Bénodet to La Rochelle - 2nd Day
Day 12
The night becomes a bit of a blur. Having autopilot and these instrumentation and navigation aids is very useful. We always keep two people awake, more or less. The conversation sometimes comes down to, “Is that a light? Is it Green , is it Red, is it moving? Is it a fishing fleet? Is it getting closer? Oh, we’ve gone past it.”. Marco is very good a cat naps. I’m very good at going to sleep.
After a few hours dawn approached. It makes such a difference. Every thing has a perspective and context which gives you so much more information. At night it is a guessing game.
Here are some dawn images. I played around with moving the camera while exposing the shot and I am quite pleased with it. Better than I thought with a moving yacht! I was quite impressed with how the camera managed it!
After dawn, we were soon approaching the Isle de Ré. Sue and spent a day driving around it in a VW Golf Convertible a few years ago. Strange to see it from a different angle.
I remember going to this town. I have a photograph of the lighthouse on the stair wall at home. It is a bit crap compared to the one at L’Aber Wrach.
I am still waiting for a good photo of a gannet skimming the waves, so here’s a young herring gull that was following our boat.
The bridge to La Rochelle was approaching. Would we fit underneath ? The mast is about 22m, but is that from the deck or the water. What’s the height of the bridge, 43m? Is that high or low tide, is that to the underneath or the top of the bridge. Oh well we’ll find out.
And……..
Under the bridge we went!
Past the Port
Into La Rochelle Marina. Which is sadly this side of the two majestic towers at the entrance to the old harbour.
We docked reasonable easily, the boat that berthed behind us nearly rammed us though! After the journey I had a beer and a packet of crisps for lunch and then crashed. Marco and Chloe went to see the town. I have spent a week here before, so sleeping was much higher on my priority list.
We met back near the docks for dinner. Marco said we should go to the Captain’s Cafe, Number 1 on trip advisor 98 5* reviews! I scouted it before we met and it was intriguing. He must have 98 good mates! To be fair it was a good burger! And I had a lovely IPA that was the winner of a French beer festival. At 7.2% alcohol content, one was enough!
Back to the boat to deliberate on what to do next. Another storm is coming in.
