Concarneau to Belle Île 45nm
Friday 24 July
We said goodbye to beautiful but busy Concarneau and set a course for Belle Île. We still have Easterlies so we were actually beating for once using our stay sail (going into the wind for you landlubbers).
The wind was a benign 8-10 knots and we clipped along at. 4-6 knots. The sea is still completely flat. And after a few hours the wind died so we motored.
We glimpsed dolphins but we had the engine on and no Lily up and they didn’t look that interested. But gladly, as we were despairing, a small posse leapt over to say hello – it is so delightful to watch them playing in the bow!
The wind filled in again after about an hour, in a better direction. We have decided to forgo the pleasures of Le Palais and Sauzon on the French side of the island as we’d probably only get a mooring buoy and in this North Easterly that could be a bit uncomfortable.
So we instead chose to anchor in Port Herlin bay on the South side of the island. It is very peaceful in here. I swam to the shore and visited the non nudist half of the beach (!) – there are wonderful rock caves that you can walk all the way through – it reminded me of Devon and last year’s South Wales holiday.
David made delicious pasta for tea. The wind swung round to be the Northerly we were anticipating and we were tucked in safely in the lee of the shore as the wind picked up overnight. I expect they had a rather bouncy time on those moorings!
Belle Ile was a major prehistoric centre with many tumuli and a chain of menhirs along the length of the island. Only a few are left as most were reused in later building projects. They will have been the same civilisation as those who raised the lines of thousands of stones at Carnac on shore nearby.
Belle Île is a typical near-shore island and has been through the usual growing pains: firstly a monastic community and subsequently ransacked and pillaged through the centuries, including by Vikings, Spanish, French pirates from the mainland, English and Dutch.
Vauban was very active here and there are some impressive fortifications on the North side of the Island that we didn’t see this time. Although, apparently, some of his fortification improvements were turned down which is why the British were able to capture the Island during the 7 years war and occupied it in 1761. In 1763 we swapped it for Menorca.
During the British occupation half the islanders ran off to France (probably couldn’t stomach the roast beef) and when France got it back they settled refugees from Arcadia – where the French had settled in what is now Nova Scotia in Canada – they had also had to flee when the British drove them out. These British do seem to cause a lot of trouble!
The boom years of Belle Île were the sardine times when the population peaked at the turn of the19th century at over 10,000 souls.
Monet painted the dramatic rock formations:
My sketch isn’t quite in his league…!
