L’Herbaudiere,
France
Despite the wind still blowing 20-24
knots from the West, we felt we had to get out of Pornic. Unfortunately Pornic is 10 miles into a
West-facing bay, so with a reef in the main and the engine on, we set off with
intentions of getting round to Ille d’Yeu, 30 or so miles
away.
However, an hour out, the conditions
were pretty bad. There was a little
ebb tide which was kicking up the waves and with a Westerly swell, it meant that there were large and steep
waves, and coupled with the F5 we were motoring into, it wasn’t particularly
nice. I took the decision to change
course for L’Herbaudiere, a small port on the Northern tip of Ile Nourmoutier,
and we reached shelter an hour and a half later and had a bottle of wine with
our lunch as compensation for the rough passage.
L’Herbaudiere is lovely. We were rafted 5 boats out, (which was
fine with us as it is sociable) and they even gave us a discount as we were
rafted so far out! Lots of other
boats were obviously sheltering from the weather here as well, to the extent
that a returning fishing trawler had a real squeeze to fit past the rafted boats
(now 6 deep) to get back to his berth.
Only neat work with his bow thrusters saved us from being
squished!
Tight manouevres in L’Herbaudiere
harbour
Nutmeg from up the
mast
We found a beach to spend the
afternoon on. We have noticed that
a lot of kids younger than Emilia are very proficient cyclists. A lot of the families teach their kids
to cycle on the beach where the sand makes for an easier
fall.
Jemima in her fortress,
L’Herbaudiere
Whilst we were in L’Herbaudiere, we
noticed the following yacht – “Wife of Pi” – registered in Dublin, and wondered if Ben
Cooke (or indeed Sarah Webb!) have anything to tell us?
Too much of a coincidence,
surely?
