Morbihan - take 2

Sunday dawned a glorious day - fairly rare even in these parts - a cloudless blue sky and light breeze so we headed into the gulf shortly after 9am. We were nearly at high tide so expected an easy entrance - we got up to 10.5kts so i'm glad we didnt make the passage any earlier. We quickly found ourselves at Point D'Arradon where we picked up a mooring for a couple of nights.

Before we left there had been a fantastic firework display on saturday night in celebration of Bastille Day - many places had had to postpone their usual displays due to the strong winds on the 14th.

Its been a beautiful couple of days. Yesterday we took the dinghy to a little beach on an isolated island and today we walked into the town of Arradon - clearly a very wealthy area, the houses are just fantastic.

We're going to stay in the gulf for the next few days before heading back out to the islands en route to the Villaine to greet Andrew and Annie on 4th August.

Belle Ille - Le Palais

There was much 'discussion' between skipper and crew regarding our next destination - skipper wanted to visit Belle Ille and its associated island but the crew was mindful of the deteriorating forecast for midweek and didnt want to find Cabernet at anchor in a Force 6-8 wind! However compromise was reached - isnt it always and we agreed to visit Belle Ille for a few days, hire a car and explore the island at our leisure.

The trip from La Turballe was not without incident - the wind was already blowing strongly and at one point we lurched violently and promptly lost the solar shower overboard. Skipper was all for attempting a recovery until I pointed out that we had nothing with which to recover a bag containing at least 20l of water. We sailed on but as we started to put away our mainsail the boat got caught by another gust and lurched again...in the other direction this time so we lost the other solar shower overboard!!

The entry into Le Palais was a melee of yachts and ferries. Our plan to spend 5 nights on the island quickly changed when the harbour launch informed us that only one night max was possible. We rafted up in the Basin de Flot along with dozens of other boats and a visit to the capitanerie explained that they had to clear the basin by 7.30am as they were expecting a gasoline tanker - but we were welcome to return at 6pm!! We didnt see the town at its best as it poured down all evening. We were awakened at 6am by the departure of the boat next to us and we decided that we were not sufficiently enamoured by Le Palais to stooge around for 12 hours. We headed to La Trinite on the other side of Quiberon Bay and were safely tied up there by 10am. We will make a return visit to the island but not until end August when all the French holidaymakers have returned to work!

Unfortunately La Trinite is not a good place to be at spring (high) tides - we bounced around like tennis balls and by Wednesday the wind was howling as well. On wednesday evening it was virtually impossible to sit below, the boat was rocking so much, so we took ourselves off to a local restaurant to celebrate Bastille Day with the rest of the population.

By Friday however we'd had enough of the rocking and rolling and decided to make a dash to Port du Crouesty just 6 miles along the coast. The wind was gusting 35kts but it was behind us and blew us down the coast - I wasnt filled with confidence however when even the skipper commented that he hoped it didn't get any worse!!

We will leave here tomorrow (sunday) and head into the Morbihan - hopefully the wind will have eased and we'll have a few peaceful nights and barbeques as the weather settles back down again.

La Turballe

We set off early on Friday from Pornic and arrived in La Turballe in time for a late lunch. From what people had said we expected the crossing of the Loire to be a little choppy but it was perfectly smooth - in fact hardly a ripple on the water!

We had been advised to visit Guerande, about 6kms away. This time however we resorted to public transport as the roads looked anything but bike friendly. Guerande is a walled town, rather like Concarneau and we spent a lovely day exploring the area. Also found a great restaurant in a shaded terrace where we enjoyed a really excellent 3 course lunch for 25e.

La Turballe has a super beach just next to the marina and also provides live entertainment - free - in the evenings during the season.

The visitor area in the marina is quite small and another source of entertainment was watching the marina staff cram in as many yachts as possible into this small area - noone was turned away and no tempers got frayed!

Pornic

Having left Noirmoutier, our passage was all of 8 miles across the bay to the lovely seaside town of Pornic - easily the prettiest stop on our travels so far. The marina is a short walk out of town but the boardwalk passes Bluebeard's castle - another place we didn't get a chance to visit on this occasion.

There was a fantastic market in Pornic on a wednesday - we spent a fortune but the quality of the food was exceptional and our pigeon French got us by!

We took the dinghy out to explore the coast but, although being very sheltered in the marina, it was blowing quite hard in the bay so after I had got soaked numerous times we decided to head back in!!

Noirmoutier - L'herbaudier

After we dragged ourselves away from a great few days in Port Joinville, we renegotiated the lobster pots and set off back north to Ile de Noirmoutier - close enough to the coast to be joined by a bridge. We had been told that the marina a L'Herbaudier got very busy but actually we were shown straight to a berth...in fact its been much quieter all round than we'd expected for July.

This is another very flat island so, having been encouraged by our success in Yeu, we hired the bikes for 2 days this time! The town of Noirmoutier is very pretty with a big chateau which we didn't have time to visit on this occasion. The main occupation - apart from tourism - seems to be the salt flats covering much of the island, it certainly made for easy cycling! This time however there was more of a breeze blowing so skipper found it rather harder work! Our tour took us to a beautiful beach which, when we arrived, was completely deserted - again not what we'd expected at the height of their tourist season.

Ile de Yeu - Port Joinville

After a couple of days in Pornichet we set off for our most southerly destination this year - Ile de Yeu. We had hoped to get down to Ile de Re and La Rochelle but the storm at the beginning of march left so much damage that some marinas are still closed whilst others are only accepting a yacht for one night. Having heard all this from a number of sources we decided that that part fo the trip could wait until next year.

The passage to Port Joinville was made in glorious weather and we actually managed to sail for part of it rather than use our engine which has been the case on nearly all the passages to date. The entry to Joinville was littered with lobster pots and trying to avoid them was something of a challenge - one boat which entered the marina after us had not been so successful and required a diver to cut them free from the pot and its flag.

Since this was to be our most southerly stop for 2010 we decided to spend 4 nights at Port Joinville, a very pretty town with a Med feel - whitewashed houses and terracotta roofs. There is a large fishing fleet and I made several calls on the excellent poissonerie on the harbourside.

The island is very flat and I had suggested we hire a jeep to explore - we ended up with two bikes as skipper thought we needed the exercise....in fact it wasnt hard as there were dedicated cycle tracks which meant we didnt pose a threat to the motoring popualtions. We actually managed to cycle right around - all 30 kms - which was no mean feat in the temperatures we've been having.

Also used the dinghy to explore the coast near to the marina. We found a wonderful beach where the water was actually warm enough for us both to venture in.

This will definitely be on our list for a return visit next year.

La Baule - Pornichet

It was hard to drag ourselves away from the peace and tranquility of our Villaine anchorage but by Sunday we had decided that it was time to set off further south.

We had a - reasonably - uneventful passage through the Arzal Barrier, the only problem arose when skipper let go of the stern line before I had freed the bow and we ended up at 90degs in the lock. Skipper was horrified - to say nothing of the boat behind us!! However control was soon regained and we set off none the worse for La Baule. The weather was glorious and we sailed down for quite a bit of the trip on the crusing chute.

Pornichet marina is at the far end of La Baule's 5 mile beach so we spent a couple of nights there and explored the town courtesy of Le Petit Train!

Part 2 - The Villaine

We returned to France on 24th June after a hectic week at home - its been difficult since then to find suitable internet connections.....in truth the sun has shone, the temperature has been 25+degs and there have been other things to do!

Once we got back to Cabernet we decided we needed a couple of days rest and relaxation to wind down and get back into holiday mode so we left our berth on the friday 25th at Foleux and headed up the river for a couple of hours, finding a superb anchorage miles from anywhere and anyone, where we swam,read our books and generally enjoyed the fantastic weather.

On saturday skipper decided he needed a bit of exercise and we needed some bread so he set off in the dinghy - minus the outboard - in search of a boulangerie. After some 2 hours I was beginning to wonder if I needed to up anchor in search of him when the dinghy re-appeared around the bend in the river with one very hot and tired skipper but no bread. Fortunately provisions on board were raided for the partbaked stuff which has proved so handy!