Sailing in Brittany: magic

Just back from a wonderful sailing holiday with our friends Antony (the best skipper in the world) and Julia (the best mate, in both senses of the word) in Brittany on their beautiful 40 ft yacht, Pastime. Now I remember: there’s nothing more enjoyable or rewarding than sailing in beautiful weather (I’m a fair weather sailor, me), and getting from A to B by the power of the wind (and occasional help from the motor when the wind chooses to flag) with the promise of a plateau de fruit de mer and a glass of Muscadet sur le Lie at the end of a day at sea…or even, quite possibly, during it.

 

We set off from pretty Pornic, and first sailed to the enchanting Ile d’Yeu where friends Nadine and Neil have had the intelligence to have abandoned the rat race and to live in a charming white and blue shuttered house with a lovely burgeoning garden by the sea. After pottering round the quay side market, Nadine took us on a cycle ride round the island (they don’t even own a car anymore) while Neil prepared a feast of delicious local smoked tuna (the island is a tuna fishing centre) and patagos (a special clam) mariniere for lunch in the garden. Wonderful. And then we snoozed in the sun. We also visited Nadine’s remarkable father, Roger and his remarkable artist wife, Charlotte, two memorable people in one unforgettable house, filled with Charlotte’s luminous, enigmatic, philosophical pictures. London? Forget it. I’m off sailing, and maybe after a while at sea I will settle here in the Ile d’Yeu. Bye Bye.I mean it. All I need is a boat. And a crew…..

Next day we set off across the Bay of Quiberon to reach a tiny island called Houat, one of a pair of peaceful sisters, Houat and Hoedic, which mean ‘duck’ and ‘duckling’ in Breton. Houat lives on fishing and tourism. Its population grows from 340 inhabitants to about 3000 visitors a day during the summer, many of them congregating in its cutest of toy town villages, with houses so small and dainty that it felt as if one was walking in a model village. Dunes and sand lilies characterise the rest of the island.

By now I was seriously getting in to cooking on board, having found a copy of a book I wrote 30 years ago, after a two year stint as a cook aboard charter yachts in the Caribbean: Cooking Afloat. God the writing is pompous, but the recipes…. not too bad! For years they seemed hopelessly outmoded and I never used my own concoctions but now, their retro take on making the most of the store cupboard and cooking with the simplest of fresh ingredients are back in fashion and Julia and I had much fun in testing them out. Tuna baked with crisps…yum! Perhaps not baked bean soup, though…. that’s taking things too far, recession or not. 

After a night at anchor in Houat, it was off to the Gulf of Morbihan and then Belle Isle… more of which another time.