Brittany

The journey south has been a tough one - tougher and very different than we both expected, and by that we mean mostly Atlantic Spain and Portugal. Looking back, hindsight’s a wonderful thing isn‘t it, our time spent in France (6 weeks), though tidally challenging, was fantastic, and we now wish we’d spent more time there, maybe even a whole season. We met some very special people and encountered our first ever dolphins. Cameret in particular will always hold special memories for us as 3 large dolphins escorted us to a mooring buoy in the harbour then continued to play with the buoy for some time, while Wayne hung over the bow trying to thread a line through the hoop! This wasn’t the last we saw of them either, twice when we dinghyed ashore, they appeared at the stern of the dinghy and gave us an extra push! So amazing to be close enough to touch but quite frightening too, when you suddenly remember that they are very large wild animals.

We do however remember a downside to cruising this area - to catch tides, which are very big in this cruising area, we were up at 4.30am and at sea for 6am, four times in one week! That definitely wasn’t how Angie imagined the cruising life to be! The weather and sailing conditions in France were really pretty good, especially considering we were there in May and early June. As we were eager to cross Biscay by mid June, (everything we’d read indicated this to be the best time of year) we only skimmed the surface of the delights of North and South Brittany, which is a real shame, we’d encourage others to see more than we did. One couple we met en-route, Dave and Avril of ‘Tomboy‘, have been cruising between La Rochelle and the UK every summer, for many years, and are still visiting new places - fabulous.
 

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