We’d chosen the anchorage on the Auray as it was the spot favoured by George Millar in his book Oyster River about a summer cruising the Morbihan. It’s a lovely read (though out of print) describing a summer on his 50′ wooden yawl sometime in the late 50s. Both he, and his wife Isabel, are extraordinary characters. He had been captured in North Africa during the war, escaped during a prisoner transfer during the collapse of Italy, and made his way on foot across France and Spain to escape back to the UK from Portugal. Once back in the UK he joined the SOE and was dropped back into occupied France to support the resistance. He’s spending the summer recuperating following a riding accident that left him with serious internal injuries when his horse fell landing on him… so they sailed from Plymouth to the Morbihan to take it easy.
Sunday saw us gently sail back down the river under headsail alone and across the entrance to pick up a mooring that was across the headland from Port Du Crouesty on the inside of the gulf. We’d agreed to meet our friend there in the morning, and to spend the day with her on the Morbihan.
Monday morning saw me in the tender picking her up from the slipway, before we spent the day doing a lap of Ile Aux Moines, following a lunch stop at the head of Ile Ilur. One of the innovations of Sunday afternoon had been discovering the SHOM Tidal Stream Atlas that covers the gulf could be purchased as a PDF online. Having navigated the checkout and download process in French we now had the tidal information that made Monday’s tour possible. The tidal flows are huge and being only a few minutes late or early for a turn of tide can stop you in your tracks – and it did on Sunday when we were a little early at the entrance and motoring at 7kts saw us stand still until we could slide sideways into slower moving water.
We spent another night on the mooring buoy before heading up to Vannes up a river off the North of the Morbihan. It proved to be a lovely town and we spent a couple of nights there, we did some laundry, and had a great meal at another happy Michelin. On Thursday we headed down the river, across the gulf and out to Port de Croesty once more. Our local friend had picked up a new electric dinghy pump for us, as our current one had died when inflating the tender up the Auray at the weekend. The old one was ten years old and a bit of research identified had been rather overtaken by technology. The new pump of choice was stocked nearby and she’d offered to collect it for us. We met up on Thursday afternoon and she announced that we’d been invited to her brother-in-laws for dinner. He is a sailor and keeps a boat in the marina. We had a lovely evening in a French home, and drank a little too much.
On Friday we headed to Trinite sur Mer, which is only a few miles away and a yachting mecca. Our favoured pilot book (written by the late Peter Cumberlidge) raves about the marina, which is an oddity as the author clearly prefers a night at anchor whenever possible. We got a snug berth tucked behind the wavescreen which has pontoons for race boats on the seaward side. There are two Ultimes, an Ocean 50 trimaran, a 50′ Offshore racer of a modern scow design, an IMOCA and half a dozen Class 40s all tied up there. I’d been struggling with a cold for a couple of days and rather crashed for a few days. We have had a little wander around the place and it is lovely – there’s the gallery of the famed French sailing/sea photographer Philip Plisson and some great gear shops, as well as sailmakers and all the usual fantastic food shops of a French town.
The local lifeboat has been busy. They are just down the pontoon from us and were out at 0130 on Sunday for a search, then again for most of the day on an exercise (seems like Sundays are lifeboat training days the world over), and then again on Sunday evening for what looked like a Medivac from Houat, one of the offlying islands. Today (Monday) they were out again in the evening to tow a boat back into the harbour.
Sadly I also got the news this week that after about a year doing battle with cancer one of my team back at work had died. He was a lovely man whose sense of fun belied his age: he was the antithesis of the grumpy old man. Murray Stephen: you will be greatly missed.