Last night as I looked over to the bridge I could see “something” under the bridge arches, and this morning with it being low tide, I could clearly see that these are Armco barrier type structures, similar to those on the side of our UK motorways. These are obviously in place to stop commercial boats hitting/damaging the bridge.

We had a bit of a relaxing/lazy morning, before heading out to look around the city, and we both think it is extremely interesting with lovely old buildings throughout the area in which we were walking.

We also found the public park and think we might have surprised a statue by walking in so quietly……………………….

If ever anyone is sailing down the French coast, Bordeaux would certainly be worth the detour, especially as there is this visitors pontoon. Yachts can now sail down with their masts up and thus allow sailors to explore this lovely city.

O’ and by the way this is a shot of the surprised statue from a different angle 😉

Having looked at the information on the Gironde River, we have changed our mind and decided that we would go straight to Bordeaux and miss out stopping at Pauillac. As the tide was moving from spring to to neap tides, the river current is indicated at being 2kts (ish) on the flood (the direction we were going) and about 4kts+ on the ebb.

This meant that if we maintained a speed of around 6kts through the water, plus the added benefit of the flood stream we would make Bordeaux easily on the one tide. We also had the benefit of some information from a lovely couple Peter and Amanda off “Colinette V” who had driven to Bordeaux for a look around, and told us there was a new pontoon on the starboard side of the river, just before Pont de Pierre, for leisure boats to tie up and enable them to visit the city. This is good joined up thinking on behalf of the city, as it means yachts can now come down the Gironde to Bordeaux and stop without needing to drop their masts or find somewhere to stop prior to the Pont de Pierre.

Martin off “May Morning” who is travelling solo, wanted to follow us down to Bordeaux, even though it was going to be a really early start due to the tides. After dropping the mast etc I had removed the light boxes from the wheelhouse roof in preparation for the canals, but then realised it would be dark when we left in the morning to had to refit these and taped a small torch onto the horizontal mast to act as a steaming light.

At 0445 both boats left Royan and headed out to join the main shipping channel, and within a few minutes I admit that I was a bit confused over a single red light that appeared to be the port light from a yacht to our starboard, and therefore could have been cutting across in front of us – we would be the give way vessel. At the same time there was a big commercial boat on our port side, going out to sea on the last of the ebb, which was fine and easy to keep clear. The reason for the red light suddenly dawned on me –it wasn’t a yacht but rather the sectored light of Cordouan Lighthouse……………silly me!!

Following the channel down was pretty straightforward and once we had daylight we could see the banks on both sides of the river. Sara commented on how strange it was to once again have land on both sides of us, and she was absolutely right.

Passing Pauillac.

If ever coming down the river you can get “two charts in one” from the Navicarte Series Nos 553 & 554, and you shouldn’t really attempt it without these charts.

I was pleased we had decided to miss out Pauillac as it didn’t really hold much appeal, and from the pilot book it stated that we would be advised to arrive at slack water as the tide runs through the marina uninterrupted. Parking up a boat in a tight marina with strong current running through is not for the faint hearted, and could easily lead to an exchange of insurance information!

On the river bank we saw a ship loaded with a section of the new airbus, which must be manufactured locally.

At various section along the banks there were these fisherman huts built above the river banks.

Later we arrived at the junction of the Dordogne and Garonne rivers, which then merge and become the Gironde river and run out to sea. The following shot shows us coming down the Gironde, with the Dordogne River to the left of the photo and the Garonne River to the right.

The tide was way stronger on the way down that any of us imagined, and naturally varied when compressed between islands/narrow sections. The following shot off the chart plotter shows us travelling at 11kts over the gound i.e 6kts boat speed + 5kts of tide – by this time there was no doubt about arriving at Bordeaux before the tide turned!

Vigilance must be maintained going down these rivers and a good look out kept for branches/logs, and sometime entire trees – thankfully we didn’t come across any big lumps of vegetation and arrived safely at Bordeaux and tied up at the new pontoon.

The local municipal policeman came down to give us the codes to the combination padlocks and told us that the pontoon was officially opened last Tuesday, but as yet there is no electricity connected, but there are hose connections for fresh water.

Later whilst sitting in the cockpit I saw a strange thing coming down against the current, and at first I thought it some kind of eel (or perhaps Nessie’s wee cousin down for a holiday). As it came closer Sara and I thought it might be an otter, but we were not convinced. Just as I grabbed the camera it turned away and this is the best shot I could manage. Someone later said it might have been a Coypu……………..

We managed to get the books containing the information we needed on the canal system, especially the height and width of all the bridges on the way though. The narrowest and lowest height bridge (therefore the key one for us) is on the Canal du Midi, and whilst we will be OK on height at the centre of the bridge, the complication comes as this bridge is an arch, and therefore width reduces the higher you are vertically i.e air draft. From the photo below you can see the situation with us having an air draft of around 3 mtrs in sea water, and a wee bit lower in fresh water and we need to consider the width of the wheelhouse at this height.

So that’s it – decision made, it’s through France via the Gironde River, down to Bordeaux, and onwards to join the two canals (Lateral & Midi) to the Med.

We decided to drop the mast here in Royan, and I also decided to remove the navigation light boxes from the sides of the wheelhouse to aid our transit under the bridges. Dropping the mast is straightforward enough, but I needed to ensure that the radar and deck light fitted between the wheelhouse windscreen and the “tabernacle” that the mast sits into. The boatyard guys weren’t interested in helping, but thankfully a couple of French guys on the visitors pontoon gave us assistance, and I was so pleased when we had the mast properly aligned and secured.

Once the mast was secured, a final measurement from the end of the mast to the waterline clarifies we are OK on air height, and I am confident we will be fine – tight under the lowest bridge as above – but fine. Could however be “interesting” when we get there………..

We are now waiting on the right weather forecast to head down the Gironde, which is a seriously big tidal river. With the mast down and no mainsail to steady her, Sun Dog would roll a bit in waves, and I want to avoid any chance of the mast moving. It’s properly tied lashed down, and as we are on holiday it doesn’t really matter too much how long we need to wait on the weather window, as we need to be sure, as it will take us three days to get to the canal entrance.

Our first stop is intended to be at Pouillac, next one at Begles close to Bordeaux, and then down to the first lock at Castets – en- Dorthe.

We are now over 1,000 sea miles since the start of our trip and we have loved almost all of them. Going through the canal system through France will add a further dynamic to the holiday and will be interesting in its own way – hope my calculations are right!

Love to all G n’ S.

This morning when all the rafted boats started moving it was all a bit chaotic, with boats hitting the rocks on the breakwater and others hitting other boats, as they all fought for a bit of water to manoeuvre their boats……bizarre!

We left them all to it, and waited until the chap to whom we were rafted was ready to leave, and we then slipped our lines turned the boat as there by now plenty of room, and out we went to head for Royan.

As we had plenty of time to get to the entrance to the Gironde River I decided to keep well clear of the headland where I had watched big breakers yesterday. Our plan was to stay well offshore and keep clear of all the wrecks inshore and make a final decision on our entry point into the Gironde Estuary, until we were further down the coast and able to see the effects of the tide/swell etc at the entrance.

The sun was burning away in a clear blue sky as we sailed along at the heady speed of 3kts over the ground, until that is, we needed to get a bit more speed to ensure we arrived at the entrance at least two hours before high water allowing us to arrive at Royan at slack water as per the pilot book.

Now our friends that write these pilot books have a field day about the entrance and have dire warning about not cutting the corner over the Bank de Mauvaise/Banc de Coubra. Indeed one book suggested staying out to the BXA marker buoy which is about five miles west of the first lateral buoys…………………I deemed the conditions to be good enough that we could pick up these lateral bouys between numbers 2 and 2a, so that’s where we headed.

The leading lights/line on the run in through these first few pairs of markers takes you pretty close to the Banc de Coubra and we could see huge breakers coming onto this bank, and when I say close I mean close. I navigated more to starboard and went south of the cardinal marker, but even then I was struggling to keep my eyes off these breaking waves. We were bang on spring tides and the sweep of the current means close attention needs to be paid to maintain course, and a constant check behind looking at the markers we passed helped us stay on track. Now at this point I would have to say that the warnings in the pilot book are warranted and should be heeded – to attempt coming into the entrance in adverse conditions, could lead one to discover religion quite quickly.

Approaching Royan the sky went a really peculiar colour, and the contrast with the colour of the sea/estuary was something to behold. I tried capturing it in the following photograph, but didn’t manage it too well.

About half an hour after we got into Royan and tied up at the visitors berth, a few things happened simultaneously. The wind increased dramatically and spun around 180 degrees, fork and sheet lightning filled the sky, and the rain pelted down in Biblical volumes. Thank goodness we arrived when we did, and that didn’t have to contend with these conditions on our way into the Gironde.

When we left Scotland we had agreed that Royan would be our “decision making point” in that we could either cut across Biscay to the Spanish Rias on the North Coast of Spain, and then work our way down the western coast of Spain and Portugal. The alternative would be to drop the mast at Royan and go down the Gironde River to enter the canal system that cuts through France and come out at the Med. However we really needed to find detailed information on this canal system to ensure Sun Dog could make it through with Air Draught (height of wheelhouse etc) being the main consideration, but our draft will also increase as we will be in fresh (sic) water in the canal system so caution will be the watchword.

If she doesn’t fit then across Biscay it will be, as there will be no point in spending weeks going through the canal to find out we cannot fit through the lowest bridge on the route, and have to turn back.

Today we decided that we would leave Port des Minimes (La Rochelle) as it is too big and busy a marina for our liking, and head over to St Denis on the Ile D’ Oleron.
The marina on this island has very narrow approaches and you need to ensure you have enough tidal height to get over the rocks and the natural sill into the marina. There are three waiting buoys a bit off the entrance where you can wait to ensure the tide is right for your draught. It’s only about 12-13 miles from La Rochelle but we were looking forward to visiting a nice quite little island, and using modern parlance chillaxing.
On the approach it looked like a few boats were also heading into the marina from the south. When we got in the place was so busy we had to raft alongside another boat. We had just got ourselves sorted out and made a cuppa, when suddenly it seemed like the whole sailing world was descending onto St Denis. Within a short time we had a further two boats raft onto us making it four deep the full length of the visitors pontoons!

Turns out it was a holiday weekend – you have to laugh…………..it was a whole lot busier than Port des Minimes!

The inside boat was leaving early next morning to get out, and so were the ones rafted outside of us. That suits us fine because we have to get out early next morning to head for Royan, as the weather looks good for that leg. We need to arrive off the river entrance at a particular stage of the tide, and the extra time will enable us to ensure this is the case.

Our friends in the pilot book have our attention once again regarding the entry into the Gironde!

This morning we realised that the berth we had taken, must be in an area reserved by Dufour as all the boats in this part of the marina were either brand new, or second hand Dufours for sale – think we will just hide in here as there are another couple of berths free. I can just act the dumb tourist if anyone get’s upset 😉

We decided to take the water taxi/bus from the marina up to La Rochelle, which would give us the chance to go through between the tow old towers built to protect the town from the British, and this was a really neat thing to do.

It was pretty much bang on low tide, and because of this we could see quite clearly how narrow the channel was from the marina complex to the town……………Looks wide at high tide but in reality it is really really narrow all the way up to the towers.

La Rochelle has mix of lovely old buildings and also some concrete carbuncles.

This tower is the last remaining medieval lighthouse left on the Atlantic Coast and must rate as one of the prettiest. The actual light is within the small tower on the right hand side of the spire.

On our wonderings we also came across the area where the Velux five oceans race was either being prepared or had finished. Looking at these boats in the marina, one realises just how much it takes to handle one of these single handed across oceans. It was also neat to see the Union Flag flying from one of the boats. If the race has not started we wish whoever is sailing it, the best of luck & if it’s finished we hope he/she had a good race.

Today we left Sables D’Olonne to head for La Rochelle, which meant going against the tide for the first few hours so that we would be entering La Rochelle on the flood tide. The only real “challenge” today was to go through the right channel under the bridge which goes over to Ille De Re. Now you may not think that heading for a big bridge might not be worthy of much thought, but the whole area approaching the bridge is pretty shallow with some patches being as low as 1.2m at chart datum (lowest tide), and taking into account the difference swell might make it, is definitely worthy of a bit of thought.

On the approach to the bridge, even with binoculars, we couldn’t make out the marks that were meant to be on the bridge or indeed the green and red lateral buoys, and it wasn’t until we got pretty close that we saw both of these, exactly as per the chart, (funny that eh!!) and under the bridge we went.

We then cut the corner and headed diagonally across to the main approach channel leading into La Rochelle. Approaching the marina entrance, down the main channel, it was like the whole world wanted to come out to play on sail boats, wind surfers, dinghies, hobbie cats, old baths (well not quite). It really was like Piccadilly Circus or Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday when someone is giving away free money!!

We dodged our way down and just in the final approach to the marina entrance the wind shot up from around 10kts to 20 gusting 25+ and all hell broke loose. The yacht ahead of us spun around away from the entrance because a couple of windsurfers had fallen off right in the approach, and the little dinghies were having a tough time too. As soon as the safety boat cleared the entrance we went in, but were unsure of which berth was the Accueil Pontoon where visitors are meant to tie up, (and then report to the Capitainerie to be allocated a berth), because boats were rafted everywhere. I decided therefore to tie up at an alongside pontoon which was obviously for bigger boats and called the Capitainiere on the radio. She said it would be fine to stay there for the night, but asked us to report into the office to fill out the paper work.

At this point our fenders were getting some serious abuse, as were the fenders on other boats tied up on this pontoon. The next wee while was spent pushing boats off the pontoon and stuffing their fenders back down – it was blowing very strongly and pushing us really hard onto the pontoon. Sara had the unenviable task of walking around to the office, which given this marina complex is vast, took her a bit of time, and while she was doing this I was putting out every fender we had onboard.

Just as Sara arrived back a big catamaran came in and were saying we were parked in their spot, and at the same time Sara confirmed the office had said we could not stay there and had to move. They had given her a map with the visitors berths marked, and said we could take any that were free. We managed to spring off the pontoon (not easy in these conditions) and went into a visitors berth. Sara had been told we had to go back to the office and inform them which berth we had taken! Seems a back to front way of doing things, but heigh ho…

Off we went back to the office and were stunned when they said the pontoon we were on was private, and that we would have to move. We pointed out the map they had given us with visitors berths marked -but they appeared to be saying something along the lines of a “mistake at the printers”!! I asked why they didn’t tell us this when Sara was up earlier……after some shrugging of shoulders, he said we could stay tonight but would have to move tomorrow. I asked where to? And he said again anywhere that was free but not one of the long visitors pontoons, as they were hosting some kind of event and these had to be kept free.

After this we walked past the area he said we would have to park the boat, and it was absolutely chocka block with boats rafting three deep, and boats on the inside had no chance of leaving as they were blocked in…………

At this point, a conversation I had an English chap back in Sables D’Olonne came to mind, when he basically said that this marina couldn’t organise a p*** up in a brewery…………………………I was beginning to think he was right.

Over the past couple of days we walked around both Sables D’Olonne and the town of L’Chaume, and had a good time exploring both, (and also trying to find the Supermarche!). The berth we have is quite handy for both the towns, and also the Cafes and Restaurants along the side of the marina.

The following photo shows the harbour entrance, and our approach brought us down the coast from the right of the photo past the cardinal markers and the isolated danger marker situated just outside the entrance.

To the left of the above photo is the beach which was long wide and clean, and we paddled along it’s length feeling pretty relaxed and happy– simple thing, but lovely just the same.

On the promenade we found this delightful old Carousel dating from 1900, which no doubt is a labour of love for someone. It was closed when we passed but we could imaging all the happy children laughing away, as they went around and around over the past 111 years.

This morning we were up early to ensure we had enough depth to exit the marina – it does get shallow in one part of the entrance/exit and the ferries can create a sizeable wash, thereby potentially reducing the depth. We slipped our lines and were just heading for the exit when the lights changed to red, and we had to mill around until the ferry came into the harbour.

Once clear we sailed along the coastline that we had walked yesterday, however the weather wasn’t as good today. It was overcast but we did have a F4 NW which suited us just fine. It would have been handy to have goose winged by poling out the genny, but Sun Dog isn’t set up for this method……………one important thing is missing – a pole!!

The trip over was fine and the swell was reasonable until we hit the shallower water in the approaches to Sables D’Olonne when it started to increase in size, nothing to worry about really but a noticeable difference non the less.

I’ve said before (in a positive sense) that the French seem to mark almost everything with some kind of buoy, leading lines/lights, but I have never seen better than the leading lights on the approach to Sables. It was daylight when we were approaching but these were still very bright lights and could not be missed – these would be a godsend in foul weather and coming in at night.

We tied up at the Capitainerie pontoon and were allocated a pontoon berth in a nice central spot – pretty tight with the wide beamed boat we are next to but close to all we need. The other good thing is this is the cheapest berthing fees we have had to pay (11 euros per night) since we started out on our trip. This was a big surprise because we both thought it might be one of the most expensive!

It was kind of neat sailing in here, as this is the venue for the Vendee Globe single handed round the world race that starts and finishes here in Sables D’Olonne. To be precise they base themselves in Port Olona Marina (where we are) and when we came in we saw a couple of them tied up on the race pontoon which is to the right of centre in the photo, and we will get a better look around tomorrow.

The other marina Quai Garnier, is located to the right hand side when coming into the harbour, and looks lovely.

This final photo is looking back to the entrance into the harbour.

Last night it was so peaceful and quite in the marina that we both slept like logs – made a nice change from being squashed onto the pontoon at Pornichet where I had been sleeping (well trying) at an angle of about 15 degrees and listening to fenders squeaking away all night

Duly refreshed we made an early start, and decided that we would go for a good walk rather than get the bikes out as I didn’t really fancy cycling on the roads, and needed to stretch my legs. I needn’t have concerned about the traffic, because there are plenty of cycle tracks criss crossing the island, and in truth the roads have very few cars on them once out of town.

Here is a shot from one of the beaches at low water looking back to the harbour, where a cruise ship had dropped anchor.

There are countless lovely properties nestled back in their own grounds, and lots of really clean quiet beaches. Some of these beaches have trees reaching down almost to the sand line, which would be a blessed relief from the sun during the height of summer. It is simply the best place we have visited thus far. All we heard while out for hours walking was birds chirping away in the trees and the odd cyclist on the paths………….simply lovely and really good for the soul.

By the time we got back this afternoon the sun was getting pretty hot – you can probably tell that from the colour of the sky in this shot.