Our next hop south

The weather finally calms down

After five days on Belle-Île the storm conditions had abated and our much-anticipated appointment with Alubat, for a factory tour of Yuma’s birthplace at Les Sables d’Olonne and again a day later at Le Grand Pavois boat show in La Rochelle, was drawing nigh. At 75 nm this was a long hop for a day sail at this time of the year, one that was likely to stretch well into the night. Given the abundance of fishing nets and bouys in these waters, we decided to break the trip from Belle-Île to Les Sables d’Olonne with a stop-over at Île d’Yeu.

How do we get out of this harbour…?

Leaving Le Palais, however, took a bit of planning, what with gales blowing over on a regular basis, the ever-present big tides, and a lock that only opened during the higher tides. Taking all that into account, we decided to move from the inner to the outer harbour the evening prior to departure, so that we could cast off in calmer conditions just before sunrise the next morning. This, of course, meant that this would be the moment when we had to face up to the question of how we were going to get out of our spot in the innermost reaches of La Palais harbour. This was going to involve first getting out from between the boats rafted-up two and four deep just a metre or two ahead and astern of us and then, turning around in our length and against our prop walk, with a crosswind. Oh dear…all those other boats began to look very expensive.

Funnily enough it turned out to be easy. With a breeze blowing down the harbour, we sprang off a stern spring on a cleat on the pontoon at our midships until the wind caught the bow and swung it out almost perpendicular to the wharf. We then motored ahead just enough to give us enough room to clear the boats astern and then paused to let the wind pull the bow further around on the spring. Once we’d swung far enough, we dropped the stern spring and, hard over to port, motored slowly down towards the lock. Easy! Somehow, we’d managed to make ourselves look pretty good twice in a row! You have to love a bit of good luck, pity there was no else was there to notice.

One night in the outer harbour

Once out of the inner harbour we made our way through the middle harbour and out to the outer harbour where we tied up for the night, bow-to on lines off the northern seawall. This left us with no means of walking ashore but, luxury, rather than launching our dinghy (two minutes of not much effort required), we were able to give the harbour master a shout on the radio and, bingo, someone came out to ferry us across to town. Quel service!

Leaving for Île d’Yeu

Whilst outside the harbour big seas were running throughout the night, when we left the next morning things had indeed settled down quite a bit. With a fresh breeze on the port quarter, we were able to hoist the main, pole out the genny and goosewing off to the southwest. For a while there we had a pleasant, if not fast, run. Sadly though, all good things must end and, five and a half hours later, it was the wind that ended. So, on went the motor and we spent the next six hours puttering along towards Île d’Yeu.

On the way we passed a big offshore windfarm that was under construction. Dozens of yellow towers marched off into the distance; foundations awaiting their turbines. On two of the towers what looked like a platform, on closer inspection, turned out to be a freighter jacked up on the foundation to serve as a work platform. Impressive!

It was dusk when we pulled into the bay immediately to the SE of Port Joinville and dropped anchor just off some oyster frames. This turned out to be not such a well-protected spot, so after a rolly night, we pulled up the anchor first thing in the morning to start the final 25nm to Les Sables d’Olonne.