Houat to Quiberon Peninsula

Portz Plous

We slept soundly, lulled by the sound of the surf on the shore, and woke very late on Friday 7 September. The beaches were as beautiful in the rising sun as they had been when it was setting but getting ashore to explore the wilds would be very wet with the surf still breaking on the shore so, instead, we took the tide NW towards the Quiberon peninsula. The previous day the NE gradient wind had been entirely cancelled out by the SW sea-breeze during the afternoon and we were concerned that this might happen again. However, although the breeze reduced a bit there was still more than enough to sail by, particularly as we hardened up onto a close reach up the west side of the ‘Côte Sauvage’; we had a cracking sail up this wild coastline. En-route we passed Port Maria to and from where the ferries to Le Palais run. The almanac puts it down as a fishing vessel and ferry port, only to be visited by yachts in an emergency, but I bet there’s a good fish market there!

Anchored off Portivy near Fort de Penthièvre

Off Ile Téveic we took down the sails and tip-toed cautiously through the rocks towards Fort de Penthièvre. In future it would be wiser to take a wide berth around the north of the island but it was a calm day and we did get a lovely view of its beach, which Peter Cumberlidge, in his book ‘Secret Anchorages of Brittany’, recommends as an anchorage in settled weather. However, we had designs on anchoring close into the wide sandy bay, fantastically empty now that the holidays were over, and a rare opportunity given that this coast is wide open to the prevailing SW winds.

Fort de Penthièvre