Ocean40

St Martin, Ile D’Re

After the hurly burly of La Rochelle we headed to St Martin-en-Re, Ile D’Re.

Arrival and departure fun:

Access is High water +/- 3 hours- plenty of time after we left La Rochelle at dawn just 12 miles away.

St Martin was a heavily fortified town whose sea access is narrow: just about enough for one boat in either direction. Access to the marina is controlled by a lock and overhead gate.

You arrive at the right sort of time to find:

a) all the boats who are leaving on that tide do so in a long procession – so it’s dodge the outgoing stream of boats as best you can: They have nowhere to go but out and that’s where they are going.

b) after passing through the narrow entrance into the avant (outer) port you find all your new mates hanging around waiting to go in – in our case about 6 or so other boats waiting for the green light.

c) the green light comes on: boats are directed to come in one at a time, unless you are Filibuster and not knowing the process –  we decided to make it happen and went in first.

d) you are told where to raft, because raft you will as there is little space left for any other form of parking. You will be put alongside something of around the same size.

And so the place starts to fill. And from nowhere another dozen boats appear. All wanting in.

But the Harbourmaster (AKA Master of Ceremonies) has seen it all before.

One at a time: you over there, next boat over here and so on. Everything neat and tidy until there’s no more room.

In our case we ended up 3rd out on raft v2. By the time it all finished we had another 3 boats attached.

4 new arrivals, 3 existing.About the same behind, about the same in front. So all in all say 20 boats in a space about 20 boats big.

Getting Out Fun

So, the boats on our inside have clearly been in St Martin longer than we, and in all probability will depart soon than we do. And that’s just what happens on the next session.

With so many trog watchers (this is after all a spectator sport) no one wants to get it wrong. We all talk: English/English, French/French, Franglais/Franglais. And the Brits have a pre-match huddle: after all we are superior sailors and can’t let the side down on an away game.

We all work out the who’s who: who on the outside is going, who is staying. Who on the inside needs surrounding neighbours to move to enable their exit. By the time the lock gate opens everyone has a sort of game plan, temporary shore lines are made, Electricity disconnected. Exit ways primed.

And then it starts: boats peel off and leave, boats head townward and lurk until their space is re-created, boats go sideways to enter exit ways that have just appeared. It’s solitaire on a big scale.

Those with bow thrusters use them and superior sailors don’t.

And one by one the melee expands, inner boats leave, boats on the outside move inward to fill the space. Stayers settle back and await the new arrivals.

All done with the most convivial attitude: everyone helps to make space, tug, push and manoevure in the friendliest and most helpful way possible. A nudge here, rev of engine there.

 A perfect place?

Can’t be far off: very high on our rate-a-marina scale for:

– nice location, near town, interesting, good ambiance, peaceful at night
– good hospitality

– good facilities and not too expensive

– great food (both at restaurants and markets)

A must see place to go to and go back again too.

 

Enough of boaty stuff: you all want to know about St Martin don’t you? and that will indeed be the next installment.

 

 

La Rochelle Pt 2

La Rochelle, La Rochelle, La Rochelle ?

Through the Twin Towers – probably the most outstanding entry to any port:

But I couldn’t work out if

a)      I loved La Rochelle and wanted to stay

b)      I hated La Rochelle and wanted to get away

So I’ll give you pros and cons

You will love La Rochelle:

• If you are hungry:
  • The old port is absolutely surrounded by restaurants of every type from Tapas (yum) to fish (yum) to everyday French (yum)
  • If you like historic well preserved old ports
    • See some of the photos, but with its white stone buildings, historic towers and old port right in the centre it’s a beautiful place that is well preserved

    

    

    olde style wine bar…

    

    back streets with nice shops

    

    front streets with nice shops

    
    
  • If you like nice shopping:
    • Beyond the immediate port side there are streets and streets of shops with nice clothes, accessories and chic things for your house
  • Because of the climate: during our stay mainly mid twenties by day, full sun. Warm evenings. No dew
  • If you like quick airport transfers
    • By bus €1.30 each way, about 20 minutes from the centre. €15 by taxi.

Why not la Rochelle?

Can’t work out why we are in two minds? After all who wouldn’t love the above. And there’s the problem – everyone does love La Rochelle to the point that it is absolutely overrun with tourists (include the author).

 

Everywhere. A non stop process of walking from A to B and back, a conveyor belt of humanity nudging, bumping, shoving, nattering and chattering.

Allo, bonjour, bonsoir, au revoir, a bientot, a demain and on and on. Interrupted by the roar of the traffic and the seemingly endless supply of young French motorcyclists determined to let you and everyone else know how fast their machines accelerate.

After the peace and quiet of mega marina Les Minimes we stayed in the beautiful setting of the old port to await arrival of James. He arrived. We ate. We didn’t sleep much and set off as soon as we could the next morning vowing never to come back.

But we did come back!

A week later to despatch Zoe and James back home. This time we stayed in Bassin des Chalutiers. A quieter spot (well not so quiet due to the crew of a 60ft yacht having a good time late into the night just behind us). We left for the peace and quiet of Les Minimes as soon as we could…..

The Aquarium

If you do visit La Rochelle you must reserve 2 hours to visit the Aquarium: €14 a head and worth every penny to see just about everything the sea has to offer.

No smelly set of small tanks this affair. You have full view in dozens of different tanks of all sorts of creatures from all over the world. The largest tank is probably 10m deep and you get glimpses at all levels.

Very highly recommended.

As for La Rochelle

I’d love to go back outside of the height of the tourism season. For the time being it’s just one of those places that you have to imagine without all the other tourists

 

 

La Rochelle Pt 3 – not all coming home?

Missing pt2 ? watch this space for so much to say about beautiful La Rochelle.  (and plenty more for Ile de Re yet to come)

Pt3 is  a quickie, more an observation on one thing that is especially nice here: the climate.

It’s getting on for 9pm.Note the new nautical clock:

We’ve got about an hour of direct sunlight left.

 

We’ve just eaten Noix St Jaques up in the cockpit..mmm

I’m savouring a nice glass of Saumur White (French of course) you can see it there bottom right….

slurp…

Note polo shirt: it’s warm, I would guess low to mid twenties…

We’ve missed the last boat to Wales….

It’s the 13th August. The nearest equivalent to crow flying works out at 450 miles to base. that’s a long long haul when 60 miles a day is hard work and needing a rest day in every 2: not what we want really…

So we’ve decided to not bring the boat back to Wales…..Hang around here a bit longer…sail around here a bit longer ….stay in the sun a bit longer and enjoy the warm as long as poss…

But we are heading North

So that’s it for facing South. We’re heading North tomorrow (14th Aug), eventually to Arzal-Camouel where we might leave Filibuster. About 3 or 4 days away depending on what we find (Ile d’Yeu being one place we’d like to find again – anchor up, swim in 20deg C water etc….)

And then we just need to get back to home in England and car in Wales…

 

Le Belle Isle – Pt 2

What do most people do on holiday?

• eat too much
• drink too much
• eye up the local talent
• hire a scooter

Well it seems that on Le Belle Isle all of the above. It’s stuffed full of bars and eateries that are just right for people watching.

And when you get bored of that then why not hark back to your youth and do something you haven’t done for years?

Yes – hire a scooter. OK I have to admit to never having ridden a scooter in my life, being an ex member of the loud, proud and oily British Motorcycle Owners Club.

Belle Isle is about 17km long and 3km wide: too much to walk but grease the palm of the local hire place (right on the quay) with about fifty squids and you have a trusty Honda 110cc scooter for the day.

The last time I rode a motorcycle was in 1984 – a different epoch. Perhaps my reactions were faster in those days but wobbling along with trusty wife on trusty steed was a whole new experience. 30mph has never seemed so scary….

…at one stage we even reached 50mph! But trusty wife on the back of trusty steed bottled out at this pace and requested something a bit slower. We settled on island buzzing at around 40mph…..

We buzzed to the South – the tiny beach at Locmaria overlooked by ancient manor house:

 

 

 

We buzzed to the West: Le Phare Goulpar: one of France’s premier league lighthouses

 

We roared to the north – don’t park your boat here:

 

 

 

But here is supposedly safe – not far away at Ster Wenn on the NW cost. Apparently exposed to a NW swell, which was indeed running that day and the boats at anchor looked very uncomfortable.

 

 

 

Via Sara Bernhardt’s castle:

 

(she got so tee’d of with hangers-on visiting her that she had a new place built for them, the roof of which happened to be a great place to take this photo)

 

 

 

 

And our last stop was beautiful Sauzon:

We would really like to get back to Sauzon: although just a few miles away from Le Palaise the pace of life was just so completely relaxed it could have been a different planet.

So there you have Le belle Isle

In less than a few words. it can be summed up as frenetic. It never stops, it’s noisy, it’s fun, the port is busy 24 hours a day, people buzz around on scooters and all sorts on small hire cars. It’s that kind of active holiday place.

Having completed this post after visiting Ile D’Yeu and chi chi St Martin on Ile de Re it’s worth waiting for the completed posts from those places as they are all very different kinds of islands.

 

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.