South Brittany - Concarneau to Belle Ille

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South Brittany - Concarneau to Belle Ille

Well we ended up staying much, much longer in Concarneau than we had anticipated; simple reason was that we enjoyed the place so much. We were able to enjoy the Bastille Day Eve Celebrations, Nikki wanted to have her birthday here and we were finally able to catch up with John and Sue Allison from Swagman.

We heard from the Tourist Info Office that the Concarnians (for want of a better word) always celebrate Bastille Day on the evening of the 13th of July and there were going to be bands and fireworks so that sounded pretty good to us so we decided to stay on for a bit longer. We had been making daily sojourns into the old town to listen to the buskers, buy ice creams and just enjoy the place. At the entrance to the old town there is a small square where musicians are able to claim their place and perform the passing crowds. We met some brilliant people performing including James Kline who plays a self designed instrument that combines a guitar, lute and harp. He performs under the name of Bardou which has a web site www.bardou.be He and his partner live near Concarneau for half of the year and the other half they live in their home in the Canary Islands. His music and lyrics are brilliant and he is such an interesting guy to sit and chat to. Originally born in California, he spent most of his life living in Mexico with a very remote Mexican Indian tribe who are famous long distance runners and the other half he lived in France. He performs in Concarneau and around other parts of Europe, selling his C.D’S and building yurts!! and his partner drives the little tourist train around the town.

We also met Albert Niland who is an Irish guy who plays the guitar and sings some hauntingly beautiful ballads. Albert spent some time in Australia as one of the 11 musicians touring with River Dance some years ago. His website is Albertniland.com and I would think that he might have a few entries on you tube as well, if you can listen to any of his music or the music of James Kline’s for that matter, I think you will enjoy the benefits of your efforts.

Albert had never been on a yacht before so one morning he came down and had a cuppa with us and told us a bit about his rather fascinating life, being a professional muso since he was 15 (now 35). We loved being able to just sit and watch him perform and of course we now have two of his C.D’S on board, one we bought and one he gave us as a gift and we keep in touch by email and hope to meet up further down the track.

James Kline also very kindly offered to show us around his home island in the Canaries when we get there on our way across the Atlantic to the Caribbean so that is one offer we will definitely take up. There was also another group that played incredible music with a combination of unusual instruments and they were Micarmac so of course there C.D has joined our eclectic collection of music on the boat, all of which we play often as we still do not have a T.V and no intention of ever getting one.

So apart from the street muso’s playing in the front square, there were also performances most nights in the amphitheatre towards the back of the old town so for most of the time we spent in Concarneau we had a veritable music feast and it was just brilliant.


Bastille Day Eve was good fun and apart from the music playing, there was a really good fireworks display that was set off from a fisherman’s marina wharf over the coast and there were thousands of people sitting and lining the headland with all the usual poohs and ahhhs and wows. A couple of days later Nikki had her 15th birthday and Debs and I blew up a heap of coloured balloons and decorated the cockpit of the boat before she woke up and received her pressies and she was stoked with our efforts.

We had a great morning with home cooked pancakes and lots of presents before we went out for lunch. Each day there were quite a few boats taking kids out for sailing lessons and when they saw the boat all decorated, they would go past singing happy birthday in French to Nikki and that was really cool.

I think I have mentioned before that dining out is a very rare occasion for us so it was a real treat to go out to a restaurant for a meal. Her choice of meal for dinner was home made pizzas and pavlova so they were pretty easy to accommodate and after the pizzas we made all of these individual pavs with heaps of cream and fresh fruit and it turned out to be a brilliant substitute for the old traditional birthday cake. I think at the end of the day she was pretty happy how her birthday turned out.

Daily pilgrimages into the old town were the norm with just about every ice-cream flavour made in the place being tested and enjoyed. The younger members of the crew enjoyed the freedom of being able to head off when they pleased and have some time to themselves. Luke was also making a bit of a name for himself as a fisherman and he was having a hoot of a time catching heaps of pretty big mullet off the pontoons, he reckons the best bait of all was pieces of cooked leek left over from one of our mussel and langoustine feast!!.

There were boats arriving from lots of different countries in Europe, some coming from up from down south heading home to the northern European waters and others heading south for the warmer Mediterranean and beyond. Still no Aussie boats though. Obviously there were boats of all makes and models but I think the one that stands out the most was a rather old and tired looking ketch that looked like the sails were going to fall apart and the ropes that they used to tie the boat to the pontoon could snap at any second. The paint on the decks was cracking and peeling and the timberwork was in desperate need of some T.L.C, along with all the standing rigging and deck hardware.

The boat was owned by this delightfully friendly Frenchman who was the father of 9. He had seven of his oldest on board ranging in age from about 7 to 18 and the youngest two, twins he told me who were about 2 were at home with his wife. He had taken the kids out for some cruising in their school holidays. With complete respect to this man and his beautiful family, I don’t think there holiday kitty had too much in it but the aura of the happiness and contentment and love for their boat and their chance to be together seemed to be filling the marina around them. Their boat was aptly called Peace Maker and they all were at peace with themselves, their life and their lot, a lot of valuable lessons to be learnt from that family I think.

About the 16th of July I was in the boat and said that I was going to give John and Sue a call to see how they were going and how close they were getting to be able to try and meet up with us. The call went to message bank and as I turned off the phone and turned around in the cockpit I saw their boat coming in towards the marina. It was really exciting to see them and we ended up sharing some great meals and good times with them. We had been utilising the local hall which had daily fresh food stalls where you could buy super fresh fruit, veg, meat, bread and seafood so the old mussels and langoustines were shared with passion with John and Sue. Street markets were also held on Monday and Wednesday mornings and they did not disappoint with their incredible array of food and other market stalls.

John and Sue were really enjoying their time in Brittany and were more than happy to formulate similar passage plans to us with regard to where we wanted to go and to keep an eye out for a weather window to get across the Bay of Biscay. The weather has been pretty crappy and there has not been anything favourable for so long for us to cross Biscay so daily weather checks were made, hoping for some window of opportunity.

Layni’s birthday was getting closer and as our family tradition is that the birthday recipient has their choice of evening meal, her choice of duck pancakes followed by sticky date pudding threw a bit of a spanner in the works. I went to every shop, supermarket and Asian restaurant that I could find trying to buy some hoi sin and some plumb sauce to make the pancakes. Mission totally impossible but I did find out that further down the road, there was a pretty big town called Lorient that had an Asian food store that might be able to help us out. While Layni had thought that she wanted to stay in Concarneau for her birthday the opportunity of having her favourite meal won out and we decided to set sail for Lorient.

It was about a 30 mile trip down the coast and for the first time we were able to sail in company with another boat and it was bloody enjoyable. John and Sue are superb yachtsmen both in offshore and ocean racing as well as incredibly experienced cruisers so we felt very proud and honoured to be sailing in their company.

We berthed up in a marina right up in the middle of the town in Lorient and whilst it is not the most attractive place we have ever been to, the quality of the Asian food market was outstanding. I have never seen such and array of products in any market, Sydney included. So I almost broke my back and arms stocking up with as much as I could humanly carry back to the boat and Layni’s Birthday wish was going to come true.

Like Nikki’s birthday we decorated the boat for Layni with streamers, balloons and happy birthday banners, all of which drew many admiring looks and comments as people strolled past on the promenade that we were berthed up next to. As duck breasts are so much cheaper in France than at home I decided to arrange a total pig out and pig out birthday style we did. John and Sue joined us and we feasted on duck pancakes followed by sticky date pudding which we baked in a cake tin and were able to add candles to it to make it very birthdayish!! I had spent a couple of hours learning happy birthday on the guitar so after a few beers and wines I was ready to let rip.

After Layni’s birthday it was time to move on and we headed over to the Island of Ille de Croix and to the harbour of a small village called Port Tudy. It was only a few miles over but the weather was crap, raining and miserable so we didn’t even bother putting the sails up and we motored over in the afternoon waiting for a berth to become available for our boat as well as Swagman. We rafted up together and headed up town for a look around and a bit of reprovisioning of more traditional boat fare as opposed to the luxury of the duck and pud.

Whilst it was a pretty nice place, it looked like there was going to be an opportunity to cross Biscay in a couple of days time so we decided that we should head down to the island of Belle Ille which is what we did. It was about 30 miles to the next Island and the weather and sea conditions were not very good at all. We sailed as far south as we could but at the end of the day, the tide was pushing us of course so strongly it was time to turn on the engine and just make a bee line straight for the marina of Le Palais as we had to be there at a specific time to be able to catch the tide over the sill into the marina in the town.

We were able to get a berth for the night but were told that we had to vacate the marina at 6 in the morning as they had to allow a freighter out of the marina. It was 37 Euro for the night with no power or water but it was pretty cool to be right in the heart of the town with bars and clubs and restaurants right beside us. The Island of Belle Ille is really nice and had we had more time I am sure we would have spent a lot longer there. We were up bright and early the next morning and headed to the outer harbour where we berthed up to mooring buoys. There were a few rocks near the sea wall that our harbour mistress was very worried about and she very kindly spent a fair bit of time making sure we were tied up safe and sound.

We decided that Saturday morning was going to be our departure time for the crossing of Biscay so it was time to get provisions ready and make sure we had enough fuel for our possible ports of entry which were either going to be Gijon on the north coast of Spain which was going to be about 290 miles away or if conditions were right we were going to try for La Coruna which was going to be about 400 miles away.

We tried to get diesel from the marina fuel berth but they would only accept French credit cards and I guess at 1.56 Euro per litre it was fortunate that we couldn’t buy fuel there. John and I took our dinghy up the harbour to a service station and filled our jerry cans for 1.24 Euro a litre so we saved a fair bit of money as we bought a fair bit of fuel; the last thing we wanted to do was run out of fuel in Biscay.

Debs has been very busy doing lots of cooking and provisioning the boat brilliantly. She made casseroles and pasta dishes and lots of snackie things so all we had to do was reheat the individual containers in the oven and voila, instant meal with little or no on board cooking having to be done. This was going to be the first time that Layni, Nikki and Luke had ever been out at sea at night and John and Sue very kindly took time out to talk to them about their experiences and through their kindness, help and advice, the younger members of the crew were feeling not only much better about the forthcoming trip but I think were actually looking forward to it. I think it is a case that sometimes it is better to hear some advice from others rather than parents.

Whilst the weather forecasts were very good, John advised Debs and I that Biscay could turn to crap very quickly and one had to be very sure that things were in order. The boat was checked and double checked and we did everything possible to make this part of our journey as safe and as enjoyable as possible. We were ready and the time was approaching to head off to Spain and beyond.

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Photos

Muso´s square
At the entrance to the old town

Lunch Feast
By the look on Luke´s face he seems to be enjoying his first taste of mussels and langoustines

John and Sue from Swagman
Lunch Special!!

Comments

[sandy malcolm]

love reading your adventures
The only place in portugal we went was oporto. Beautiful fabric in casa da musica (not much use to you guys) But fantastic fish markets on the river mouth of oproto and cheap as. Its on the north coast well away from lisbon though.sandy. ps can you add us to the automatic note bit?