Med Bound Blog 8 (World class cruising ground, weather to match and Biscay crossing)
As promised the Odet River was a treat. It is a deep cut thickly wooded valley, unspoilt in the large, with the occasional ostentatious chateau just to remind you that you are in France. After about 5NM of deep valley the river opens into a lake just below Quimper. We went about half way down the buoyed channel across the lake and quickly decided that we would rather go back to the anchorage where we had seen a Southerly 135, flying a British ensign, anchored in a little bay on the doorstep of a modest chateau. We drifted up to them to ask whether they thought there was room for us and how much chain they had out. The answer was, there is tons of room and 20m of chain. We ended up having a drink with them later. They reiterated that we needed to see Quimper and gave us vague instructions about how to get to Quimper, 40 minutes on a bike. The trickiest bit was where to land the dingy with 2 bikes and how to escape the wooded shore and find a public road without being shot by a French gamekeeper!
Quimper had a fantastic medieval cathedral and classic Breton architecture that was extraordinarily well preserved. We had morning coffee and plundered the local Carrefour to the level of our carrying capacity. On the way back we paid a visit to the local cement factory, it was not planned. It just looked like a shortcut that wasn't.
Back at the boat, we were just in time to see, from the shore, Dave and Melanie in their 135 heading down river. We wrestled the bikes back onto the boat and into their rather compact bike garage that Houdini would be at home in. Next stop Île de Glénan, which is basically a bunch of rocks with some lovely sandy beaches and a few tiny islands. It is the home of a famous French sailing school and described in the pilot's guide, as a piece of the Caribbean in Brittany. It did not disappoint. The challenge was getting in there, especially as it was low tide. We followed the instructions to the tee. Something like, get this tower at 260 deg, wait until the windmill and the cardinal in the distance come into transit, etc etc. It was shallow and sandy with patches of weed and super clear. We arrived in the pool with the visitors' buoys in and decided to go and do what an Allures 45 does best, retract the keel all the way to 1.05m draft and sound into that nice clear sandy patch. It was neaps and we were at the bottom of the tide so when there was about 40cm clearance below the keel we dropped the anchor. Great! A free night instead of potentially being charged for a buoy. The water was inviting, so I took the opportunity to put on a wetsuit and go and check the anchor and the bottom of the boat. All good and some good Go Pro footage to boot. We never made it to the famous sailing club bar, it was just so tranquil on the anchorage that we opened a bottle of wine and chilled.
The next morning we followed our track out and set course for Belle Île, some 36 NM distant. In the morning the wind was very light, with the direction from the aft quarter. It was predicted to build during the day to 20 knots at 17h00. I was keen to be at Belle Île before then. We were just attempting to sail and a close by boat was messing with their spinnaker when a huge school of dolphins appeared. After a lot of messing around, I managed to get some pretty good underwater footage of the dolphins on the bow with the Go Pro on the boathook. Word of warning, don't attempt this at more than 2 knots boat speed or if you do put a rope onto the bottom of the boat hook and onto the front cleat or bowspit and then control the top of the boat hook by hand. At 2 knots it is pretty difficult to hold the hook and camera in the stream. I think the real underwater dolphin display would be a 6 knots boat speed but keeping your camera would be a challenge.
Our next highlight of the day was that we finally had a chance to test the Hydrovane, aka Juluka, in downwind conditions. Juluka performed splendidly, as predicted the wind built during the day and in the end we had one reef in the main and a poled out and significantly reduced Solent, with a largish, short period swell on the aft quarter. We were rollicking along with Juluka dancing and nodding side to side. The joke was that I was so impressed that I took a video of Jaluka's performance, during which Veronica called a more than 20 knot just coinciding with an above average lurch in the swell. Swift end to video-taking followed quickly by taking in the Solent completely, putting Juluka to bed and then hand steering the last bit into Belle Île, which we were at this stage abeam of.
We decided to take a buoy outside the harbour entrance. It was a beautiful setting nestled under a cliff. It was calm when we arrived but a few hours later we were had an uncomfortable swell on the beam and bounce back from the cliff. We stayed the night but two others left and we were treated to a display, resulting in lessons learned by a group of young sailors. Some youngsters that arrived at about the same time as us, rafted two identical 28ft boats together on the same buoy and rushed off in a dingy to the pub ashore. As the swell built these two unmanned boat started slamming together in spectacular fashion, this included some mast slapping and it was rather fortuitous that the rigging never got entangled! Needless to say, on return, they quickly parted and took separate buoys.
Next morning we took the opportunity to make a booking in the locked inner basin. Upside comfort, downside, the lock only opens for an hour either side of HW. We had guests, Neil, Anna and 3 year old Juliette joining for a few days. We locked-in, met the new crew and spent the afternoon catching up and exploring the impressive castle and fortress. We wandered the ramparts, enjoyed the sublime weather and the views and walked along the coastal cliff pass, looking down on crystal clear water in the coves below. Belle Île indeed!
There had been some discussion and nervousness on the part of Anna and Neil about how Juliette would deal with the boat and sailing. She loved the boat and we were very blessed with the conditions. The next day we waited for the high tide to lock out and set off on a sedate sail over to Île Houat. We looked at the western anchorage but that was untenable, so we sneaked around the corner to be greeted by 80-plus boats anchored off the picture-perfect 2km long beach. Despite the number of boats it, was not crowded. We snuck up next to another Allures 45. The island is small perhaps 4km by 1km and was once upon a time a quaint fishing village, now it is mostly given over to less of that and more of a holiday house and camping venue in the season. It boasts beautiful sandy beaches and tastefully renovated fishermen's houses and a church with a multi-masted galleon hanging from the ceiling. Everyone enjoyed the beach, the puttering in the dingy and the walks to town. We had a BBB (Bonteheuvel Briefcase Braai) for supper on the boat and went into town for petit dejeuner in the morning.
Neil and Anna had to drive back to Caen to get the ferry back to Portsmouth the next morning. We went back to Quiberon and checked into the Port Haliguen Marina. They treated us to lunch and were then on their way. David and Una happened to be on the quay and sent us a message inviting us over to their boat, which we gladly accepted. Great company and great whisky. We spent the next morning going for a long walk around the peninsula, taking in the madness of the Saturday morning market and sweltering in the near 30 deg heat.
That afternoon we headed for the Vilaine. For once our plan worked, we had waited to leave in the afternoon when the wind kicked in and that it did. We had a long comfortable sail across Baie de Quiberon, listening to some sea rescue drama unfolding on the VHF. It was all in French so we could not follow it. As we were about 5NM out of the Vilaine estuary, I was on the foredeck, sorting the pole when a Lifeboat came screaming toward us. They circled and came along side. There was a lot lost in translation but we were first asked if we had seen anything and then shouted at us because we supposedly were not listening to our radio. We were but unfortunately it was all too fast for my French ability. There was a classic French shrug from the Lifeboat man and a deep throaty roar and a puff of black diesel smoke as the lifeboat roared off to the next yacht, circling them and giving them similar treatment, hopefully with higher levels of comprehension. We never did figure what happened, perhaps a windsurfer adrift from his board or who knows.
We missed the last lock into the Vilaine and had a free night on the waiting jetty. The first lock the next day was at 7. It was a circus complete with a French ringmaster. The boats were in there like sardines, fenders in full use. The ringmaster peering down into the trough, gesticulating madly to ensure that every mm of space was used up. The Vilaine River is describe as a place that people go to and then never leave and it is easy to understand why. We stopped at St Bernard Roche for breakfast and a shop. It was a stunning example of a quaint medieval French Village with a fantastic charcuterie.
We could have ventured some 10 NM further up the river to Redon, another picturesque village, or so the Pilot guide says, but it was a sweltering day so we settled for Foleux, where we tied head and toe to two mooring buoys and swam across the river to the Marina and the restaurant. How things have changed since we left England! We needed the Bimini to stop our feet getting burned on the deck and we have not used our foulies for a good while. The Vilaine was a place you could have spent a week but by now we were starting to think about meeting our crew for Biscay, the crossing itself and Veronica was fretting about flights for Dylan and when to call the time to cross, and thus whether Dylan should fly into La Rochelle or post the Biscay crossing to Northern Spain. So with all these motivators, we got up at 5am to make the first out-lock at 8am. It was a rewarding thing to do, the trip down the river was tranquil, glassy and oh so Brittany, a special early morning experience.
Next stop was the Vendée region, home of the famous single handed round the world race, The Vendée Globe. It is once again, starting in November this year, 2016. We hopped down to La Rochelle, via L'Hebaudiére, Port Joinville on Île de Yue and Les Sables D'Olonne. As I say in the title, this area is a world class cruising ground that you could spend 3 seasons exploring and still be left with change. That said it was starting to feel a bit like the words in a Simon and Garfunkle song and similar lines in the Jackson Browne classic......to the affect of, "these towns all start to seem the same to me........". Ten points if you can name and complete the lines from both those songs. Saying that though is unfair on this region because these are all beautiful places and worth visiting. At Port Joinville I went up the lighthouse and learned of the great French lighthouse history. At Les Sables, it was interesting to go to the start line for the famous race for the Vendée Globe and poignant because I had heard Pete Goss tell his story of the race and how, after he had saved a Frenchman in the Southern Atlantic, became a hero in France. I might have this wrong but I think he is the only Englishman to be awarded a French Bravery medal.
The first night at Port Joinville, we were on the anchor in the bay. In the afternoon, I was contorted into my favourite place, the anchor locker, nipping up the bolts on the helm grab bars, when Veronica started shouting, "Martyn, Martyn, quickly, quickly." oh no what calamity had befallen us now, were we dragging anchor with a collision course for other boats? Well I got on deck and there was a windsurfer, exhausted and swimming with a rather ancient windsurfer, with a broken flexijoint. We threw him a rope and dragged him on board, he was massively grateful as if there had not been a boat to swim to, with great difficulty, his next stop was the mainland, 30km downwind. We did not have our dingy in the water, it was on the foredeck, so we were just getting him a towel and tying the two separate pieces of his rig on the back when the French dude from the boat next to us arrived to help. He had a small dingy with a 2HP motor. He offered our bedraggled new found friend a lift back to the beach. So of they set, the 2HP and the awkwardness of the sail dragging in the water sent them around and around in circles and all the time blowing downwind. So now we had 2 potential drowning victims instead of one. As they past the last anchored boat I called the harbourmaster on VHF 9 to see if they could be ready to send out a boat to assist. Comprehension was zero and I got the VHF French shrug on the radio. Luckily, about this time they 2 potential drowning victims figured that they need to somehow get the windsurfer sail out of the water and hold it on top of them. They then made slow progress to the beach. The upside of the story is that the next day the French windsurfer, sought us out, we had moved into the port and brought us a "cadeau" for saving his life. I thought that was brilliant and we did not really do that much.
We left Port Joinville with a light following wind, so we just had to get the parasailor out. We had it up and flying with the pole for about 3 hours. There was a parade of spinnakers doing what we were, heading La Rochelle way. They kept their spinnakers up but with only Veronica and I aboard, at 14 knots true, I opted to put the sock on it. We then poled out the Solent and blitzed along, stopping in Les Sables. The next day was more of the same. As we aimed for the arches of the 30m clearance bridge that joins La Rochelle to Île de Ré the wind was gusting over 20knts and we were rollicking as about 4 boats converged side-by-side on the south going lane through the arch. Just then, as things were getting exciting, Dylan called to tell a tale of woe about the fishpond pump at home.
The entrance to the old harbour at La Rochelle is guarded on either side by the medieval towers, impressive, imposing and quite unique. The visit was spiced up because the Red Bull cliff diving circus was in town and the high diving was off the highest of the two towers at high tide. The old port was alive with people and the gendarmeries were in full force to guard against any "event sinistré" after the awful Nice incident a week ago.
We had a day off to provision for the crossing and Aidan joined us. A weather window for Biscay stayed open so as I type this we have 230NM of a 360NM crossing from La Rochelle to A Coruña in the bag. Sorry to report that today we are motoring but stronger favourable winds predicted late this afternoon. I will update you and post this from La Coruna, with a bit of luck. Thanks for sticking with us.
Quimper had a fantastic medieval cathedral and classic Breton architecture that was extraordinarily well preserved. We had morning coffee and plundered the local Carrefour to the level of our carrying capacity. On the way back we paid a visit to the local cement factory, it was not planned. It just looked like a shortcut that wasn't.
Back at the boat, we were just in time to see, from the shore, Dave and Melanie in their 135 heading down river. We wrestled the bikes back onto the boat and into their rather compact bike garage that Houdini would be at home in. Next stop Île de Glénan, which is basically a bunch of rocks with some lovely sandy beaches and a few tiny islands. It is the home of a famous French sailing school and described in the pilot's guide, as a piece of the Caribbean in Brittany. It did not disappoint. The challenge was getting in there, especially as it was low tide. We followed the instructions to the tee. Something like, get this tower at 260 deg, wait until the windmill and the cardinal in the distance come into transit, etc etc. It was shallow and sandy with patches of weed and super clear. We arrived in the pool with the visitors' buoys in and decided to go and do what an Allures 45 does best, retract the keel all the way to 1.05m draft and sound into that nice clear sandy patch. It was neaps and we were at the bottom of the tide so when there was about 40cm clearance below the keel we dropped the anchor. Great! A free night instead of potentially being charged for a buoy. The water was inviting, so I took the opportunity to put on a wetsuit and go and check the anchor and the bottom of the boat. All good and some good Go Pro footage to boot. We never made it to the famous sailing club bar, it was just so tranquil on the anchorage that we opened a bottle of wine and chilled.
The next morning we followed our track out and set course for Belle Île, some 36 NM distant. In the morning the wind was very light, with the direction from the aft quarter. It was predicted to build during the day to 20 knots at 17h00. I was keen to be at Belle Île before then. We were just attempting to sail and a close by boat was messing with their spinnaker when a huge school of dolphins appeared. After a lot of messing around, I managed to get some pretty good underwater footage of the dolphins on the bow with the Go Pro on the boathook. Word of warning, don't attempt this at more than 2 knots boat speed or if you do put a rope onto the bottom of the boat hook and onto the front cleat or bowspit and then control the top of the boat hook by hand. At 2 knots it is pretty difficult to hold the hook and camera in the stream. I think the real underwater dolphin display would be a 6 knots boat speed but keeping your camera would be a challenge.
Our next highlight of the day was that we finally had a chance to test the Hydrovane, aka Juluka, in downwind conditions. Juluka performed splendidly, as predicted the wind built during the day and in the end we had one reef in the main and a poled out and significantly reduced Solent, with a largish, short period swell on the aft quarter. We were rollicking along with Juluka dancing and nodding side to side. The joke was that I was so impressed that I took a video of Jaluka's performance, during which Veronica called a more than 20 knot just coinciding with an above average lurch in the swell. Swift end to video-taking followed quickly by taking in the Solent completely, putting Juluka to bed and then hand steering the last bit into Belle Île, which we were at this stage abeam of.
We decided to take a buoy outside the harbour entrance. It was a beautiful setting nestled under a cliff. It was calm when we arrived but a few hours later we were had an uncomfortable swell on the beam and bounce back from the cliff. We stayed the night but two others left and we were treated to a display, resulting in lessons learned by a group of young sailors. Some youngsters that arrived at about the same time as us, rafted two identical 28ft boats together on the same buoy and rushed off in a dingy to the pub ashore. As the swell built these two unmanned boat started slamming together in spectacular fashion, this included some mast slapping and it was rather fortuitous that the rigging never got entangled! Needless to say, on return, they quickly parted and took separate buoys.
Next morning we took the opportunity to make a booking in the locked inner basin. Upside comfort, downside, the lock only opens for an hour either side of HW. We had guests, Neil, Anna and 3 year old Juliette joining for a few days. We locked-in, met the new crew and spent the afternoon catching up and exploring the impressive castle and fortress. We wandered the ramparts, enjoyed the sublime weather and the views and walked along the coastal cliff pass, looking down on crystal clear water in the coves below. Belle Île indeed!
There had been some discussion and nervousness on the part of Anna and Neil about how Juliette would deal with the boat and sailing. She loved the boat and we were very blessed with the conditions. The next day we waited for the high tide to lock out and set off on a sedate sail over to Île Houat. We looked at the western anchorage but that was untenable, so we sneaked around the corner to be greeted by 80-plus boats anchored off the picture-perfect 2km long beach. Despite the number of boats it, was not crowded. We snuck up next to another Allures 45. The island is small perhaps 4km by 1km and was once upon a time a quaint fishing village, now it is mostly given over to less of that and more of a holiday house and camping venue in the season. It boasts beautiful sandy beaches and tastefully renovated fishermen's houses and a church with a multi-masted galleon hanging from the ceiling. Everyone enjoyed the beach, the puttering in the dingy and the walks to town. We had a BBB (Bonteheuvel Briefcase Braai) for supper on the boat and went into town for petit dejeuner in the morning.
Neil and Anna had to drive back to Caen to get the ferry back to Portsmouth the next morning. We went back to Quiberon and checked into the Port Haliguen Marina. They treated us to lunch and were then on their way. David and Una happened to be on the quay and sent us a message inviting us over to their boat, which we gladly accepted. Great company and great whisky. We spent the next morning going for a long walk around the peninsula, taking in the madness of the Saturday morning market and sweltering in the near 30 deg heat.
That afternoon we headed for the Vilaine. For once our plan worked, we had waited to leave in the afternoon when the wind kicked in and that it did. We had a long comfortable sail across Baie de Quiberon, listening to some sea rescue drama unfolding on the VHF. It was all in French so we could not follow it. As we were about 5NM out of the Vilaine estuary, I was on the foredeck, sorting the pole when a Lifeboat came screaming toward us. They circled and came along side. There was a lot lost in translation but we were first asked if we had seen anything and then shouted at us because we supposedly were not listening to our radio. We were but unfortunately it was all too fast for my French ability. There was a classic French shrug from the Lifeboat man and a deep throaty roar and a puff of black diesel smoke as the lifeboat roared off to the next yacht, circling them and giving them similar treatment, hopefully with higher levels of comprehension. We never did figure what happened, perhaps a windsurfer adrift from his board or who knows.
We missed the last lock into the Vilaine and had a free night on the waiting jetty. The first lock the next day was at 7. It was a circus complete with a French ringmaster. The boats were in there like sardines, fenders in full use. The ringmaster peering down into the trough, gesticulating madly to ensure that every mm of space was used up. The Vilaine River is describe as a place that people go to and then never leave and it is easy to understand why. We stopped at St Bernard Roche for breakfast and a shop. It was a stunning example of a quaint medieval French Village with a fantastic charcuterie.
We could have ventured some 10 NM further up the river to Redon, another picturesque village, or so the Pilot guide says, but it was a sweltering day so we settled for Foleux, where we tied head and toe to two mooring buoys and swam across the river to the Marina and the restaurant. How things have changed since we left England! We needed the Bimini to stop our feet getting burned on the deck and we have not used our foulies for a good while. The Vilaine was a place you could have spent a week but by now we were starting to think about meeting our crew for Biscay, the crossing itself and Veronica was fretting about flights for Dylan and when to call the time to cross, and thus whether Dylan should fly into La Rochelle or post the Biscay crossing to Northern Spain. So with all these motivators, we got up at 5am to make the first out-lock at 8am. It was a rewarding thing to do, the trip down the river was tranquil, glassy and oh so Brittany, a special early morning experience.
Next stop was the Vendée region, home of the famous single handed round the world race, The Vendée Globe. It is once again, starting in November this year, 2016. We hopped down to La Rochelle, via L'Hebaudiére, Port Joinville on Île de Yue and Les Sables D'Olonne. As I say in the title, this area is a world class cruising ground that you could spend 3 seasons exploring and still be left with change. That said it was starting to feel a bit like the words in a Simon and Garfunkle song and similar lines in the Jackson Browne classic......to the affect of, "these towns all start to seem the same to me........". Ten points if you can name and complete the lines from both those songs. Saying that though is unfair on this region because these are all beautiful places and worth visiting. At Port Joinville I went up the lighthouse and learned of the great French lighthouse history. At Les Sables, it was interesting to go to the start line for the famous race for the Vendée Globe and poignant because I had heard Pete Goss tell his story of the race and how, after he had saved a Frenchman in the Southern Atlantic, became a hero in France. I might have this wrong but I think he is the only Englishman to be awarded a French Bravery medal.
The first night at Port Joinville, we were on the anchor in the bay. In the afternoon, I was contorted into my favourite place, the anchor locker, nipping up the bolts on the helm grab bars, when Veronica started shouting, "Martyn, Martyn, quickly, quickly." oh no what calamity had befallen us now, were we dragging anchor with a collision course for other boats? Well I got on deck and there was a windsurfer, exhausted and swimming with a rather ancient windsurfer, with a broken flexijoint. We threw him a rope and dragged him on board, he was massively grateful as if there had not been a boat to swim to, with great difficulty, his next stop was the mainland, 30km downwind. We did not have our dingy in the water, it was on the foredeck, so we were just getting him a towel and tying the two separate pieces of his rig on the back when the French dude from the boat next to us arrived to help. He had a small dingy with a 2HP motor. He offered our bedraggled new found friend a lift back to the beach. So of they set, the 2HP and the awkwardness of the sail dragging in the water sent them around and around in circles and all the time blowing downwind. So now we had 2 potential drowning victims instead of one. As they past the last anchored boat I called the harbourmaster on VHF 9 to see if they could be ready to send out a boat to assist. Comprehension was zero and I got the VHF French shrug on the radio. Luckily, about this time they 2 potential drowning victims figured that they need to somehow get the windsurfer sail out of the water and hold it on top of them. They then made slow progress to the beach. The upside of the story is that the next day the French windsurfer, sought us out, we had moved into the port and brought us a "cadeau" for saving his life. I thought that was brilliant and we did not really do that much.
We left Port Joinville with a light following wind, so we just had to get the parasailor out. We had it up and flying with the pole for about 3 hours. There was a parade of spinnakers doing what we were, heading La Rochelle way. They kept their spinnakers up but with only Veronica and I aboard, at 14 knots true, I opted to put the sock on it. We then poled out the Solent and blitzed along, stopping in Les Sables. The next day was more of the same. As we aimed for the arches of the 30m clearance bridge that joins La Rochelle to Île de Ré the wind was gusting over 20knts and we were rollicking as about 4 boats converged side-by-side on the south going lane through the arch. Just then, as things were getting exciting, Dylan called to tell a tale of woe about the fishpond pump at home.
The entrance to the old harbour at La Rochelle is guarded on either side by the medieval towers, impressive, imposing and quite unique. The visit was spiced up because the Red Bull cliff diving circus was in town and the high diving was off the highest of the two towers at high tide. The old port was alive with people and the gendarmeries were in full force to guard against any "event sinistré" after the awful Nice incident a week ago.
We had a day off to provision for the crossing and Aidan joined us. A weather window for Biscay stayed open so as I type this we have 230NM of a 360NM crossing from La Rochelle to A Coruña in the bag. Sorry to report that today we are motoring but stronger favourable winds predicted late this afternoon. I will update you and post this from La Coruna, with a bit of luck. Thanks for sticking with us.
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