We went up river to Rochefort under sail but had a long motor back using the engine, no wind! After another long laze waiting for the tide at anchor off the Isle d'Aix, we tacked 16 miles across to St Denis on the Isle d'Oleron, creeping in with less than 1 M of water under our keel.
Isle d'Oleron is another flattish island, with good beaches, salt beds, vineyards, which we took advantage of cycle hire and dedicated cycle tracks to explore.
Our last long sail was down the coast of Isle d'Oleron into the estuary of the river Gironde to Royan. The pilot books paint a dark picture of the Gironde estuary, it is over 5 miles wide at its mouth, with strong tides and shifting sand banks, which are dangerous in strong SW winds. In reality, on a sunny day, with gentle northerly winds it was a lovely sail, leaving St Denis at lunchtime to catch the evening tide, we reached Royan as planned at 10pm without any excitement. Royan marina was expensive and charmless so by 9am we were motoring our last 30 miles, up river to Pauillac, where Cara Mara will stay while we come home for July.
Pauillac is in the heart of the Bordeaux, Medoc wine region and vinyards were much in evidence on the riverbanks, it is very lovely countryside. Finally, after so long in France it is truly HOT, 28 today and 30 forecast for tomorrow. Now 1241 miles later
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| The entrance to St Denis at low tide, |
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| the last working transporter bridge in France, down river from Rochefort. |
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| and we had to wait for it to cross before we could go down river. |
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| Chateaux and vineyard on the river bank |
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| Being overtaken by a tanker, going up the Gironde. |
we are coming home. The next instalment of the blog will be in Aug.
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