Culture Vultures....

We were enjoying Port Louis hugely, we had croissants every morning and a coffee every afternoon. We also spent an afternoon on the beach sunbathing and swimming. Generally being lazy and loving the lifestyle and many events of the Festival. When the sky eventually went a little cloudy we took it as a sign to get indoors and seek out a museum or two. First on the list was the Citadel itself that we had sailed past a few days previously.

It has an impressive entrance, with two separate drawbridges and a tidal moat. It actually has two separate museums one a maritime museum and the other a museum of the indies, which houses artefacts from the East Indies company founded in Lorient in the 18th century.

Also of course there is the Citadel itself which is well worth a visit in its own right. A perfectly preserved or should I say extensively rebuilt Napoleonic Fortress. Of course history isn't static and the forts history extend well into the 20 th century, being used by the Germans during the Second World War as an anti-aircraft battery and prison for resistance fighters. There is a moving memorial outside one of the walls to 69 resistance men and women who were shot en masse on that spot. The full story is illustrated in one of the many rooms within the fortress.

The views from the ramparts are superb.

Another set of rooms houses an exhibition telling the story of the French Sauvettage ( Lifeboat ) Service. Above is an early example that was originally based at Roscoff and was found on a beach at Dournenez and rescued her teak planking still in good condition after 100 years!

The history of the port of Lorient is very much involved with fishing and the East Indies company which largely built the town from the ground up, the diorama above shows what it looked like.

The company built hundreds of " Indiamen ", frigate sized trading ships that traded with India and China for silks spices and ceramics. Fascinating look into the past.

We woke up to bagpipe music, of course it was still Festival time. There were Scottish and Irish pipe bands playing on the quay.

That morning we decided to get a waterbus again to Lorient to look at the U-boat pens. During the war Lorient was the biggest submarine base on the west coast for the Kriegsmarine, Admiral Dounitz's red villa is still to be seen at Kourneval on the seafront.

There are three huge bunkers known as K1 K2 and K3, the K standing for the small peninsula  they stand on, Keroman. We arranged to go on a couple of guided tours, English speaking of course, our French isn't up to history lectures quite yet! Our guide was very informative and we began the tour by the slipways were submarines were brought out of the water then by some cunning engineering were slid into the concrete pens so as to be safe from air attack.

Safe they certainly were, the concrete roofs of K1 and K2 were 5 metres thick, the roof of K3 was 7 metres and was invulnerable even to the largest allied bomb the " Tallboy ".

After the war the pens were taken over by the French navy but remained largely unchanged from the war, you could easily imagine the wolf packs being refuelled and rearmed in these huge pens that almost felt like they were underground.

Lorient was the most heavily bombed French city during the war and was completely flattened, the only buildings left standing were the pens. Not because of inaccurate bombing but because the allies knew they couldn't be penetrated so adopted a " scorched earth " policy and tried to wreck the lines of communication by leaving a huge area of rubble surrounding the pens. It seems to have nearly worked as K4 is still unfinished due to the difficulty in transporting materials to the site.

Our guide was a glamorous French woman, who managed to make concrete interesting! The roof above her head is composed of concrete block with gaps which along with the space we were stood in made a " blast decompression chamber" effectively absorbing any bombs energy before it even got to the 7 metre thick concrete under our guides feet, clever Germans......

We now knew why Lorient was full of modern buildings. We had a very interesting day but it certainly made you think about the realities of war. The average life expectancy of a submariner in the Kriegsmarine towards the end of the war was three months.

As a final stroke of luck on our part we discovered the chandlers we had been searching for just a couple of hundred metres from the site, so we managed to order our charts for the south coast, we can pick them up Friday. So we have a few more days in this interesting city.

Festival in Lorient

We woke in the morning and walked to our local Boulangerie, this is in fact only 100 metres away from Dark Tarn however as it is behind the old walls it takes a bit of a detour to walk to it. Well worth the effort though as the almost permanent queue of French housewives tells you it's the real deal. I bought a couple of Croissants and a baguette, some of the best bread so far.

I rang my sister for a chat then Lynne and I walked to the marina office where we could catch the bateau bus to Lorient. Turned out to be an excellent deal. 

We got to look at the Citadel from the other side as we took a trip across the harbour then your ticket gets you a bus ride into the city centre. On the way we passed the Eric Tabarly Marina for pro sailors only and the adjacent U-boat pens.

A reminder of the military history of Lorient. We had come into the city on a hunt for charts so it seemed logical to begin our search in the city marina. This turned out to be one of the festival centres for the Celtique Celebrations.

There were stalls and events everywhere.

We had a great time wandering around the city but having no luck whatsoever on the chart hunt.

We also popped into a church. Like many of the buildings in Lorient it was modern and concrete.

I wasn't quite sure about it, it was impressive but for me lacked a certain sense of spirituality, to be honest it reminded me of the U-boat pens!

It had a large dome atrium which again was impressive but a little flying saucer like.

A nice afternoon but I was relieved to get back to Port Louis, we had our usual coffee in a lovely little cafe in the church square.

Cheap too, at 3 euros for two cafe au laits. We looked in the church and puzzled over two statues in alcoves on the exterior which looked a bit worse for wear. It seems the church had been rebuilt recently and the statues were considerably older. The other church in town had a exhibition of lace work.

 

After tea, an experimental tinned Paella ( tastes better than it sounds ) we went to the harbour wall to watch a free show by the Cinema Cirque, a bunch of performers who were sailing about on three yachts which were berthed in the marina and effectively busking along the way. Very enjoyable even if some of the jokes were lost on us!

A beer in our new found local and we watched the fireworks over Lorient as we walked back to Dark Tarn. This having fun is really tiring!/

Concarneau to Lorient / Port Louis

Lynne and I spent an afternoon walking around the bay of Kersoz otherwise known as Cabbelo. We discovered a nice little bar Tabac and a restaurant that we thought might be nice to have a farewell meal in later with Dave and Carol. We walked around the headland and came across the remains of a fort along with some Second World War emplacements.

It was a nice way to spend the afternoon and surprisingly tricky as walks go, following the path in and out of houses bits of forest and avoiding tidal areas which added quite a bit to the distance. We found ourselves back on the beach and made our way back towards the cozy anchorage that had served us well for the last few days.

We retrieved our dinghy and invited Dave and Carol to the restaurant we had recently discovered. Dave kindly offered a water taxi in " trouble and strife" so we could pack our dinghy away ready for an early start in the morning.

The meal was delicious, Lynne having her first " Moules " after stealing mine to see if she liked them. Still managed to steal most of my mayonnaise though..........it was mustardy and had I think capers in it.

In the morning the forecast was for very light winds so I suggested to Lynne that we might be motoring to Lorient. Unfortunately as we negotiated our way out of Concarneau channel a racing fleet was returning so it was a bit hectic, it was also apparent that it wasn't a light wind day. The wind was in fact force 4 so we wasted no time in raising sail and giving Dave a bit of a race.

Dave radioed us and said that as he was as close to the wind as he could get and as he was heading in the right direction he would continue. Dave had told us the previous evening that he would head directly for Bayonne, a 240 mile trip that was going to take him two days at least but his schedule was pressing. So we took a last photo as he left us.

We had to go about as Lorient was directly upwind, this meant we would be beating or " tacking " in big Zig Zags towards our destination considerably increasing the distance and mileage. Dark Tarn put her shoulder in the water and a bone in her teeth and made a fast passage of six hours or so towards Isle de Groix.

As we reached the passage between the island and the mainland we entered a wind acceleration zone, as if we hadn't had enough already! We were forced to reef the genoa as the boat was badly overpowered in the gusty winds. Almost as soon as we reefed the wind died completely then backed and fell very light. We gave up on sailing at this point and started the engine for the last mile in the very crowded Passé de L' Ouest, one of the two channels into the harbour. As we approached the Citadel, an old fort defending the narrow entrance we decided to try for a place in the small Marina just past it. At Port Louis.

This turned out to be a happy decision. I had had reservations about stopping at Lorient as in general I am not a fan of big cities, or even small ones come to that! However Port Louis was just across the harbour from Lorient and had real charm. As we explored in the evening we discovered lovely little streets and a very laid back ambience.

Later we discovered a little bar built into the old walls adjacent to the Marina in an old arch, it wasn't very far to fall back to the boat!

Just our kind of place, of course Lynne still thinks it was very dark as she had left her sunglasses on!

Concarneau

We spent a pleasant night at anchor up the Odet river and enjoyed listening to the fish turning once again as our wide and spacious anchorage shrank around the boat. Luckily we had judged it well and at low water we sat in about 4 mts with the banks barely the same again either side. In the morning We set off down the river under mainsail and texted Dave we were on our way, as we passed Hocus Pocus in the bay there didn't appear to be any signs of life aboard. Very soon the visibility became very poor and it began raining heavily. We had to don our 'foulies' for the first time in ages. We were in company with several other yachts as we made our way out into the offshore reefs and attempted to find the comforting cardinal which would indicate we were clear of all dangers and could make a course for Concarneau. We won the unofficial " race to Les Poulins Cardinal " France came in second and third. As we turned onto a course that would intercept the leading line into Concarneau the visibility was coming and going at some points we could see barely 100 mts.

Lynne was finding it difficult to steer a course with the flat horizon and lack of reference points, but everything improves with practise! As we approached yet another cardinal indicating safe water Lynne was convinced she had seen Hocus Pocus taking a shortcut inside the reefs, as usual her eyesight was infallible and as we negotiated the entrance approach we could see Daves big cat at anchor in Anse de Kersoz just opposite the marina and walled town. After taking a quick look inside the marina ( a hot shower seemed a good idea at the time) we decided it was too full and cramped so elected to anchor in peace near Dave.

We were quickly invited ashore with Dave and Carol in " trouble and strife " and after a quick meal went to explore the old town.

 

Even though the weather was best described as " steady drizzle " the streets of the old town were crowded with visitors.

The shops were an interesting mix of tourist tat and food shops. Lynne was particularly taken by the chocolate shop.

 However when she found an ethnic clothes shop temptation was too much.

The following day we felt that the town deserved a proper look around so we blew up rubber Duck mark 2 and left Dave to mantainance jobs as we putted into town. The sun was out this time and we decided to walk around the ramparts of the old town.

The views were quite stunning, as we looked over the marina we could see Dark Tarn and Hocus Pocus at anchor in the Anse de Kersoz, in the photo we are just to the left of the traditional ketch leaving the harbour.

The walled city has been extensively restored and rebuilt and is fascinating. However some of the child sized " murder holes" made you wonder about French health and safety!

Lynne and I had a lovely afternoon and finished up buying six Kouignettes, which are a Breton cake possibly a couple of thousand calories each, Apple, chocolate and a kind of sticky almond flavour, Lynne informs me was Florentine, needless to say they were all eaten before we walked back over the drawbridge!

We finished by walking around the Port de Peche. This is very much the working part of the port

Before heading back to Dark Tarn having discovered yet another secret supermarket.......

That evening there was to be a free concert in the old town so we arranged with Dave and Carol to go over and have a quick watch of the bike racing before going to watch 10 strings and a goatskin, a folk music trio from Canada.

They were great.

Benodet

We spent a blissfully quiet night where the only noise was the occasional leaping fish and the slow tick tick of our mechanical logs tiny paddlewheel. The full moon glistened on the still waters of the Rivr Odet. Apparently this was a blue moon, it was however very pretty.

We had spoken to Dave by mobile and they had had a good sail to St Evette and had anchored there for the night. We agreed to meet at the anchorage at Anse du Trez which was at the mouth of the river entrance tomorrow.

In the morning we motored slowly down the wooded river and again we were struck by the similarity with the Helford or Fal. This included the wall to wall moorings as we came under the road bridge to Benodet. 

We continued to the anchorage and were joined by a junk rigged boat called J&B . We had a pleasant chat with the owner after we dropped anchor outside the swimming area of the beach.

The owner was from New Zealand but had lived in the UK for a good few years. He was planning to go upriver as he had a book called 'secret anchorages of Brittany' I had to inform him that not only was it no longer a secret but that it was no longer an anchorage, pretty much every one now being taken up by permanent moorings. We went ashore on our usual supermarket hunt while waiting for Dave to arrive.

Dark Tarn anchored off the point.

We discovered one eventually but in the process were amazed at the number of English voices we were hearing, it felt very strange! As we were setting off for the boat again we rang Dave to ask if he needed anything, he had just arrived at the anchorage. We enjoyed our usual afternoon coffee before setting off back in our splendid new dinghy.

Dave was anchored just near us.

So the mutual photo session was needed   before posting pictures of our miserable predicament for the benefit of the stay at homes in Preston.

Later Dave took us on a magical mystery tour up the Odet in " trouble and Strife" Hocus Pocus's tender, true to form the motor began to act up just as the tide began to pick up. We stopped in Benodet for a coffee with possibly the grumpiest barman we have met so far!

On returning to Dark Tarn we were rolling a lot as a good deal of swell was finding its way around the point. Remembering how peaceful it had been up the river that afternoon Lynne and I decided it would make a quieter night so we raised anchor and set of up the river on the last of the flood tide. We discovered our neighbours in a ' secret anchorage' at Anse de Combrit so we joined them, I'm not to proud to eat my words!

Hopefully we will have a peaceful night. Lynne immediately got the pressure cooker out and began to create Boeff Bourginion.