Ocean40

Les Minimes Marina, La Rochelle

A quick post about what happens when man gets it wrong vs mother nature.

We are in Les Minimes, one of Europe’s largest marinas, if not the largest. It’s huge and the photo above doesn’t even show half of it.

 

The observant will notice that the top metre of the piles holding

everything together appears to be new.

They are new.

On 28th Feb 2010 a storm devastated the marina, along with many boats still inside. A key cause was that on the storm surge atop a high tide the pontoons overtopped the original piles and they, and anything attached to them went their own way.

This post by Micheal Briant gives plenty of background and photos of the destruction.

 

 

 

 

Ile D’Yeu

From Belle Isle to Isle D’Yeu is a long day sail (and we did sail most of it).

You cross the mouth of the Loire and with it witness the change from solid granite walled, slate tiled buildings to whitewash and clay tile.

A distinctly Mediterranean feel washes over everything. And it’s warm without a night time dew as in the more northerly ports.

There are bicycles everywhere….

We have to rush off from here to meet Zoe in La Rochelle so there’s only a couple of photos to show right now:

Our last night was outstanding as we got together with our neighbouring brit boat and created this meal on board:

olive bread sticks and humus

prawns in batter with dipping sauce

pain fougass

anchovies in spiced olive oil

fresh green salad with mint, tomatoes and challotes, basil and chives

pan fried tuna steak marinated with crushed black pepper and olive oil

washed down with water & a couple of bottles of wine

All in all costing about €7 a head

Eating out on the back of Filibuster and chatting till dark

…..Heaven….

…we will be back, hopefully soon..

(written in a bit of a rush, en route and 10nm out of La Rochelle)

Le Palais, Belle Isle pt 1

They say New York, New York so beautiful they named it twice. (I’ve been there, I think they couldn’t think of much else to say).

But think of Le Palais, Belle Isle, an island off the west coast of France: now doesn’t that conjure up all sorts of imaginations. I’ve now been there as well and it is worth talking about.

But first let’s get the stressful bit of arrival over with:

The pilot guide says:

“when will we ever learn, Le Palais is rapidly gaining an unenviable reputation as a place where not to park your boat. Many folk visit and vow never again!….

Ok, if you still insist, get there early, bring plenty of fenders and a king size sense of humour

”
Well we did insist. Our only other choice that day would have been Port Haliguen, a marina so vast, soulless and particularly unpleasant for visitors (eg nearly 1km walk to the loos) we care to avoid if at all possible.

So to Le Palais, Belle Isle with joy and anticipation – a new place for us. Arrived early as per instructions, fendered out to the max, mooring lines on every cleat ready to take on the challenge.

First unusual thing: they have 3x 3.1m ribs with 10HP engines. They buzz around the harbour, locating, directing, shoving, tugging and cajoling boats into spaces. They do this with a demonic verve because at peak times there’s an awful lot going on.

So a quick intro to the mooring system will set the scene.

• there is a big granite harbour wall with substantial chains hanging off it every 15m or so. Number 1-8, 1 being the outermost
• there are 8 mooring buoys set around 60′ from the wall, roughly in line with the chains.
• Another 4 buoys set around a further 40′ out, but inner the harbour

This is how it goes:

One of the guys on ribs, let’s call him Mr McEnery, locates us and becomes our man:

• “Monsieur -vous allez en reverse la bas” pointing somewhere to chain number 3 and buoy number 4
• Quoi, je pense. You want me to reverse toward that granite wall, in the hope that someone (possibly wife aided by McEnery) will put a warp onto our buoy before I hit the wall?
• “Oui monsieur”
• OK. we go backwards toward said granite wall.
• Amazingly a warp does indeed get put around buoy no 4

We stop. Buoy 60′ out, warp 5′, boat 40′ leaves us 15ft adrift of chain, stopped, wind and boat momentum carrying us sideways.

Towards, in sort of reverse, our nearest neighbour to be. Actually very, very close to our fortunately unpopulated neighbour to be. Hmm -a bit of forward power needed to avoid le crunch..

Meanwhile McEnery has whizzed around the back to take our longest line, thread through chain and back to boat. We could be moored in a jiffy… mais il y a un probleme…

– “You ‘ave a longeur ligne?” dit McEnery, on account that a) our longest ligne is no longer long enough as we are now heading forward on account of my desire not to get too friendly with our yet to be neighbour’s home.

So we pause. Boat going forward, Michele holding on the bow, McEnery holding the not long enough ligne whilst I dig down in the locker for another bit of not used very recently rope.

With not used very recently bit of rope now tied on and other end delivered to McEnry on his rib now simultaneously holding shorter than needed warp, standing in rib with power on preventing us meeting soon to be neighbour sooner than needed, smoking a gauloise, steering with foot AND on the phone, tying both bits of rope together.

(well maybe I exaggerate a bit for the benefit of creating the scene that must now be in your mind’s eye)

And then we are there…attached…nous sommes arrives. relax

McEnery buzzes off to deal with the next crisis. Adrenalin levels reduce. We are fully attached in our own bit of water in an interesting harbour overlooked by Le Palais and the Citadel. Nice.

Read on..there’s more..

We are not the on the only ones to visit Le Palais

So armed with a nice cuppa and reducing adrenalin levels we decided to sit back, take in the scenery and watch what happens to other boats.

Fascinating. Hypnotic.

First of all remember the 8 inner buoys, now with with a couple of boats on each and, in  my mind, looking a bit full. A bit short of space.

How wrong can one be?

First of all the “ram them in tactic” gets used. This is where boats are encouraged to drive on and “open a space”. Everyone on board a stationary boats sees a new neighbour coming in, grabs and pushes against them as they arrive. Self preservation again avoids le crunch and magically opens a new boat sized space for new neighbour.

All in good humour because that’s how it’s done.

Secondly, after the “ram them in” tactic has resulted in no more obvious boat sized gaps left, McEnery and mates reappear and use their ribs to push boats apart. More spaces open up and instantly get filled with boat.

Finally, when the number of boats crammed in = space available less 1x fag packet each, the place is full. Really full. A new commune of boat people forms, fenders squeak, fenders groan, and  everyone is cordial and happy because we‘ve “got there”.

With the outer row of buoys also now full that’s it. The poor souls on the inside are not going anywhere.

 

So what else goes on?

It’s a bit hypnotic really: across the fairway the McEnrys do the same for smaller boats.

Ferrys come and go with astonishing regularity. The whole harbour is hyper.

Late arrivals get turned away (nous sommes desole, mais nous sommes plein!)…= you should have got here earlier

 

 

Enough of the mechanics of hi stress boat parking, the next post will cover what we did on Belle Isle.

 

Loctudy

 

 

  and

 

 

But did we care? No- because we were in Loctudy

 

 

But let me digress a bit before getting back to the subject

Take a closer look a this photo panorama, taken from the back of Filibuster and looking across to Isle Tudy later that day.

The 2 French yachts on the left allow me to make a gross generalisation about French sailors:

French sailors like to commune with nature, to sail right at the forefront of their boats capability. And they are good at it too. Both the aforementioned boats had sailed through horrendous conditions: monsoon strength rain with 30+knot winds.

You will notice that they have no sprayhoods or dodgers and get whatever Mother Nature throws at them in the face. I suspect that Mother Nature, who is French in these parts, takes their principal of communing with her and gives it a Gallic shrug.

Us Brits (at least the two of us on Filibuster) prefer to put a bit of fabric in the way and as a result don’t generally arrive looking half drowned and needing to bail out the boat 🙂

Anyway, enough of digressing, I’ve said it and got that off my chest.

Why we love Loctudy

To start it’s a nice place to arrive: greeted by the chequerboard tower of Perdrix on  the way in and straight into a berth view a view.

Loctudy’s marina is another small communal boat parking place with friendly staff who generally come out to meet, greet and place you.

But perhaps the real reason is the seafood from the adjacent fishing port:

 

 

 

 

 

All in a couple of hours. The langoustines were still fighting back before we cooked them…

And another thing is the price: a demi kilo of best langoustines and and 7 bottles of fine Muscadet sur Lie (one cold for drinking the others destined for the UK) came to just over £40 from Viviers de Loctudy.

The following night was moules mouclade, (light creamy curry sauce) cooked by Michele with the main ingredient costing under €3.

Add another bouteille of fine Muscadet (oops, that one isn’t going back to the UK) and you have a meal for two for under £6.

Nice place, friendly staff, super fresh seafood, excellent wines, great views. Loctudy is a mandatory stop in both directions.

Camaret sur Mer

Panoramic view of the harbour front in Camaret sur Mer taken from Filibuster.

From the right: bar, bar, restaurant, restaurant, restaurant, bar, gift shop, restaurant…..boulangerie, bar, restaurant, chemist, gift shop.

What’s not to like? moored in the right spot you get great views of the nearby harbour side all the way across to the distant commercial port.

Note no forest of masts and yet we were in a marina!.

 

 

 

A bit of history

Camaret has a fascinating history. Vauban’s tower in the picture of the entrance was successfully (very successfully) used to defend the port against a large Anglo-Dutch invasion.

The port subsequently thrived as a fishing port until the economics of the industry dictated larger vessels and better transport connections that other ports could offer. Relics of the age of fishing remain on the beach as a reminder.

Perfectly situated in sheltered waters Camaret is often our first and last stop in France. It’s convenient for Brest (8 miles by boat) with it’s airport and scheduled flights to Southampton.

For yachties it also comes with 2 marinas, diesel berth, cash points, a really good supermarket, delis, bars, chandlery, poissonerie and a more interesting than usual artisan quarter.

Excellent beaches make up the full complement for this little port.

As I said, what’s not to like about Camaret sur Mer?

 

Camaret sur Mer and the Navigation system

We made it to Camaret sur Mer yesterday (23 July) after a long motor from St Agnes in the Scillies…..

Our route took us through Chanel De Helle / Chanel du Four: the pilot guide says something like this about the area:

“Avoid going through in anything other than fine weather with good visibility unless you have a good navigation system with up to date charts”

Well, after a flat calm night we arrived at the entrance to “Hell Chanel” and no sooner had we committed ourselves when a thick fog rolled in:

Visibility dropped to 50-100 yards. Tide ran at around 5kn. dangerous rocks were all around. Unseen vessels were heard to pass near by.

It would  have been the nightmare scenario just a few years ago.

Having the right kit and team

Fortunately Filibuster has en excellent navigation system using state of the art technolgy as pictured the following day in sunny Camaret.

Our helm (Andrew Wiltshire) expertly guided by the navigator (Tim Greathead) got us to our destination safe and sound.

….and the sun came out 🙂

Addendum: check performance of the nav system

(blue line = desired track, orange = actual)

Tresco

Hot sunny windy…..perfect…

The crew: Andrew Wiltshire and Tim Greathead.

As so often the case with the Scillies, the weather can change quickly: here’s two shots taken looking North Saturday evening and the following morning.