Position:  46:30.11N 01:47.70W

Les Sables D’Olonne, France

We left Ile d’Yeu on Monday 11^th August, with sunshine, light winds and the inevitable imminent strong wind warning, and motor-sailed the 32 miles to Les Sables d’Olonne, and after working out the leading marks to guide us into the shallow harbour mouth, we tied up to the reception pontoon where we were met by a very courteous man who helped us decide where to moor up.  There are now two choices in Les Sables (the pilot books aren’t yet updated with this info) – and as well as the main Olonna marina, there are pontoons right in town.  We chose the marina as we had jobs to do.

Les Sables is a great place.  You could call it “Weymouth on steroids”, as it is a large town based around a large sweep of sandy beach, with a port at one end.  However, it is much much bigger, with a lot of high rise buildings along the front, a little more like Med towns.  It retains a lovely charm though, and we really enjoyed it here.  Only one street back from the seafront and you wander along deserted backstreets with little cottages with hollyhocks growing outside.

The Girls on Les Sables seafront

This is also the home of the Vendee Globe singlehanded round the world race, which next sets off in November.  You were reminded of this everywhere – advertising hordings everywhere were sailing-oriented and this town was justly proud of it’s amazing event.

We spent 6 days in Les Sables, and I won’t go into details on what we did each day, but suffice to say we did our jobs – Sarah did school with the girls, I bought & fitted a new circulation pump for the engine, and spent a couple of hours at the top of the mast fitting the storm jib halyard padeye & block, we “did” E Leclerc – a monster supermarket sweep to stock up on lots of things we thought we may need – and we spent a lot of time on the beach.

We have spent a lot of time on a lot of beaches in the last 6 weeks, I am unashamed to say, and we have got to know the French beach culture.  Without fail, the beaches have been totally family-oriented, safe and friendly places to spend a day.  Our kids do what all the other kids do – dig, paddle, splash, and pester for ice creams!  Les Sables was a big beach, and would get very packed as the afternoon wore on, to the point that it looked like one of those pictures of Benidorm or somewhere.  However it was actually really nice and we had some lovely times there.

Another prawn barbeque on the aft deck

However, as well as the sand, Les Sables is also known for the Atlantic swell that comes into the bay and the day after we arrived, we walked along the seafront and watched the horrendous weather (which turned up just after we had got in, again).  There was a tanker in the bay which I can only assume was waiting to come in but couldn’t because of the swell, and you could almost see it hog and sag in the huge waves.  The bow would regularly disappear.

Of course, waves mean surfing and Jemima decided that she wanted to go, so we bought one of those cheap polystyrene jobbies and off she went.  To say she was keen was an understatement!  She was actually really good at it, surfing in on the little waves near the shore.  However, at one point she decided she wanted to go for a bigger wave so I dragged her out a bit further.  Unfortunately she did a nosedive in the wave and I just saw two little fat legs sticking up out of the waist-deep water!  I hoiked her out and after that she was quite a bit more cautious.  Not bad for a 2-yr old!

Jemima catching a wave

Jemima not catching a wave

The French merry-go-rounds are in most towns and are works of art

Jemima’s first attempt at rollerskating