Exploring Lezardrieux

The windy weather has returned and force 6 to 8 has been promised for today. Jomima stayed put today but we planned to explore the village. A couple of days ago we were visited by four people, from two other boats in Paimpol. They arrived by bicycle, electric ones. It did not take long for Ann to express sufficient interest in their machines for her to be offered a ride. We were told that you had to pedal for about three seconds and then the electric power would come in to assist you. Ann set off and after three seconds, as I fully expected, she let out a squeal as her speed increased without her having to put in any more effort. Quite where we would keep one of those I do not know so we will have to stick to our small folders for now.

It would have been nice to have been able to use two of their bikes to enable us to get up the hill to the village. Sadly, we had to walk but knew that it would be downhill coming back with fresh food supplies. The village turned out to be small but pleasant and well equipped with a super market, excellent bread shop and a coffee shop where we were able to get an English newspaper and sit outside reading while drinking excellent French coffee. It’s a hard life being a nomadic boater.

Lezardrieux

What we do each day, on Jomima, depends very heavily on the weather. It has been quite windy and showery for the past few days so we caught up on a few jobs: using the local launderette, polishing Jomima and planning our next port of call. Today promised to be a short period of better weather so, when the tide had raised enough for the lock gate to open, we manoeuvred out of our space on the quay side and headed for the lock. For those of you of a nautical nature we had to motor against a spring to get the back end out, without hitting the boat in front, so that we could reverse past the two boats rafted up behind us. Unfortunately, by the time we managed to get away from our mooring, the lock was already full of boats that also wanted to make an early start. We therefore had to try and hold our place, in the breezy harbour, in a queue of boats waiting to go in the lock. The lock eventually opened and, after letting out the large incoming commercial boat, we all revved engines and bow thrusters and positioned ourselves in the lock. As soon as the outer gate opened we all formed line ahead and followed the long channel out to sea.

We were heading for Lezardrieux which involved cruising down the rocky passage between the mainland and Ile de Brehat. Again we were grateful for modern technology as we followed the plotted route across the electronic chart as well as double checking our route on the paper variety. It was actually very pleasant to arrive safely at the entrance to the Trieux River and be able to cruise upstream, in calmer waters, to a marina mooring in Lezardrieux.