A chill in the air

23Sep14:

Following a brief sorti back to La Rochelle to visit Le Grand Pavois (boat show) -- which was not a touch on Southampton or London despite being billed as something special -- we are now back in St Denis where we shall Winter leaving the delights of Southern Biscay for next season. 

Denis Denis

We had to plan our 'escape' from Les Minimes not only to have enough water but also to avoid the 4kt cross current steaming across our berth. It would be a short hop across to St Denis d'Oléron but we had to there before nightfall and also to allow enough water to make it over the sand bar which dried 1.5m above CD.

Enroute we managed to catch a Garfish, which we returned, and Mackerel for our supper.

We were fortunate to be met by the HM just before he finished for the day as there was a Rally taking up all the Visitor berths. He showed us to a place on Pontoon K where we had 2.7m at low water -- sorted. 

When's Low Water?

10Sep14:

Extreme Springs can bring very low tides.

This is one of the new boats being prepared for the boat show -- hope it's not yours!

Hoping for a soft bottom

09Sep14:

The temperature is now more bearable with a light breeze. Our appointed berth on the Visitor's pontoon adjacent to the Capitanerie has proved more of a problem.

We were informed on arrival this was the only place we could go as space was severely restricted by the forthcoming boat show -- raft if you have to. We duly rafted and the next day acquired the adjacent pontoon berth. Port Minimes has recently been expanded and now has well over 4000 moorings. What we hadn't considered was the lack of depth in such a huge enterprise! Our Visitor pontoon had a least depth (cd) of a mere 0.8m. This is not usually such a problem with tide on top but at the same time as an approaching monster of a Spring tide, a mere 0.2m at Low water, we had a problem.

Fortunately, we pleaded our case and we were allowed to move to a slightly deeper berth on the North side of the entrance -- amazing that these berths were previously unavailable! Tonight we await low water which will equate to around 1.6m -- we will still be sitting on the bottom in a foot of mud for a short while but it could be worse. Last night a local 40 footer ran aground on the approach to his berth just across from us, a night later and he could well have toppled over.

No stress here! 

La Rochelle

07Sep14: Little wind, 29 degrees in the shade...again. A few hours later and it's 31

High Pressure

La Rochelle: 29 degrees C. 

Under the Bridge

We decided to leave le très chic of St Martin and make way for La Rochelle: thankfully, a short hop as the wind was less than 1kt and everything flat calm in the baking heat of midday. As we passed under the connecting bridge to the island a sigh of relief -- it doesn't matter how much clearance you have (there was plenty) there's always a slight doubt lurking!

As yet not sure if it was a good decision to leave as La Rochelle was limited in mooring space due to the imminent boat show and we still ended up rafting!