The day before we left Pornic, as Gordon said it was Market Day. What a good market, but let me tell you, you wouldn’t need to be watching what you were eating going there. As you might guess we didn’t come away empty handed, especially after a visit to the fish market, serenaded by your archetypical Frenchman in a Beret.

As Anne-Marie and Mick are heading north, it looks like we won’t be meeting up with them in Portugal, this year anyway. We had a farewell drink on Fleur of Pendle . We are sad to see them go, but are sure we will meet up again, even if it is in Largs.

We headed out the next morning for Ile d’Yeu, which is about thirty five miles, it could have been shorter but the shorter passage was rock strewn so we gave it a miss, adding an hour to the overall trip. We had to motor sail the first half but then had a lovely sail for the last three or four hours. I must say, Camira is doing us proud so far, so much so that we absolutely creamed a 37ft yacht that we passed. Not sure what kind it was but the big Belgian guy sailing it didn’t look too happy, but we found out later it was made of steel so can’t crow too much. Incidentally, he is moored up next to us and has invited me for rum, presumably to quiz me on my sailing tactics. The marina is choc-a-bloc and continuing to fill up. Honestly, you should see this; unfortunately the picture doesn’t do it justice. They just keep pilling them in and if you are on the inside, tough luck, you just need to wait till it empties a bit before you can get out. We are in the middle there somewhere.

We hired bikes yesterday to see the island. I promise, I will never complain about a spin bike again, these things were like sit up and beg butcher’s bikes, thankfully, the island is relatively flat, and so the three gears just about got you there.

The island is lovely; all the houses are more or less the same style, and are very pretty. We cycled round and across the whole island, about 22 miles.

This is an old semaphore station

I would never get away with it if I didn’t mention it, Gordon went on a bit farther, probably another five or six miles as he wanted to go and see the citadel  de Pierre –Levee,where Marechal Petain was imprisoned for collaborating with the Germans.

Today we decided to go to the beach. Looks lovely doesn’t it?

Well, we got settled after watching a very strange looking man doing some sort of rain dance and incantation down by the sea. Thankfully he didn’t have very strong powers as the weather was lovely, more than could be said for the beach. Yes, it was gorgeous to look at, but flies, OMG! There were millions of sand flies. Every time, someone walked by, although not often (as it was deserted), it disturbed them and they all seemed to fly about for a few minutes then settle back in the sand or on me! Well, that was enough , so much for my day relaxing on what looked like a beautiful beach.

We thought we would be going to Les Sables d’Olonne tomorrow to meet up with a friend of ours, big Alec, assuming we could get out of the marina that is, but, unfortunately, what was originally going to be a force 3 has developed into a 5 -6. So it looks like we might not catch him before he heads back to Ireland this weekend.

 

(The editor is actually doing this bit of the blog for a change)

We were heading for Pornic next to meet up with Mick & Anne-Marie, who you will remember from previous blogs. In order to get into Pornic you have to get there around high water so either early morning start or latish arrival.

We left at 0500 and did a quick three and a bit hour sail.

When we arrived Brian the YM examiner was there to take our lines, no pressure ….. He said I was taught by an old pro-that’s no way to talk about the Balmer! We met his wife, Liz and then they headed off back north.

Mick and Anne Marie were on the next pontoon and invited us around that night for drinks (sound familiar?) It was good to see them again, since we had completed a lot of the early part of this trip sailing together, and were looking forward to it.

We were hungry and knackered so Louise cooked up a quick omelette for breakfast and off for a quick kip, before exploring ashore.

Pornic has turned out to be one of my favourite places, it has a mediaeval feel mixed with the South of France, and a cracking beach just minutes from the Marina. We have decided to stay a few days before heading off to Ile de Yeu and then Sables D’Olonne where we hope to meet up with big Alec of Northern Ireland fame, who was part of the wooden top crew, i.e. me & him on Kevin’s “Krystal” a couple of years back.

I hope I haven’t included too many pictures , we have taken quite a few !

We are off to the restaurant below tonight as Louise has hankered after Moules et Frites since coming to France

and then meeting up with Anne-Marie and Mick to celebrate her birthday, although we are probably all suffering from the last 2 night’s celebrations of meeting up again on Camira & Fleur!

We went to the local beach for a lazy day the next day. 

and then the next day a walk into the neighbouring village Sainte Marie and back via the other side of Pornic, about 9 miles in total.

It’s no wonder I wanted to visit the “Cave au Vin “on the way back.

Since we reached France I wanted to be able to get the fabled wine out of a hose pipe et Voila!

It is now Saturday and the worsening weather has kept us here, but I can think of worse places to wait out a blow, just so we are not totally peeing you off with pictures of sunshine here’s one of today spent inside the boat catching up on the blog and reading because its blowing a hoolie.

Looks like we will still be here tomorrow, but we think it is market day so we will dander along there to see what that’s happening, I hope Louise doesn’t end up buying a cow to wash, she’s been practicing her French again !

After a fairly restless night due to an amazing thunder and lightning storm, we set off in the morning for Pornichet in the sunshine with the forecast for a force 4 gusting 5. Well, that was a bit of a bum steer. It was a 5 gusting 6, that combined with the swell of the Bay of Biscay and probably the remnants of last night’s storm it was my scariest day yet.

A nice sail before it kicked off !

We arrived at the marina which let me tell you is a wee tight entrance in the conditions, got in and had a look for a berth, the only one available was one where we were getting blown off. So in comes Gordon on the helm at a rate of knots and I manage to get myself onto the pontoon when a couple of men off the German boat in front of us come to help me secure the lines. Well! The next thing I see is this man hanging from our guard rails at the bow of the boat in water up to his waist. There I am, screaming to Gordon telling him to keep the bow out otherwise the man is in danger of getting crushed between the boat and the pontoon, the other man, his friend seemingly, is shouting to me that he will be fine, he obviously wasn’t looking at his mates face. The best bit of it was, all I could think of was he looked like Dennis the Menace hanging there with his red and black striped top on. Anyway, along comes the guy from the marine in a wee fishing boat thing and is trying to tell us to go to another berth, then he spots the man hanging from the bow and pulls him into his boat, his wife meanwhile was on the other boat taking photos of it, I have asked her to send them to me, if she does, I will post them. Talk about a pantomime! We were doing just fine on our own, but I suppose people are just being helpful. The German man (not the one hanging from the bow) was telling us later that this is what they call a summer storm(can’t remember the German for it), we told him it’s what we call “blowin a hoolie.” lines doubled up for the continuing onslaught.

 

The next day was overcast and the remnants of previous day so went for walk around Pornichet.Lots of varying architecture as you can see. Had a 3 course “formula “(fixed price) for lunch to get out of rain. Stuffed!!

 

On arrival we really liked it, we were told we could only have one night in our berth and the next day we would need to move as the same blinking race that had gone into Crouesty was now coming in here! That was fine, however, we got moved to the furthest away berth, it was a bugger to get into and we had every Tom Dick and Harry rafting against us, and it was only us, firstly another Moody 31 came against us, they moved and a French boat came in their place. There were other boats all along the pontoon but they all chose us. Must be my good looks or something. Anyway, the racers didn’t stay and as it happens we could probably have stayed where we were. Annoying!

We are staying here till Sunday, as it’s the 50^th anniversary of the Transat with the Pen Duicks of Eric Taberley, five or six of the Pen Duicks are coming in here tomorrow and there is meant to be all sorts of entertainment going on so we will hang around to see what happens.

It has been very hot and sunny, probably warmer than I thought it would be here which meant we had to sort out a sun awning sooner than we expected. We had Saturn Sails at home give us a quote for a simple A frame type that comes from the boom over the cockpit. They quoted £350 which we thought was a bit hefty. The chandlers here have a very similar one which was coming in about 200 – 285 Euros depending on the size. We were on the verge of buying one and had come back to the boat to measure up when we decided to get out a tarpaulin which Gordon had brought with him thinking it would come in handy if we were wintering the boat somewhere and might offer a bit of protection. Well, would you believe it, it’s more or less the perfect size and after a wee trip to the chandlers to buy a couple of meters of shock cord and some bungee clips which cost us a whole 7 Euros, we have a great sun awning. It might not be quite as refined as the one in the chandlers, but it does the exact same job. Result! Might even go and buy some of this great wine we have found at 1.50 Euros a bottle. Why can’t we get these sort of prices at home? On second thoughts, that might not be a good idea, I would only drink more. Anyway, Cheers!

Well the Pen Duicks arrived. Loads of boats went out into Quiberon Bay to meet them, then sailed into Trinite.

I must admit, my favourite of the boats was Pen Duick VI, absolutely nothing to do with the Skipper of that one.

 

The photo was only taken for Dave and Iain…….Mmm, well maybe not only them. Anyway, it was a good day and we went along to the concert at night,

it was a Cuban band playing and all the locals were dancing in the street. Needless to say, the Brits just watched. (Editor’s note …not correct I had a bit of a shimmy, George Benson eat your heart out)

 

Next stop was Port du Crouesty which was ok, nothing special. We only had one night there as some race was on the following day and we would have had to move berths so we just decided to back track to Trinite-Sur-Mer, one of the most famous sailing places for ocean going sailing and where some of France’s best sailors come from.

 

Port Hooligan as we called it on the Quiberon Peninsula was our next stop. (Proper spelling is Haliguen).

Our visitor’s berth in Port Hooligan and some so called “Arty Pics” from G.

We hired bikes while we were here and cycled up and down either side of the Peninsula. What a gorgeous area and it has some of the most beautiful beaches. Our plan was to go to the other end of the peninsula and go for lunch. Lunch never materialised as we had run out of cash and couldn’t get any out of the machine, the whole area had some electrical problem so bank ATM’s couldn’t give out cash and restaurants etc. couldn’t accept cards as their systems were also down. We had a total of twelve euros on us which we had to use sparingly along the way to get water, it was scorching and I had already been out that morning for a four mile run so was already dehydrated. None the less, we had a lovely day. (Editor’s note and I had two beers)

Port St Mary

Magellan at work

Provisions!

Chris and Roland came to us that night for a couple of drinks before dinner before having to return to their boat as they had some people coming for drinks after dinner. They look like such a quiet couple as well. Just goes to show you, looks can be deceiving. LOL.

I hope we meet up with them again.

 

After lunch we headed for the Tourist Information. Well, talk about helpful. They contacted the chandler in Lorient, which incidentally is a wee bit out of the way, but this wasn’t a problem. They told us to go to the end of the block and wait there; a very old red car would arrive and take us to the chandlers. Quite bizarre, however, a lovely woman from U Ship chandlers arrived and took us to the shop. She introduced us to her husband who sorted us out with gas and the appropriate fittings. If picking us up and taking us there wasn’t enough, she took us back to where we got the ferry back to Port Louis, but not before taking us a tour of the dock area and showing us the U-Boat Pens built by the Germans. We also got a wee look at the huge Volvo Ocean going race boats being built, all courtesy of the lovely lady from U Ship Chandlers.

As you enter Port Louis you are met by the old Citadel. We took a walk up here one night to watch the sun setting and have a look around.

There is a monument to the Free French and graves of those that were shot by the Germans

Our time in Port Louis was lovely, we were asked to join Chris and Roland on their lovely Halberg Rassy for drinks. We had a shot on Chris and Roland’s folding bikes, We think bikes would’ve been a good addition to equipment on board.

The following evening we were invited onto another nice yacht, a Sweden, again for drinks!!!. The guy Brian who owned that is also a yacht master examiner from Northern Ireland and knows our friend Kevin well. What a small world.

Editor’s note…dinner was at 9.00 o clock that night, didnae get another chorizo pizza as expected, the cook was 3 sheets to the wind ,so it was dinner on board

 

Here we are in Port Louis on 19th June. I was attracted to this place because I used to have a wee budgie called Louis and it kinda reminded me of him. It is about 35 miles further south and just next to Lorient.

Editor’s note….. all that time on money on RYA courses and we navigate by budgie !

We arrived here in the afternoon only to find that we had run out of gas. I thought we still had a bottle of calor gas from home, but alas, I was wrong. It’s camping gas they use here. Without even locking the boat up we hopped on the bus to the local supermarche to get some, however, they didn’t have the correct fitting for the gas bottle so our journey was in vain. The up side of this was I didn’t need to cook so we headed out for dinner. A lovely couple we met, Chris and Roland, recommended a wee restaurant that did the most amazing pizzas. Fab!

(Editor’s note … I’m doing a impersonation of Hannibal Lechter and

 

Louise is demonstrating the old joke ..Where’s your Buccaneer?   Answer   ………………….. ?

 

Again, because we had dilly dallied for a while, we only stayed in Audierne for the one night, in fact, as we were on a swinging mooring we didn’t even bother to go ashore, we were also getting up at five am in the morning to catch the tide so it was a good idea to get an early night.

On your way to Benodet you pass the Point de Penmarche which is considered to be the place where you enter French summertime cruising proper. True to form, the weather has been gorgeous. This is more like it.

We had a good sail leaving Audierne then the wind died completely on us and we had to motor sail the rest of the way to our next port of call which is where we are now. The main town is called Benodet but we are actually on the other side of the river in a place called Saint Marine. They are on the Odet, which is reputed to be one of the most beautiful rivers in France. It certainly is that, but I can tell you, the flow that runs through it is one of the strongest we have encountered which I suppose isn’t helped by the fact that it is a spring tide as well.

We successfully moored up on the visitors’ pontoon and went to the office to be told to move into one of the berths set aside for visitors in the small marina. By this time it was about an hour and a half later into a very strong flowing current. We found the berth and I merrily jumped off onto the shortest, narrowest, wobbliest pontoon I have ever seen. Honestly it was like something out of a Laurel and Hardy movie, me trying to keep my balance squatting down to desperately hoop this line round the cleat which I kept missing. We have been here a couple of days, now I don’t feel so bad, I have seen the same thing happen to a few people so it’s not my big fat bum that was unbalancing me.(Editor’s note – I don’t know? From recollection of my physics lessons low slung weight / centre of gravity etc.!!)

 

 

 

We walked into Combrit on Saturday through the forest which was nice and cool

  

 

 

 

 

and on Sunday we decided to have a day on the beach, where we had our first dip in the Atlantic……..cold? Yes, just a tad, but once you were in it was lovely. The beach here is gorgeous; it’s about six miles long and very quiet. It takes you all the way on to Ile Tudy which is another beautiful wee village with a nice marina.

   

 

 

On Sunday night we decided to eat out ……………. we had walked about ten miles and we had run out of wine. Can you believe it? We are in France a country that’s all about wine and we run out of it.

We are not quite into the French way of things yet, as you can see from the earlier Brest instalment. If you want to go anywhere or buy anything here, don’t do it on a Sunday or a Monday, the supermarket closed at 12.45 which we thought was 7pm, the restaurant we wanted to go to was also closed.

 

“All dressed up & Naewhere to go”

We did find a pizzeria where they did a nice “Pichet” for 6 euros.

At that point we had a call from our friends Billy & Jayne who are currently in Portugal- also out for a meal, I bet they are not having 6 euro pichets de vin rouge ………… is that right you two?     LOL

As explained Benodet is the main town literally swimming distance across the river from where we are in St. Marine and usually there is a wee ferry that runs every half hour. Yesterday we were getting ready to go for it and just having a cup of tea when there was an almighty crunch – a French yacht had lost engine power in the river and crashed into us! No major damage done just a wee chip out the gel coat. I think Camira will have a few battle scars by the time she sees the Clyde again!

So after getting him off us and into a berth we go up for the ferry, which you will all have guessed by now disnae appear at the allotted time of midi et demi. Gordon phoned the number on the timetable to be told that it wasn’t running this week. So rucksacks on again for 8 mile return walk over the bridge to the Super Marché.

“Waiting for the ferry”

 

“Views from the bridge”

   

“Pics in Benodet during hike to supermarket”

“St Marine in background – where we came from”

“Walk back”

“The result – king prawn & crab linguine”

Incidentally we have clocked up about 50 miles walking in June to date and the same for May. We are just chilling around the boat today, planning our next move and catching up on the blog while we have good wifi.

Hope you are all well

 

On the chart this looks pretty straight forward, but can be anything but – even in meagre wind over tide conditions, and has been one passage Gordon has not been looking forward to. I enclose a picture of it, albeit in severe conditions, to compare with the benign conditions of a Northerly wind and a South going tide that we encountered.

However, with planning and the weather gods, we went through it with full sail up and a nice north easterly 3 – 4 blowing.

We reached Audirene about 19:00 in a fresh breeze and picked up a mooring for the night.