North Brittany Cruising Companion - Forgotten Islands
Book Extract
Forgotten Islands
Close to Brittany’s northern tip, between Pointe du Château and Port Blanc, a rather desolate looking stretch of coast is fringed with drying reefs for a good mile and a half offshore, and also dotted with small islands – Îles de Penvénan – which, merging with the mainland behind, you can’t easily make out from seaward. Most yacht crews hurry past this corner without paying it much attention, usually while coasting to or from the Tréguier River. Navigators are generally preoccupied with keeping a safe distance off the coastal dangers and perhaps looking out for Les Sept Îles if heading west or trying to find Basse Crublent buoy if cruising east towards Tréguier.
Yet this string of islands creates a fascinating coastal
zone and an intriguing puzzle of inner channels that you can easily explore by dinghy from Port Blanc. The largest island, Île St Gildas, is the nearest to Port Blanc and indeed the best neap tide anchorage in this delightful natural harbour is
just off the south tip of St Gildas, more or less opposite the island’s main house. The island and house were once owned by Dr Alexis Carrel, an eminent French surgeon who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1912.
Île St Gildas is still privately owned and landing isn’t allowed, but at neaps in quiet weather it’s safe to leave your boat here while you take the dinghy through the inner channels. A little before half-flood is a good time to leave and you can follow a natural fairway a shade north of east to pass between Île du Milieu and tiny Île aux Marsouins (the island of porpoises, although you won’t see many hereabouts).
About three cables east of Île du Milieu you’ll see Île Baëlanec, quite a wooded island with several houses on it, which is joined to the mainland village of Buguélès by a tidal causeway. To the north, beyond a curving shingle bank, the more thickly wooded Île Iliec is the idyllic summer retreat of a wealthy champagne family. On a warm sunny day the shallow waters between Milieu and Baëlanec gleam a luxurious turquoise over silver sand, a slice of paradise all the more tantalising for being completely unexpected.
The channels and lagoons around Îles de Penvénan are hardly ever explored by visiting boats, although locals are familiar with their moods and parties of canoeists often paddle through the archipelago from Port Blanc. Pottering about here in a dinghy, you get a completely new perspective on this part of the coast and a reminder of just how many small islands there are off Brittany.
