Tuesday 22nd September – Day 71 Le Bono – Locmariaquer – Îl D’Arz – Arradon
We left Le Bono just as the sun was rising and made our way back towards the main part of the Morbihan; a leisurely journey under motor (no wind) and as it was low water we were careful of our course.
Need for a fleece to keep cosy, we passed some lovely places.
Sun just coming up!
Going into & coming out of Locmariaquer…
We took a mooring buoy near the entrance and Pointe de Kerpinhir. To pick up a buoy like this involves lying on the deck so to thread a rope through the eye of the pick-up on the buoy around the mid-ships part of the boat. Easy on this occasion as the sea was calm and Bob skilfully drove close to the buoy. Now we waited an hour for the tide to come up a bit, with the idea of going into Locmariaquer, which is very shallow, and possibility of staying there tonight. We edged our way in, we only draw 1.3m so are able to get into most places. The depth sounder went down and down and then we stopped!… even though the depth sounder said 0.8 under us – that will need further investigation. Bob put us swiftly into reverse and we thankfully unstuck ourselves, did a quick 180˚ turn and headed back out to where Jenny Wren was waiting. A shame, as Locmariaquer looked really pretty.
A gaff-rigged boat caught my eye!
Îl D’Arz (NOT Arse!!!)
We decided to motor up into the Morbihan then to the Îl D’Arz where we would anchor overnight. We found our spot on the easterly side of the island and put our anchor down in 4.5m of water, paying out 15m of chain. Up went the anchor ball. The windlass (machine for lowering/raising the anchor) seemed inconsistent, or temperamental – not always working.
Well – we just love a job and do a spot of problem solving (not)! Bob said it was a faulty connection and it seemed to be fixed. Good.
After a while we dinghied ashore to the little slip way about 500m away, tied up the dinghy and took our rubbish ashore – but alas no pou-belles (dustbins) here, even when we asked in the village, so they were put back on the dinghy.
We strolled up through the pretty and streets of Le Bourg – the village – really nothing much was going on here and even the shop was shut. Monica, Steve and I wanted to explore the southern most tip of the island – it was a hot walk and at the end we found the dolmen marked on the map – it was all dishevelled, so a bit disappointing. After our walk back into town we came across Bob who we had left sitting under a tree, so we went to find a bar – what’s not to like?!
Some photos from our hot walk:
The Dolmens here were looking a bit broken:
Not many people about…
Back at the boats we were so hot that a swim was the order of the day – just perfect! A quick shower off the back of the boat to rinse off the salt.
We ate on our own boats and watched the most stunning sunset – I have more photos than you would want to see, but here are a few of them!
Wednesday 23rd September – Day 72
Anchoring off Îl D’Arz in last night’s conditions were perfect – such a still night – just a smidge more than half a moon, stunningly clear stars and so still that you wouldn’t have even guessed you were on the anchor!
Steve pulling up the anchor on Jenny Wren
The Bourg viewed from the sea as we motored to the other side of the island.
But the anchor… or more to the point – its windlass… After the day before, the anchor (windlass) shenanigans continued to be inconsistent. So Bob pulled up the anchor by hand (and quite a bit of mud) and off we motored around the corner only to drop it again in quite shallow water – about 2.0m – you could see the bottom of the seabed quite clearly. Having “touched” the bottom yesterday, we were certain that our depth sounder wasn’t reading true. Time for a plumb-line – a lead weight on the bottom of a line. By the time we plumbed the depth from the bottom of the sea, the water line was 2.33m. The keel depth under the water-line is 1.3m which would leave us a depth of 1.03m under the keel. Out came the book of words for the Clipper unit (made in Stevenage by NASA) – making an overall alteration of 0.7m. Depth calculations:
Clear the front cabin! Out comes pretty much everything that we store up there including our bikes, to gain access to the windlass “doings”. Bob is on his back with a torch and a screw-driver in his hands trying to work out if the connections are at fault or if it might be more serious (lie the solenoid failing). Could I grab the electric meter – of course. After careful checking of all the connections, I could confirm that the windlass was once again OK – hurray!
All this work down below called for a swim – the water temperature was 20˚ C and we jumped in for a cool off before a bite to eat for lunch.
Later in the afternoon we headed over to Arradon – a tiny port that looked rather unlikely to get in. How wrong we were – even Jenny Wren who draws 1.8m had plenty of depth. Our approach into port was a bit fraught, not least because of the multitude of fishermen (mostly men) and women on the pontoons where sailors wish to arrive. There are only about 10 pontoon spaces here so we were lucky to get in.
The freeboard from Boni to the pontoon was high, so “The Granny Step” came out (except it had a tendency for launching itself into the drink, due to the amount of wash that went past!)
The capitainerie was a 5 minute walk away right next to a busy sailing school and beach. We stopped off at the local bar/restaurant for a drink and booked a table for dinner that evening at L’Abri-Cotier – and what a lovely meal we had later on! Here are some of the dishes we enjoyed:
As we sat in the outdoors area of the restaurant, we watched the waxing moon come out.
Thursday 24th September – Day 73
Today our dear friends Monica and Steve departed on their boat Jenny Wren, off back to Piriac-sur-Mer to retrieve their car and get themselves back to La Roche Bernard. They left first thing to catch the out-going tide and let us know that they had a good sail down to Piriac; however, Monica reported that the ice-cream shops there were all closed!
How about this cute little boat house?
We wanted to take the time to explore Arradon and got out our bikes – hauling them up the harbour wall, which seemed much easier than trying to bump them up 13 steps! It only took about 10 minutes to cycle up to the main town – a little hilly, but nothing major. I always like to have a look in the church if there is one, but today was not the day for that as we saw a large group outside the church as folk gathered for a funeral. There is a reasonable selection of shops and bars here including a Tabac, a pharmacy and the boulangerie. On we pedalled to the large out-of-town supermarket – which was huge and rather overwhelming – but had just about everything you might need!
It’s interesting doing the shopping in this way as you have to have enough capacity to carry what you buy back on your bike, so we chose one of those tall run-along shopping baskets rather than a trolly. Only the baguette and the leek were too long to fit into the bike bag – both got folded in half! Back through the town, the funeral had started and a few people stood outside – L’Eglise de St Pierre is a big church, but maybe they couldn’t quite fit them all in?
We had a relaxed afternoon, reading and then a bit later went out on the bikes to explore the Pt de Arradon (which really wasn’t very far) and the local Oyster shack, where they sell oysters and / you can have a lunch or supper – exclusively sea-food (& it looked yummy!) After we decided to get the washing done, but interspersed with a swim as the beach is right by the Capitainerie. Only €4 and wash and €2 for a 30 min drying session. After a shower, and waiting for drying, we had a quick drink in the local bar and wrote some postcards.
How about this for a “des-res”?!
Back on board, we put one bike away and had a tidy up (there’s not much space onboard, so you do have to try to keep things in their place…) and get ready for supper. Bob in charge of this while I sorted out our clean clothes and bedding.
Delicious dinner on board – large crevettes (prawns), followed by cod in lemon butter sauce with veg and pots and a chocolate mouse washed down with a bottle of MsL (Muscadet sur Lie).
Another beautiful evening – did I say how amazingly wonderful the stars were? (No light pollution really helps).