More salt marshes and medieval towns

A short hop north

A light wind motor sail through very choppy seas took us north from L’Herbaudière, dodging commercial shipping as we crossed the shipping channel of the Loire River, through the protected waters behind the Plateau de la Banche where fishing boats were anchored to wait out the nasty conditions, and then north-west along the Chenal du Nord, behind the Plateau du Four before finally cutting north-east into the Rade du Croisic.

Here, David almost tried one of his incorrect harbour entrance tricks again. The chart on the plotter showed the harbour entrance on the northern end of the breakwater but for some strange reason the fishing boats were heading to the southern end…hmmm. Yep, turns out that chart is wildly inaccurate, but thankfully David realised this early enough and independently enough to avoid the mockery of his shipmate.

A not-so-bad harbour entrance

While the wind had been persistently light all day, over the course of the last half hour approaching the harbour it had built to a very strong breeze, pushing waves into the harbour entrance. We began to mentally prepare ourselves not only for a tricky entrance but then, once inside, for some tricky manoeuvring to avoid getting blown into something we didn’t want to hit while manoeuvring at low speed and with limited steerage in close quarters. Well, the adrenaline may have been up but things went smoothly and we were able to tidy up our lines with a wash of relief running through our systems.

Another storm

And so began yet another storm sojourn, this time in La Turballe, a pleasant but fairly uninteresting fishing and boating port. We took our usual walks around the town, visited the markets, watched the activity in the port and got the local bike mechanic to grudgingly fix the chain of Frederieke’s bike.

Presqu’île Guérandaise

With bikes once again in working order, we were able to make the short ride out through the salt works ponds and up to the hilltop medieval town of Guérande; a lovely place with one of the best preserved and complete fortified walls in France, a fine church and lots of the original buildings still largely in place.

Happily, there is lots of documentation scattered around the town to give you a feel for the complex politics and rivalries that shaped the town and its defences at a time when it was a place of some strategic and economic importance.