We wake up to a glorious morning on the river…

…and after some fresh coffee make our way up to the pretty village of Bono for some more coffee and fresh croissants. The bar only served coffee but she was more than happy to point us to the shop a few doors down and suggested that we could buy our croissants there and bring them back to sit on her bar’s terrace in the sun…brilliant and heart warming local co-operation.

The little town is pretty but we are not quite sure what the two in the sculpture were on about…she seems about to smack him with her haddock…

We catch the last of the ebb (we think) back down the river in order to get the first of the flood back up into the eastern part of the Golfe. The oystermen are up and about after the extended holiday here (feast of the Ascension)…

As we get to the end of our river and make the turn left we realise that the ebb has not finished! This turns out to be more than an inconvenience, as at some places in the stream we are heading backwards, despite going through the water at nearly 7 kts. We try all sorts of places to find a back eddy and finally find some slower water within a biscuit toss of the shore. With one eye on the depth sounder, the other on the log (speed) and a third on any convenient transit, we make our way grindingly slowly to a small bay where we hope to find a place to anchor out of the current. We slip into a little bay between the islands of Gavrinis and Ile Longue and anchor within hailing distance of the oystermen. This is torture for Yee Tak as they seemingly shake the cages deliberately as if to taunt her…

After a leisurely lunch we catch the now favourable tide back into the heart of the Golfe. We have a glorious sail through the islands and in no time we are searching for an anchorage off the northern tip of Ile aux Moines.

The areas marked as anchorages seem now to be laid with mooring buoys and we pick up a vacant one marked with a V (for Visiteur we hope).

We trundle ashore in search of some cool beer, where the capitainerie young lady tells us we can have a pontoon berth with water and electricity for the same price….it is virtually empty and so we move Heydays we hope for the last time tonight.

The stream is now rushing through the narrows even faster than at Sandbanks and we watch boats being swept sideways at unconscionable speeds as they try to find the tiny paths of slack water in the countless eddies and whirlpools off the point.

Back on Heydays we eat and drink as the sun goes down over what we feel is a really special place…

Postscript…

We are charging batteries, running the fridge etc when we lose mains power. We check all the trip switches on board, we try other power points, all to no avail. The pontoon opposite however, has power when we ask and so we assume that it is our pontoon which has lost power. Despite being nicely melow and full, we up sticks and move Heydays to the next pontoon. This is a pain, but at least we’ll have ice! We plug in but get the same dispiriting result. The boat next to us is plugged in and there is no-one on board so we unplug and try theirs. Eureka. Problem must be with us. We are scratching our heads when a helpful local wanders over and says “…have you tried pushing the button?” Oddly, pushing the on switch works! We apologise profusely and make ‘aren’t we stupid’ gestures with our hands. He shakes his head sadly and returns to his family and booze…