Getting used to the ocean again

This blog is written in English as we had Icelandic crew on board for a couple of days.

After spending such a long time on land, we had to get used to sailing and being out on the ocean again. 
The sea has a thousand different faces, she can be very calm and friendly but then again show her power in all her glory. As being not so much experienced yet, we feel we have to be vigilant at all times. We were nervous about passing Raz de Sein, an infamous place known to be dangerous when you are there at the wrong time and moment. We had been there before on another boat and that has not really been fun: breaking waves all around us from all kinds of directions.  It’s all about calculating the best moment in the tidal wave in the right moment of the month with the right direction and amount of wind. And some bravery of course. Three times we planned to do to this passage, and three times the universe decided differently for us. 
The first time the wind was so much in our favor which meant we’d arrive 1,5 hours too early at Raz de Sein. So we decided to go eastward, to the marina of Douarnenez, where the wind blew Maris unwillingly against the dock. A dock with a sign saying: “depth at low tide 20 cm.” Ugh. At that moment there was still enough water, but we had to leave before the water level would drop too much. But how do you manage to do that with 6 Bft of wind pushing 23.000 tons of weight against the dock? After being recovered a bit from this stressful situation, and we were able to think clearly again, Sander had the answer (of course). He sailed into a spring line which freed the back of Maris from the dock and then he could turn the boat. We docked at the beginning of the marina where it was swelly as hell, but we enjoyed our stay in Douarnenez anyway.
The next attempt for Raz de Sein was a few days later. It was foggy so we had to put on the navigation lights. The one at the front did not seem to work. First we needed to fix that, which took 1,5 hours, so we missed our moment to cross. 
The last attempt (for now) was the day after. We were already a little on the edge of being late and this time the wind was very light so we were a bit slow in speed. We knew we would not make it, so we decided to just have a nice sail in the direction of Camaret-sur-Mer. We had fun trying different positions of the sails and tacked all the way into the bay of Camaret-sur-mer. 
This means we have gone up north a little bit, close to Brest. It feels like going back a little bit. But we realize it doesn’t have to be about progress (going south) all the time. We need to get that out of our minds. We have all the time in the world and we don’t need to hurry. And at some point we will move on anyway.