Belle Île and Nantes

14 August 2023 – Île de Noirmoutier, France

The next few places we sailed to were unprotected anchorages along the coast of beautiful beaches, which meant that we spent a lot of time sitting in the sand and enjoying the sun. I brought my book and sat reading, while Jonas played with the dinghy or dug himself into a hole in the ground for reasons of his own.

One of these beautiful beaches was on Belle Île, and the next day we sailed around the corner of the island to visit the town of Le Palais. The only problem was that the harbour was tiny and gated due to the tides, meaning that the boat had to be driven through a narrow passageway between the looming fort on one side and the town quay on the other.

Because we docked Festina Lente right downtown, there were people playing live music and partying on the street directly beside us. It was pretty loud but I got to fall asleep to the sound of someone performing instrumental music from Fiddler on the Roof.

The next day I went into multiple bookshops, my favourite being a little stone cottage where someone was making jams in an old-fashioned kitchen that made up half the store. It was my grandma’s birthday, so we celebrated that there as well and went out for dinner.

Our next destination was Nantes, which is about thirty nautical miles up the Loire river. We had to time our entrance, so we anchored at the mouth of the river overnight and left the next morning so that the current would flow with us. My grandparents had to go back to Canada, so we said goodbye and waved them off as they drove to the airport.

Nantes has many cool art pieces scattered throughout it, such as a Roman-style fountain that has had colourful sculptures of sea life added to it.

We also saw a piece called European Thousand-Arms Classical Sculpture by Xu Zhen, which is a line of different European Classical sculptures that appear as the many-armed bodhisattva when seen from the front.

The city has a relatively large East Asian population as well, so we went out for dinner and ate gyoza and ramen, which I had been missing since leaving Toronto.

We are currently in Île de Noirmoutier, anchored a little ways away from the town because the harbour dries out at low tide. We took the dinghy into town yesterday and walked to the salt flats which form a large part of the centre of the island, known for its salt production. It was interesting to learn about how they collected salt by letting water flow into a system of water pools bordered by low mud walls, then letting the water evaporate and piling up the salt that was left behind.

The current plan is to head to Spain soon, though whether this will be tomorrow or in a few days hasn’t yet been decided (we need to go out for crêpes at least one more time before leaving France).

Spain

Meeting with Friends and the Festival Interceltique de Lorient

Festina Lente