Brest and spent the night in a small bay. We stopped briefly in the centre of Brest to look at the old fortifications then continued to the Moulin Blanc marina. At that point I managed to get a flu like illness so we stayed at the marina a few days. The facilities at the marina are excellent but the surrounding scenery is not wonderful, at least not by comparison with much of Brest harbour. After we had been kept awake most of one night by a noisy drink and drugs party on a large Swedish yacht in the adjacent berth we decided to go somewhere else. We had a windy sail up the river to Landerneau and parked the boat at the quayside in the town centre. We had now been away five weeks and with the summer well over I was thinking it was time to be getting back and finding out if the car was still sitting in that car park back at Portland. I left Josephine to look after the boat at Landerneau and went back to Portland by train and ferry followed by a double trip by car ferry to bring the boat back. As it happened the weather stayed fine well into late October so we could probably have sailed back almost as quickly and considerably more cheaply but it is good to have the option of a car ferry to get home. It does also demonstrate the versatility you get when you choose a dinghy to go cruising.

I can recommend South Brittany for a dinghy cruising holiday. You don't have to sail all the way; there are car ferries to St Malo and Roscoff. In the UK we have a DCA guide to launching sites, in Brittany such a guide would probably be superfluous since wherever a road goes down to the shoreline there is usually a slipway available free of charge for public use. If you would like somewhere to cruise for a week or so without needing to go out to sea I would suggest Brest Harbour and its tributary rivers, or the Gulf du Morbihan.

I have a number of photographs from this trip at the Hostellers Sailing Club web site at HYPERLINK "http://www.sail.btinternet.co.uk" www.sail.btinternet.co.uk

NB: More photos on next page.