This morning we awoke to another beautiful morning, and felt sorry for those getting battered by the winds back home. We are also glad we didnt leave our departure from Scotland till May as we would have been hammered ourselves by the weather.

When we came in yesterday there was a lovely old boat sailing in at the same time as us under an impressive amount of canvas, but I wasn’t quick enough in getting the camera to get a shot of her looking majestic as it was impressive. However I did a shot of her coming out of the fuel pontoon this morning.

There are no laundry facilities in the marina, so we had to carry everything up to the town and leave with the laundrette who said it would all be ready by this evening – smashing. From there we went to the tourist information centre to find out the times and number of bus into St Nazaire……..if you ever need it the number of the bus it is number six.

As for St Nazaire this town has been on my mind since I was a wee boy, now I don’t know whether it was reading too many Commando comics, whether with my Dad serving in the Royal Navy during WW2, coupled with the reality that U Boats left here trying to sink both Merchant and Royal Navy ships, perhaps even the ones my Dad was serving on…………

Here is a shot of the submarine pens that were bombed repeatedly by the Allies, but were never destroyed.

We went into the visitors centre where the French have placed one of their old submarines “Espadon” in one of the submarine pens, and we took the trip through this submarine with an audio tour – it was an extremely interesting touristy thing. One thing is for sure, me and submarines would not get on well, as both Sara and I were feeling somewhat claustaphobic after being inside the submarine for only around 30 mins.

In adulthood I read quite a bit about the heroic efforts of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines in and around St Nazaire. One of these was the ramming of the lock gates to the U Boat submarine docks by the “Campbeltown” which was loaded in the bow with explosives, and these brave guys sailed her in ramming the lock gates and setting off the explosives…….pretty much, in todays parlance a suicide mission.

Being here and thinking about Dad during WW2 I found the experience very emotional.

I wanted to visit the memorial to those brave men and we found it next to the beach, and quite clearly as can be seen in the following couple of photo’s the French have not forgotten this bravery…

“Mans inhumanity to Man makes Nations weep”