Swallow's adventures

We left Isle de Yeu on Thursday for Bourgeney, a purpose built marina a little way from a town but has a few shops and a beach within walking distance. A good stopping place for us, the marina was lovely and the staff so friendly, they even laid on a fireworks display on our last night:-)
We left Bourgeney Saturday morning for La Rochelle... No wind again!!! The stretch of water between Isle de Re and the mainland was like a millpond and full of massive jelly fish! There s a toll bridge from La Rochelle to the island which we sailed under on our approach; so shallow around there and it looked as though we d hit the bridge but all was good:-)
Port Minimes is massive...over 5000 boats here; it took us about 40 minutes to walk from our boat to the other end of the marina where the old town is ( they berth the English in the cheap seats!!!).
The old medieval town is very quaint with lots of history ; we went up the lantern tower where various nationalities were imprisoned in the 1700s. There were hundreds of graffiti carvings on the stone walls made by the prisoners, one of which was a seaman from Southampton.... Very eerie place.
There are street entertainers and market stalls and an abundance of restaurants; a very lively town and rather expensive compared to the sleepy little French villages we have previously visited.
Today Paul has climbed up the mast( for the first time ever) and repaired the loose connection on our tricolor. We met a British couple on a Hunter in Cameret who turned up here a couple of days ago....we are so grateful to Andrew who helped us by hoisting Paul up on the winch....could not have done that on my own! On the whole other yachtsmen are always happy to lend a hand; such a friendly community full of like minded people....just now a French man on the boat next to us passed us over half a carton of carte d'or(salted caramel)...yummy. In Roscoff we lent a man our large saucepan for boiling his crab...we came back from a day out and to our delight he'd left us a bottle of red on deck:-)
Watching the weather closely now as we plan to sail to Bilbao on Thursday... 36 hours, a long one for us and our first overnight sail.