Position: 47:22:98N 02:56:65W

Il Houat, Southern Brittany, France

We left Isle de Groix at sunrise for an early arrival at our next anchorage.

Isle Houat is reported to be the most popular in South Brittany.

The wind was very light at under 5 knots but now John was .. “Master of the “Pole” and kept us moving nicely.
We had a very picturesque sail and would have been very relaxing if we didn’t have to keep an eye on the rocks that litter this shoreline. Anyway, we arrived around 4pm through a narrow passage and into the large anchorage at Isle Houat.

It was middle of summer. What else should you expect!
There were at least 200 boats anchored in the bay and yes, the dreaded submarine cables stretched about the bay.  It took a bit of motoring through the boats like trying to find a parking spot in the height of Xmas Saturday shopping but we finally got the anchor down and started supper!

Oh I forgot to mention that it may well be a beautiful and favorite spot of the French, but there is a famous wind in this area called “The Brise de Terre.” This arrives during the as the land cools and can blow quite hard providing a very uncomfortable roly-poly night. It’s quite common to experience the “Midnight Pyjama Party” as everyone exits during the night. Remember this is a rocky coast so most people ensure that they have already set up their exit route waypoints on the chart plotter before going to bed – just in case.

“John why is this so popular again? John, why are we anchoring here!”

“The Brise de Terre” did blow that night and it sure was a little uncomfortable but all was calm by morning.  With all the wind changes during the night and the consequential boat moving around we found ourselves close enough to another boat for our neighbor to say in broken English, “..our boats were very friendly last night”.

This anchorage reinforces the feeling you get every now and then that the days of ‘free spirit sailing to romantic empty sandy bays’  is long gone unfortunately. This may well be the best beach in Brittany but it’s popularity with so many yachts has to pop it pretty low down on our popularity list unfortunately.

This stopover was nothing more than a night stop for our overall journey so we left at sunrise for our next anchorage at Isle de Yeu.