Picking up from my last
entry we spent a full week in Ars en Re waiting for the wind to turn, but for
once happy that it gave us a break. I have said this before so apologies to
those who have heard it, but most of the time living on the boat is just that,
living on a boat. But sometimes it feels like we are on holiday. No real
difference I guess apart from the weather and lack of pressure to move onwards.
The anchorage was for the most part sheltered, and the weather was good most of
the time. We spent the evenings socialising with Sarah, Mark and Anthony
from Wandering Star, taking it in turns to host nibbles, drinks,
meals or whatever fitted with our days.
Freya Frey was tucked into
an offshoot of the main channel that dried which meant we had to time going
ashore around access to the boat. This wasn’t too much of a problem and it
allowed us to once again have a quick scrape off of weed that had attached
itself to the underside of the boat. Replacing the coppercoat antifouling that
has been on for 9 years is a must this winter, as the speed at which things
grow back is getting a little too fast, and there are the first signs of
osmosis (a technical word that I partly understand, and know it must be sorted
in the winter before the new antifouling is applied and something you don’t
want to see on a survey if you are thinking of buying a boat).
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| Market day on Re |
The Ile de Re is almost
flat, so taking the bikes ashore and going for a ride around the salt marshes
and up to the lighthouse were pleasant easy trips, the island is full of cycle
paths keeping bikes and cars separate. It is also full of cycle hire points so
sometimes the paths would be a bit crowded with holiday makers a little wobbly
having not ridden a bike for years, but on the whole it was quiet.
The town of Ars was pretty,
the old houses for the main part had been preserved and new build was
restricted and where allowed kept in line with the traditional architecture of
the island. It has a reasonable supermarket and lots of tourist shops selling
typical touristy things, bowls with names on, table linen, seaside related
ornaments etc. There are two locked basins, but we were happy to anchor free of
charge out in the bay and could use the dinghy on the upper half of the tide to
get into town.
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| Paella with Sarah and Mark |
We held our annual multihull
paella evening the day Anthony left and I understand from Sarah she told him
the details of our rather slap up meal aboard Freya Frey that night (apologies
to Anthony if you are reading this, we didn’t deliberately wait until you had
gone, it just happened like that!). As an aperitif we introduced our guests to
Pineau de Charente, something a little like sherry that is one of the regional
specialities. I discovered it on holiday in the area about 10 years ago and buy
it when I get the chance. We had fish
soup for starters (ok I didn’t as I don’t like it but the others did) the
Paella of course and for desert I have been trying to perfect a chocolate
cheesecake recipe using chocolate flavoured Philadelphia cheese, and didn’t do
a bad job on this occasion. Cheese (French) and biscuits (English) with a glass
of port and finally coffee and chocolate truffles. We made a call against the
liqueur or whiskey to finish due to Sarah and Mark needing to dinghy back to
their boat safely.
Wandering Star headed south
for Arcachon on 1st of July and we headed north on the 2nd
hoping to get to Croisic. The weather forecast was for a westerly breeze
veering southwest during the day, and although gentle it would at least be in
our favour. In order to get tides in our favour, we calculated on a 3.30am
start which would also get us to Crosisc just before it got dark. As we left
the wind was blowing a gentle north westerly, right on the nose and by late
morning the wind direction hadn’t changed. Our speed meant we missed the tidal
flow we wanted and by the time we were 10 miles off of Ile d’Yeu, with both the
wind and current against us and a lumpy sea we were struggling to make 3 knots
so made a swift right turn and headed for the shelter of St Gilles Croix de Vie
instead.
Pilot books can be very
annoying when they get things wrong and this was no exception, as the anchorage
shown in the 2011 Bloc (and our older
Imray pilot book but I let them off as it is more than 10 years old) was, we
were told, now a forbidden place to drop hook, so our only choice was the
marina. It being only lunchtime we thought we would just hang around for the tide
to turn again and head out to Yeu or Croisic depending on sea conditions. We
paid a visit to the Capitainerie to be told that we would have to pay the half-day
rate of 17 euros, was that a problem she asked? I responded that “oui”, it is a
problem, we only want to stay for about 4 hours. After suggesting we buy some
fuel whilst we were there she relented and said we could stay until 5pm free of
charge.
We left on cue having
checked the weather forecast again which was still saying the southwesterly was
imminent, but on leaving the river we had short choppy waves and a northerly
wind to battle through. Leaving rivers on an outgoing tide usually means you
have some lumpy stuff to get through where the river current meets the waves
coming in, but this time it continued and after an hour or so we reassessed our
options. Ile d’Yeu was not that far away but I had not route planned for it and
the boat was too bouncy for me to do a proper job of that so the safest and
most comfortable thing to do was to abort the trip and head back to St Gilles.
We arrived back in the
marina after office hours, but there was still someone on duty to help take
lines. This is another problem we have – people “helping” when we arrive
somewhere, whilst it offered for the right reasons we prefer to turn it down.
The reason for this is that we have perfected a standard approach to tying up
somewhere and this is different from how most sailors do things (blame John, it is his method – although I must say it
works very well). Standing on the port bow, I knew what I wanted to do but felt
obliged to pass the rope over to waiting hands, but he then headed for the
cleat John didn’t want. I quickly jumped onto the pontoon, asked that it go on
a different cleat and quickly (non, non,
ici, vite vite), when he just looked at me I virtually snatched the rope
out of his hand and secured it where I wanted to. John then motored back
against it swinging the stern in gently against the pontoon enabling us to
secure that end. He then rather amusingly complimented us on our ability to
come alongside competently, as most boat owners don’t know how to. He didn’t
want to use the cleat we wanted as most yachties would have then collided with
the boat in front and he was setting out to avoid that. When we had the pontoon
berth at Millbrook with about 6 inches to spare at either end, coming alongside
was something that had to be perfected (ok so it may have been a couple of feet
at either end but we still had to motor in sideways and I always freaked out
whenever John encouraged me to have a go).
We checked the forecast
again before visiting the capitainerie in the morning and decided that a voyage
that day would probably end in the same way as the previous afternoons, so
gritted our teeth and booked in for 2 nights at a cost of 69 euros - our most
expensive nights yet and two of them to boot! We met a lovely couple from
Amsterdam on the same pontoon who invited us on board for coffee.
We discovered there was a
large shopping centre and a Lidl in town so cycled up a rather long hill to get
there and spent the morning browsing the shops and came back laden with
groceries. In the afternoon I went off for a mooch on my own to the local shops
which were mostly tourist shops selling the same sorts of things, but it was
pleasant to wander around none the less. In the evening the Dutch couple joined
us for drinks and nibbles aboard Freya Frey so we did at least have a both
useful and pleasant stay, having forked out so much for it.
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| En route to the Vilaine |
8am on 4th of
July we headed out again this time with virtually no wind and sunshine. Learning
from the previous run and again wanting to make a good distance north, I plotted
a route to Arzal, the entrance to the Vilaine river, but had escape routes
marked for Ile d’Yeu, Pornichet and Croisic in case conditions deteriorated.
The sea was much calmer and we had a gentle run for 16 hours approaching the
Arzal dam at around midnight. The tide was just turning but it was low and we
managed to run aground just after midnight, waiting half an hour before the
boat floated off again and getting to the waiting pontoon at 1.30 am. A long
day but a pleasant run with no lumpy bits, and apart from running aground near
the end it was an uneventful one.
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| Anchored next to an elephant! |
So half a mile upstream we
anchored, had breakfast and went back to bed! After catching up on sleep we
headed upstream to La Roche Bernard, or just short of it so we could anchor
without risk of being charged. We were amazed at the number of British boats
there, it seemed half the boats in the marina had a red ensign. The sun finally
came out properly and the temperature shot up to the high 20’s.
On Sunday 7th
July our French friends Annie and Philippe came over for the day to join us,
when we took a short run up the river, dropped anchor again and had our first
BBQ of the year out on deck, albeit using the George Foreman grill. My chocolate cheesecake on this occasion was
not one of my better efforts, with the cream separating and the only thing I
could find to blame it on was the weather. This time I had put the Cointreau in
the base so that the chocolate part would set better and that did work very
nicely. In the midst of my inadvertently separating the cream I texted Ann in
Macclefield for advice, she being properly trained in the field and her advice
was use the thick stuff for the cheesecake.
It was edible and enjoyed by all, just not up to my standard.
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| La Roche Bernard |
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| Annie and Philippe waving us off |
In the evening Annie and
Philippe treated us to a meal at one of the waterside restaurants which was
lovely, particularly as it was still being warm enough to comfortably sit out
at 9pm without a jumper. John had an enormous bowl of Moules Marinere, whilst
the rest of us had savoury crepes and a bottle of cider to wash it down. Ice
creams all round to follow rounded off the evening nicely. It was lovely to see
them again, I hadn’t seen them since recovering from the latest lot of surgery
at the end of March and that seemed an age away. On Monday morning we headed
back down to Arzal and caught the 9am lock to exit the canalised part of the
river, having enjoyed a few days without tides, currents or swell. The sun was
shining brightly and a gentle northeasterly wind took us over to Belle
Ile.
In contrast to most of our
sailing this year, it was a very gentle ride, I am glad to have South Biscay
well behind me. In fact it was such a smooth sea (Belle Mer as they say in France
- beautiful sea) that I washed the sheets (making use of the hot water the
engine had generated) and hung them out to dry on the stern. I then remembered
the buttermilk in the fridge and made some scones (from scratch) and baked them
whilst the engine was running to power the oven. Ann’s advice on this subject
was excellent, if I say so myself, they were some of the best scones I had ever
made! A cream tea (minus the cream) followed; I always think scones are at
their very best whilst still warm from the oven. Doing any of these things
whilst sailing in South Biscay would have been very challenging.
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| Dolphins near Belle Ile |
We headed for Le Palais on
Belle Ile. John had been a few years back and I had never seen that part of the
island. He remembered you could tie up on the town quay free. Ummm not this
time, the town quay with no facilities (and it dries) would have been 27 euros
a night for us. We turned them down and headed further along to Sauzon (home of
our biscuit tin) where we knew we could anchor. We were charged 7.5 euros for
dropping our hook up the very busy creek, for which we were allowed access to
the showers. As the tide went out we realised we had picked a duff spot with
the nose right down in a fairly muddy puddle, so decided we would move first
thing in the morning to a better spot.
John was able to rig a
spare anchor and lines up to a wall at low tide and secure a small mooring
buoy, then in the morning all we had to do was pick up the buoy and we were
sorted. That was very kind of him seeing as we needed to move very early and it
was my birthday! By the time I got out of bed he had moved up to a new spot
that gave us access to the boat at all states of tide.
I have been to Sauzon once
before as part of La Route de L’Amitie, arriving late afternoon, partying on
the square and departing early next morning so this time I decided I wanted to
see a bit more of the Island. The pilot book describes a fjord like anchorage
on the west of the island and I reckoned we could easily cycle there to have a
look. Unlike Ile de Re, Belle Ile is not flat and it wasn’t quite so easy
going, but after a trip to the light house en route we headed over to the fjord
to check it out by land. It is a beautiful spot and I took the opportunity for
my first swim of the year before tucking into a picnic lunch on the beach.
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| The lighthouse at Les Poulains on Belle Ile |
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| My evening swim |
We decided it would be a
lovely (and free) spot to spend the evening so cycled back over to Sauzon, had
a birthday treat of an ice cream and waited for the boat to float off so we
could get to the fjord. We erroneously thought that most of the boats in there
would be day trippers, who would head safely back to their marina berths in the
evening. When we got there, there were more boats than earlier and no one
looking like they were about to pack up and go. We squeezed in closest to the
beach but only had enough water for a couple for hours as the bottom was likely
to be scattered with rocks. We had a BBQ tea out on deck hoping one of the
other boats would move with plan B being an overnight sail back to the
mainland.
Plan B won and at around
10pm we headed back out of the anchorage and in the direction of the Aven
river, past Ile de Groix. John had made a large flask of coffee and suggested I
got some rest whilst he did the first leg. The first part of the journey was quite
lumpy, the sea had picked up from nowhere and made a fairly uncomfortable ride,
albeit pure sailing with no motor for a change.
I struggled to get some sleep being bounced around in the cabin and
popped up wondering if John wanted to swap. He had just topped up his caffeine
levels and was fine so I went back to bed. Unfortunately at one point the boat
slammed hard with the wash from a fishing boat as John was making his way back
up from the galley and he slipped and banged his ribs hard on the seatback.
Possibly a broken rib but they can’t do anything even if you go to a hospital
so he is just managing with pain killers. After a while the sea state calmed (basically
because tehere was no more wash from dozens of fishing boats) and I got some
sleep, but I then repeated the pattern of popping up to see if he wanted me to
take over the helm to be told he had just had another cup of coffee. This
continued until daybreak when we were just approaching the mainland and he then
wanted an extra set of eyes to check for buoys and channel markers.
We were a little thrown by
an additional light flashing at Port Manech, and couldn’t work out which was
the light house. As we got close in and the day got lighter, we realised that
one of the flashing lights was a large catamaran’s anchor light, but flashing
as if it were a north cardinal. It may seem like a good idea if you want other
people to notice your boat in an anchorage and so not crash into it, but
pretending to be a cardinal marker is not perhaps in everyone’s interest!
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| A chateau on the Aven river |
John managed to spot the
first of the channel markers for the Aven river and we made it up past the
moorings and dropped anchor at Rosbraz at high water. We had breakfast and John
went to bed whilst I found a book to read (Jodi Picoult – My Sister’s Keeper –
thanks to Amanda at Royan for offloading on to me, I am really enjoying it). As
the tide came back in again we upped anchor and slowly pottered up the river to
Pont Aven, running aground in the soft mud a couple of times in the process and
hanging around for a few minutes each time for the water level to rise.
I visited Pont Aven a few
years ago (maybe 10??) during a summer holiday with both my and my sister’s
family. It could well have been on a cloudy or even rainy day as we generally
used to haul the children off to a beach whenever we could. I remember it was
pretty and had lots of arty shops but not much more. It is a very pretty town
with lots of arty shops and a town quay that charges 12.5 euros per night to
tie up including water and electricity. We have completely blown the budget
this year already but decided we could stretch to this as it was such a nice
spot and we would be able to get diesel from the supermarket filling station
instead of a marina. On this basis we reckoned we would save more than the 12
euros by buying fuel there.
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| We like this car sticker - but you have to know Breton food to understand it |
We secured the boat and
tucked up for the night. In the morning we did a supermarket run on the bikes,
each with a 20 litre jerry can on the back. I went and got some fresh supplies
whilst John filled the cans and we then whizzed back down the hill to the boat
to offload. John’s ribs were hurting a
lot by this point so I did two more runs on my own, giving us 80 litres of fuel
in total which should keep us going for a while.
The day flew by and by
evening we reckoned we hadn’t seen enough of the town so decided to stay put
for another night. Whilst enjoying the evening out on deck, someone called
bonsoir from the quayside and it was 3 French people we had met a couple of
times before on La Route de L’Amitie. We invited them to join us aboard and
treated them to some of our English Beer collection – some Tanglefoot and
Hobgoblin which both went down very well.
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| Enjoying the shade |
In the morning a Welsh boat
moored up just ahead of us and we had coffee on board with them, exchanging
information on places visited. We then set off to do some further exploring of
the town, John did a wifi session in the tourist information office whilst I
pottered around the shops, then back to the boat to chill out and read in the
sunshine. I am amazed that a river you (we) can sail up can turn into something
that looks like it is in the middle of Dartmoor in the space of about 100
yards. Philip and Margo from the Welsh boat joined us for a late afternoon
Sangria before we all set sail back down the river on the tide, them to Port
Manech and us just halfway back down the river to the same anchorage we used on
the way up.
On this morning’s tide we
headed round into the Belon River, which shares the same bay and approach as the
Aven, and found a very peaceful anchorage in one of the creeks. As the tide
went out I sat out on deck reading, catching the morning sunshine before it
gets too hot. The thermometer is now showing 30.8 degrees outside with a mere
28.9 in, so I am hiding in the shade of the salon writing this, aware that I
haven’t updated it for a while, mainly due to the fabulous weather stopping me
form wanting to spend time indoors typing. We are thinking of going back to
Pont Aven tomorrow for the Bastille day celebrations, and the weather forecast
is just more of the same. Life is so much better than it was a month ago!!
Wow – 3900+ words,
apologies for scribbling so much, I hope I haven’t bored you!
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