Market Day

All towns of any size in France seem to have a weekly outdoor market. The range of goods on sale takes me back to my childhood, when I would visit the Wolverhampton open market with my mother. For us, the best items on sale here are the fresh fruit and vegetables – most of which looked as though they had been picked early that morning. Irresistible.

St. Quay-Portrieux

New port, so exploration required. We got a small map of the town from the harbour office and headed for the Tourist Information. There was a long queue of people, so we helped ourselves to the limited range of literature available. From our map we could see a less direct but more interesting coastal footpath back to the boat. This place has five excellent beaches and looks a great place for families. Needless to say the beaches were all in use over the fine weekend – sadly high winds and rain is promised for at least a couple of days.
The deep water harbour faces south and is sheltered from the prevailing winds. The tides in this area have a range of up to 12m at springs. When the tide goes out there is one hell of a slope on the walkway down to the visitor’s pontoon that we are on. With 1,030 berths it is like a vast car park for line up on line of small French weekend fishing boats. However, the visitor’s pontoon is totally different with a wide variety of boats moored up including a new arrival: ‘Penhelyg’ – originally from Brixham. We have not seen Pete & Liz and their Atlantic 42 since we saw them in St. Vaast on our way to Paris two years ago. It is amazing how itinerant boaters like us meet up periodically.

France, St. Quay-Portrieux

We had planned to leave St. Peter Port, Guernsey, for Paimpol in France, yesterday. We left the inside marina and moved to the outside area, the previous evening, to enable us to leave without waiting for high tide. However, once we got to sea and found that the high(ish) winds were causing us to be covered in spray from the choppy sea we decided that we would leave our departure until tomorrow. This was a wise choice and the following day was much better. Paimpol, like most harbours in the area, can only be entered at two hours either side of high tide. We would have arrived early so we headed for St. Quay-Portrieux instead. Unusually the journey was sunny and relaxed so you have actually got a photograph of me today.