A two month layoff… and now back to the Golfe du Morbihan

It was good to get back on the water after repairing some muscular strains and tears, with the weekend spent at the Golfe du Morbihan. Despite many visits over a ten year period I always enjoy paddling at this stunning location. High winds were predicted so for the remaining few hours of Friday evening we took a trip up the tidal waters of the Riviere Vincin

We stayed on the campsite at Penboch, a great site with superb facilities and we had a pitch just 100 meters from the beach.

We left Penboch and crossed over to Île Boëdic, here we saw St Antoine the carved Monk had recently had his ‘paint job’ refreshed.  There are several stories relating to this carved rock regarding his age and who carved him, one suggests it was carved by one of the occupying German soldiers during the war,  but it seems that the carving is in fact much older.


We crossed over into the Conleau passage, the small entrance opening into La Marle giving access to the Vannes canal and the Riviere Vincin.  This is always a busy passage with working boats, pleasure cruisers and the Passenger ferries.

The Estuary here is home to a good number of birds,  we saw Egrets, Common Shell ducks Cormorants as well as the usual Herring gulls.

Our trip ended at the Tidal mill in a beautiful spot, the stonework on the building is sits comfortably alongside the natural surroundings

The view was splendid, it is quite tranquille. In the shallows on either side huge fish were streaming along just below the surface enjoying the warm water.

There are still those who would like to see an independant Brittany, but it has to be said I have never come across anyone holding those views, this sole piece of Graffiti reads

“Breton always  French never”   it doesn’t look like someone could have painted this covertly so I guess there is some tolerance towards these sentiments.

On the moorings opposite Conleau we came across this Polynesian Style  “Pirogue”  a sit in canoe fitted with an outrigger. In France they are more usually known as Va’a   this one being a Va’a 4.  Racing these craft takes place during Sea kayak racing ‘Merathon’  with classes for single seaters, Va’a 2s  Va’a 4s and Va’a 6.
This discipline is gaining popularity in France and many coastal kayaking clubs have Va’a sections

One issue when paddling on the Golfe du morbihan for visitors is the difficulty in keeping track of where you are. When approaching the passage to Conleau  there is a rather distinctive solitary house painted Pink, its such a good marker that it even features on Charts as the “Pink House”   …. I guess the owners will not change the colour !

On returning to Penboch, we saw a chap making early preparations to refloat his boat on the next tide, with the tide height dropping for the next week or so meant the following high tide would be his last opportunity for quite a while. Happily all went well for this sailor.

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