Caves in Morgat
We ended up spending nearly a week in Douarnenez waiting for the wind to stop blowing from the south. We caught up on lots of jobs on board and enjoyed a trip to the circus (ethics may have been a bit questionable with lions, tigers, camels, even performing dogs and cats..)
We had our first visitor from the UK, Chloe, who joined us at the holiday town of Morgat, with its lovely sandy beach and deep caves in the rock face. She joined us for the trip through the Raz de Sein, which didn’t live up to its fearsome reputation. The wind died before we got there and we motored round the headland in an oily-smooth sea. We spent a pleasant evening in the little fishing harbour of Audierne, dining at a waterfront restaurant and watching yachts getting caught on the shallow sand bar at the entrance of the river.
After that, we have been blessed with perfect sailing weather – winds from behind, average force 4. We are now in the Vilaine river, having coast-hopped our way down. The first stop was Benodet, a beautiful river reminiscent of Dartmouth but with an overwhelming number of boats packed into marinas at the entrance. Further up was much more tranquil with fantastic waterside properties, almost castles.
At Lorient, we crossed paths with a big sailing fleet, ‘La Route de l’Amitié’, some 150 boats, mostly French, (some British) doing a tour of Finistère, including some old Breton fishing boats. We got chatting to one of the organisers, whose crew included a man who knew a man who keeps his (junk-rigged) boat on the Exe and who knew us. It’s a small world!
Next stop was the Morbihan, a sort of inland lake full of little islands where we spent a couple of days. Being tidal, the current can get quite fierce in places. Our speed topped 10 knots going with the tide, but against it we found ourselves sailing nicely through the water but actually going backwards! We met up with old friends here who we originally met seven years ago travelling through the French canals in Sea Dream. It was lovely to catch up with each other and our respective new bigger boats.
We passed through a lock to enter the canalised Viliane river, where the first stop was la Roche Bernard, where our friends keep their boat. Today, we have come some 15 miles up river to the town of Redon, a journey which brought back memories of our canal trips in Sea Dream.
So far we have not been charged for mooring anywhere since we left England, the sun is shining here, life is pretty good!
We had our first visitor from the UK, Chloe, who joined us at the holiday town of Morgat, with its lovely sandy beach and deep caves in the rock face. She joined us for the trip through the Raz de Sein, which didn’t live up to its fearsome reputation. The wind died before we got there and we motored round the headland in an oily-smooth sea. We spent a pleasant evening in the little fishing harbour of Audierne, dining at a waterfront restaurant and watching yachts getting caught on the shallow sand bar at the entrance of the river.
After that, we have been blessed with perfect sailing weather – winds from behind, average force 4. We are now in the Vilaine river, having coast-hopped our way down. The first stop was Benodet, a beautiful river reminiscent of Dartmouth but with an overwhelming number of boats packed into marinas at the entrance. Further up was much more tranquil with fantastic waterside properties, almost castles.
At Lorient, we crossed paths with a big sailing fleet, ‘La Route de l’Amitié’, some 150 boats, mostly French, (some British) doing a tour of Finistère, including some old Breton fishing boats. We got chatting to one of the organisers, whose crew included a man who knew a man who keeps his (junk-rigged) boat on the Exe and who knew us. It’s a small world!
Next stop was the Morbihan, a sort of inland lake full of little islands where we spent a couple of days. Being tidal, the current can get quite fierce in places. Our speed topped 10 knots going with the tide, but against it we found ourselves sailing nicely through the water but actually going backwards! We met up with old friends here who we originally met seven years ago travelling through the French canals in Sea Dream. It was lovely to catch up with each other and our respective new bigger boats.
We passed through a lock to enter the canalised Viliane river, where the first stop was la Roche Bernard, where our friends keep their boat. Today, we have come some 15 miles up river to the town of Redon, a journey which brought back memories of our canal trips in Sea Dream.
So far we have not been charged for mooring anywhere since we left England, the sun is shining here, life is pretty good!
posted by Katie at 8:29 PM
1 Comments:
We are visiting this area in the summer (August). It looks like we'll have to add the caves to our itinerary of things to see and do.
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