Isle d'Yeu

 We had decided to stay on the island for the weekend as the weather was looking decidedly windless. So it turned out to be. In the morning I took a walk to a local Boulangerie which had the novel claim to cook their bread in wood fired ovens. Lynne was beginning to think she was in one too so I delved into the recesses of out huge cockpit locker to retrieve our sun awning. I hadn't expected to need this before the tropics!

However it made a very pleasant place to eat lunch.

With a nice view of the harbour.

We thought a walk around might be a good idea so we left the marina and ambled to the nearest beach, which turned out to be just outside the marina.

 Lynne was disappointed to discover there were no naturist beaches on the Isle d'Yeu.

The Marina is just in the background in this photo.

I had a hankering to walk inland. I had recently discovered that Marshal Petin had been imprisoned on the island after the war and had died at the citadel in 1951. We consulted our map and spent a pleasant half an hour wandering around the interior. Ie d'Yeu is very well populated I am guessing the majority of houses are holiday homes. Before long we arrived at the Citadel, it comes on you quite suddenly at the bottom of a wooded lane.

 It has a large dry moat and obviously at one time a drawbridge, the walls are decorated with cemented in canons.

 We walked around and had a good look at everything , there were information boards telling the story of various periods in the citadels history but curiously we could find no mention of Marshal Petin, perhaps it was a shameful memory.

Some of the passages were very dark and gloomy.

 We made our way back towards the harbour and stopped of to resupply with cool drinks at a local supermarket before finding a cool spot to sit beside the busy harbour.

The temperature was over 30 degrees and this was at 5 in the afternoon. We made our way back to Dark Tarn and tried to stay cool under our awning.

Ready for an evening on the town!

Pornichet to Isle d'Yeu

After what seemed an interminable few days of wind and rain the day we were due to leave arrived exactly as forecast except for a large amount of fog.we motored out of the Marina into a grey, still bay and plotted a course for the only other passage through the outlying reefs, the le trouves passage.

The sea was flat and oily as we raised the mainsail. The wind was a rather desultory force 1 and I resigned myself to motorsailing most of the way.

As we headed out towards the Lambarde banks we managed to get full sail up and it gave us a couple of knots of extra speed so we could cut down the engine revs. After a couple of hours we were approaching the anchorage / holding point for vessels entering St Nazaire. I was surprised to see a red ensign defaced with the three legs of Man belonging to a ship called the " Happy Fellow" registered in Douglas, Isle of Man.

That's it behind Lynnes head.

There were half a dozen huge ships at anchor waiting to negotiate the narrow channel to St Nazaire.

Soon we came up on the distinctive twin lighthouses of the Isle du Pilier.

The winds remained light but there was a long lazy swell, probably a remnant of the recent high winds. I re-plotted our course to go safely around a large group of rocks known as Le Boeffs the key to which were two cardinal buoys ( west ) lthey came up reassuringly as expected.

In a few hours the low lying coastline of Isle d'yeu came into sight.

We had planned to head for the only harbour of any size on the island port Joinville.

This is on the N.E. Coast of the island.

The island is only about 5 miles long and is joined to the mainland by a surprisingly shallow shelf that you can see in the charts as the light blue section which indicates it's less than 10 Mts deep.

Lynne got on the radio when we were a mile or so out and confirmed that there was room for us in the Marina, we were a little worried as it was still holiday time, but we were in luck ( and a little early ) and we were directed onto a berth quickly. Unfortunately it was a finger berth with a pretty common arrangement in France of loop cleats and a loop end.

This makes the " faf  factor " pretty high especially as there are only the two of us. However with the assistance of a couple of French ladies all was accomplished without major incident.

Port Joinville had a real southern feel with narrow streets, blue painted shutters and tiled roofs.

It also had one of the best fish shops anywhere.

We had decided to stay for the weekend so we could explore properly.

Pornichet

We decided to dawdle a wee while in Pornichet as the forecast for the few days in front of us was suggesting gales.

This gave us the chance to explore the rather touristy town. We were surprised yet again. Just behind the seafront that at first sight seems to bear a passing resemblence to Benidorm is an architectural feast! In the 19th and early 20th century Pornichet became a popular holiday destination for wealthy Parisian family's and they built holiday homes, some small, some large and the architects seemed to have been in competition. Witness the Hotel de vile.

A little way away is a small bungalow with some very impressive Doric columns.

This is one of Lynnes favourites in the centre of town. I could go on and on but 

it is truly a delight just to wander about 

I couldn't resist including this little beauty.

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Isn't it fabulous?

On closer inspection even the hotel lined beach is impressive. I was particularly taken by the beach furniture.

In true holiday fashion we even discovered a chippy.

Of course the newspaper wasn't real and the wooden fork was actually a beautifully crafted set of wooden cutlery but it tasted delicious.........

A regular sight on the causeway that joined the artificial marina to the mainland was fishing using square nets, I suspect it's what's known as peche a pied. They seemed to catch a lot of what I know as whitebait, small silvery fish.

All to soon sunbathing ( Lynne had discovered a liking for naturism ) had to stop as the predicted gales set in.

We were confined to the boat for a couple of days as the wind and rain passed over us.

In times when the rain stopped for a while we would walk into town for a coffee and a stretch of the legs.

We also discovered the old town, again somewhat hidden away on our search for a supermarche to stock up on supplies.

A nice touch was that every light at the checkouts in the Intermarche was named after a lighthouse or "Phare". We felt quite at home!

Finally a red sky at night gave us some hope for a break in the weather.

On the last night we discovered a great bar in the old town, it was a bistro run by a biker and had great atmosphere, it was also the second time in France that we had been bought a drink " on the house " Lynne also discovered a taste for Honey Jack Daniels, which is odd as she likes neither honey or whiskey, particularly not bourbon. However it comes in a neat glass.

Time to move on once again.........

St Marc sur Mer

Pornichet is described in the pilot as being a huge modern and rather dull marina, this isn't strictly accurate. Huge it certainly is however it's very limited in the size of boat it can accommodate ( we are towards the top end ) it is no longer modern in fact is a little shabby and it could be considered dull but in fact everyone we met here is very friendly, they are almost all French and have small yachts or motor boats and the main preoccupation seems to be fishing.

However we were here for another reason.

I have been a fan of the films of Jaques Tati for some time and one in particular " les vacances de M Hulot " it was filmed, well the exterior shots were, at St Marc sur Mer which is just along the coast from Pornichet. There is an occasional anchorage there but it involves some intricate pilotage and a large scale chart. It would also require one of us to stay on the boat on ' anchor watch ', We decided on the easy option. A trip to the tourist information as usual proved invaluable. We would need to catch two buses, one of which was free and the tickets required for the other we could buy at the tourist information. Armed with our maps and timetables we set off. It all went very well and the free bus driver especially was very helpful and spoke excellent English.

In what's becoming a regular occurrence there was a market on in St Marc when we arrived but the sign for the beach told us all we needed to know, we had made it!

We wandered a short way down the street towards the " Plage de M Hulot " and the hotel on the beach where the majority of the film is set.

Of course things have changed slightly since 1953 however M Hulot himself still  regards the beach in typical pose however when the statue was installed someone stole his pipe and it has never been replaced.

As we had arrived coincidentally at lunchtime the beach was deserted, a running gag in the movie that like all good comedy is based on close observation. Of course we had lunch in the English fashion 'on '  the beach.

The beach itself and the small mole and rocks are very familiar although there are new buildings ( not too many ) and the hotel seems to have grown a new wing and frontage. The front entrance from the beach in the movie was apparently built for the film and was false.

These two photos are from roughly the same angle ( but not altitude obviously as the balcony which was also featured quite a lot was also built specially for the film.

These two photos are not quite the same distance but the angle is similar.

There is now a modern observation platform built adjacent to the hotel ( upon which the statue sits or rather stands )

As usual we were overheating and having forgot our swimming stuff had to be content with a paddle in the sea. I kept an eye out for M Hulots canoe crocodile!

As we walked around the town we noticed some little beach huts which proved to provide information about scenes in the film.

This one for example marks the location of the tennis courts where M Hulot astonishes everyone with his unique serve. It is now a children's playground.

Although only a few miles from Le Baul which is a bustling tourist town and Being effectively a suburb of St Nazaire, St Marc sur Mer has retained that sleepy Brittany seaside town feel and is utterly charming. It's also quite beautiful. We had a great day out and finished up by having a cooling beer in ,where else? The bar Hu'lot........you would have had to have watched the movie to understand the significance of the apostrophe.