Witless bay to Trespassey

 

We leave Witless very early, as we want to round cape Race and reach Trespassey harbour before the nightfall. We hug the coast, staying well inside the shoals. We do not see discernable current, and have a decent sea state. So, my second time around cape Race, and uneventful again. Fog, of course.

Arriving in Trespassey, early evening, the fog is really thick, and we navigate with GPS-only. We also watch AIS for nearby boat traffic, and we are closing in another (French) pleasure craft, as they are classified in the AIS directory. This craft is just ahead of us but moving quite slowly, and we are  concerned that the position was inaccurate, of that we are misjudging the situation.

We finally recognize the entry buoy of Trespassey channel, and watch carefully the route, when we see something very close. It is looking like a small fishing boat.  As we got closer, it turns out that this is an ocean rowing boat. We hail the conversation with the rower - he is single-handed -  and offered a tow to the harbor, that he declines – this is obviously a sporting challenge. We proceed slowly forward into the Trespassey harbor, and when he arrives, rowed (in our modest dinghy) to invite him onboard.

C'est quoi ?

Patrick has left St Pierre a couple of days ago, so he is interested by the offer of a hot shower. I might not have mentioned that yet, but we DO have hot water on Sélune (fresh water,  heated by the engine), and it is indeed possible to take a shower; I only had one so far, but it does wonders.

So anyway, our rower does enjoy the shower, and we treat him with a slice of warm pizza. You might be surprised here too, but we do have an oven !  We don’t plan to use it often, as we would rather avoid to have to seek gas refills when we will be on the far end of the island, but it works pretty well.

So, our guest was well treated (at least by our standards) and we had interesting conversations. How can you not have interesting conversations with a guy who rowed across oceans 6 times and did 2 route du Rhum?

Patrick Favre and Eric discuss the weather – for Patrick, it is even more important than for us !  Once he leaves, it is non-stop for Brittany, so that’s a big decision to take, right there !