TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We were so looking forward to the Morbihan and Vannes, we were expecting much after reading and hearing so much about the area. We were not to be disappointed. Again we had a lovely sail over to Port Navalo before the tide picked us up and encouraged Erimar through the 700 metre entrance and ushered  her onward for Vannes. Being our first time in the Morbihan we wanted to head straight to Vannes rather than sight see too much. We needed to keep to our timings anyhow and the sight seeing  could wait for our return from Vannes.

The Morbihan is an inland sea for all intents and purposes. Nothing too dramatic really, no big seas, just narrow strong tidal streams, back eddies and the surface takes on a weird look in  places. We passed Gavrinis and I de la Jument where the waters persona did just that. Erimar was going along nicely in the current, but to our starboard side the water was like glass and seemingly not moving. Where it met the current it gave the impression that the water was dropping down off a ledge – very weird. Erimar was merrily tootling along at 9.5 knots at one point but after the Goulet de Brest, where we recorded 12 knots, this was a piece of cake. It is a beautiful cruising ground and with 60 islands it knocks Milton Keynes in to a cocked hat in more ways than one!

On entering the buoyed channel of the River de Vannes just before the distinctive pink house,the channel narrows and makes it interesting when the vedettes and commercial traffic converges with pleasure craft. Our timing was pretty good to the swing bridge at Vannes, only a 5 minute wait to allow for the downstream yachts to pass. We just did a few slow 360`s rather than moor on the waiting pontoon and then made our through the lock and in to Vannes marina.

Passage:18.11nm              Distance Run So Far:1138.50 nm