Camaret

Camaret

After a few days in Brest sorting out the boat and re-stocking and going out for an excellent meal for our 25th Wedding Anniversary we decided to go to Camaret (we were bored with Brest by then). We left at ten hoisting the main in the marina as the wind got up and it started to rain.

Getting out of the Rade de Brest involves going through the narrow Goulet de Brest before turning NW to Camaret. Needless to say the wind was against us through the Goulet so we motored out to Le Petit Minou light. It was then a fast sail with a reefed main and genoa to Camaret.

Mike and Carol went into the outer Vauban marina. We tried our luck in the inner Port Notic and found a visitors space not far off the main quay with all the restaurants and bars.

Camaret is a delight. A very welcoming marina and a pretty tourist town with an interesting history. It is famous for its rotting fishing ships on the harbour wall ... put there by the town council as a tourist attraction when the originals were washed away in a storm. There is a fort designed by Vauban, Louis XIV's military architect and the Chapelle de Notre Dame de Rocadamour whose steeple was knocked off by a cannon ball from the Anglo-Dutch fleet in the battle of Camaret in 1694.

On the Tuesday we went for a walk around the Pointe de Penhir. There is a memorial to the allied sailors of the Battle of the Atlantic and a giant Cross of Lorraine memorial to the Bretons who fought in the Second World War.

Pointe de Penhir

The cliffs are quite breathtaking and there are lovely beaches, although dangerous to swim in. The SNSM (French equivalent of the RNLI) were training in the surf.

Pointe de Penhir

Looking towards Pointe de Toulinguet