The delights of Île d’Yeu

It’s an ill wind that blows no good

Before we could depart Les Sables d’Olonne we had to wait, once again, for a storm to blow itself out on the Bay of Biscay.

A friendly German couple, who had very expertly squeezed into the tiny gap astern of us during the storm a few days earlier, decided to make their escape to the south. We were tempted to follow them out, but the wind direction wasn’t great for where we were headed (back north). So, we waited for the next morning, hoping to get calmer seas and maybe even a breeze with a bit more south in it on the other side of the system.

Dead in the water

The next morning dawned though, almost completely windless. We certainly got our calmer seas but instead of some south in the wind, the low had gone well north and Les Sables sat in a calm between systems.

Fortune favours the brave (our German neighbours in this case), not softies (like us) that sit around waiting for champagne conditions. Damn! We motored out of the harbour and turning north hoisted our sails. With less than 5kn of wind we limped along in the company of another yacht for a while before patience on both boats was finally exhausted and our motors went on. In our case, we made for Île d’Yeu across a gently rolling sea that, in contrast to the previous few days, was all but untroubled by wind.

Enjoying Île d’Yeu

Back at Île d’Yeu, we found ourselves a new spot in the now almost unoccupied harbour and sought out a few of the island’s delights that we had missed on our previous brief visit.

These included a menhir or two, a Vaubanesque citadel sneakily secreted in the middle of the island at its highest point, and, on the exposed and jagged south coast, a very strange medieval castle.

The purpose of this castle was, apparently, to protect what surely would have been the least likely choice of a landing beach on the island, one that already seemed to be fairly well protected by a variety of navigational hazards such as rocks, islets and surf.

While we wouldn’t dare to second guess a medieval warlord on the placement of his fortifications, we couldn’t help wondering quietly to ourselves.

Tuna festival

Another thing to do was to attend the annual Tuna Festival! What a wild and crazy cultural event that is. There were bands of all kinds (from traditional bagads through to lounge jazz, suave French pop, and very popular heavy metal), a market and, in the evening, a tuna BBQ.

For the latter, bench tables were stretched three deep for a couple of hundred metres along the full length of the harbour wall. These were packed with very happy folk eating and drinking, while around them a crowd of even happier folk combined these two activities with dancing and mingling.

We wandered around enjoying the crowd, gnawed for a bit on some highly BBQ-hardened tuna and then sought refuge in Yuma while the party continued on till late. They might be experts at catching tuna but they could sharpen up their BBQing skills a bit.