The River Vilaine and Redon


Once on the river, you can feel the pace of things change. Life aboard is a bit more relaxed. I can’t exactly put a finger on it, but it may have to do with the fact that the weather is less of factor to the safety of us and the boat. On the Vilaine, it gets even more relaxed as there is no tide and very little current. The wind can, and does, blow still but it tends to follow a typical diurnal pattern and dies out right around dinner time. Languid is perhaps a good word to describe life on the river. Yes, there are always boat chores and things to fix. However, we enjoy exploring the countryside in a more intimate way on foot, observing the wildlife both above and below the water. This holds much more interest to us and was pursued often while working on Déjà Vu. The best part is nobody is pulling up ten yards away, dropping the hook and peeing off the back of the boat!

After our pleasant experience in La Roche-Bernard, our focus has changed to preparing Déjà Vu for winter. The laundry list of items to do is somewhat daunting, but we hope to enjoy our remaining days aboard. After a week at anchor ticking-off some of the to-do list, we chose a trip upriver to the interesting town of Redon for a change of scenery.

Redon is at the crossroads of two canals and was a major inland port for goods traveling to all parts of Brittany as well as Rennes, the largest city in western France. The ocean going ships would travel up the Vilaine to Redon and then offload their cargo to barges traveling the canals. Nowadays, it’s the pleasure boater traveling the canals; the port converted to a pleasant marina in the heart of town. As it was significantly cheaper than other marinas, we chose to stay a week and explore the area. Once past the derelict loading docks, the town certainly makes a nice first impression as the banks of the canals are nicely landscaped with large expanses of blooming flowers. Likewise, the bridges are lined with flowers, all tended and fragrant. Lording over the entire town is the impressively high peak of the church spire. We caught sight of it several miles downriver and instantly knew where we were heading. It's pretty typical I guess for many towns in Europe.

During our week stay we met people from all over; BC Canada, Netherlands, Jersey and even southern California! The Californians were actually on holiday on a canal charter boat. We particularly hit it off with the Canadians Irene and Al from Whistler BC. Old salts, they ran a charter boat for many years all over the globe. Their experience along with a helpful nature was the basis for a fast friendship. They too were hauling out for the winter in Foleux, just three miles upriver from La Roche-Bernard. Their to-do list was much more extensive than ours but, significantly, their water tank was also leaking and we shared a common goal in fixing our leaks - so to speak. Irene speaks fluent French so I felt much more confident in finding a local tradesman to do the work. After a bit of canvassing the local chandleries, we found what we were looking for: a shop specializing in plastic fabrication and repair near Arzal. Irene arranged for the owner of the shop to visit their boat the following day and also to take a look at our tank. At the time, we were anchored near La Roche-Bernard, so we needed to be in Foleux at 9 AM the next morning with the tank out. We hurriedly removed the tank and planned to have the anchor up by 8 AM for the short hop to Foleux. The next morning there wasn’t much of a sunrise as we were enveloped in thick fog! We could barely make out the river banks - maybe 200 feet visibility. By 8 AM it wasn’t budging and seemed to get even thicker. Well, we’ve done fog once already this season, so this should be a piece of cake, right? It's one thing to be out sailing and committed to a course while encountering fog, it's quite another to knowingly set off into it. Judgment, I guess, is the difference. And experience. One voice was telling me this is not such a great idea. The other was saying no problem. The experience voice won out … and we set off into the soup. As always in the fog it's kind of spooky, but our trusty iPad and GPS kept us safe. We also had the knowledge of having traveled this stretch of river twice before so we knew the bends and where the moored boats are. In the end there was no drama and we pulled up to the visitor pontoon at Foleux with time to spare.