Nothing is more Breton than seafaring, whether it is “messing about in boats” or risking your life in a storm to earn your living as a fisherman. This is the sea at its most placid and pleasurable for a dinghy sailor.

Here is my boat, familiar to those who look at this blog. I flew the Banner of St George and the little flag we were given at the Route du Sable. I actually met a few sailors from that event!

I did not photograph my first outing, which was to the Glénans Archipelago where I had done a sailing course back in 2009. I sailed 9 nautical miles each way, two and a half hours to get there and four back in a rather disappointing wind. The navigation was simple, by hand bearing compass and dead reckoning.

The following outings were less ambitious. There were some lovely inland waters around Loctudy.

This one looks to the other side of the port of Loctudy.

Looking across the bay of Benoudet towards the point of Beg Meil.

Beg Meil has a special meaning for me, since my first time there and in France was in August 1966 with my family. The granite and silica sand on the beach is white and the water is transparent.

We treated ourselves to a trip to the Glénans on an old lug rig, on which we could help with manoeuvres. The skipper was a laid-back young long-haired fellow called Pierre, and he and I sympathised with each other. There was very little wind that day. We motored on the starboard tack and tried to sail on a port tack, but little progress was made. We furled the sails and continued under power.

There was the vessel at anchor (to the left of the modern yacht) as we were taken off by rubber dinghy.

We spent a couple of hours on the Ile Saint-Nicolas, which we shared with other noisy tourists. There was none of the peace I experienced on Drennec (taken from Saint Nicolas). Still, I had sailed there a couple of days before, not what most tourists do! We were taken back to the mainland by motor launch.

This final one is of our beach at Loctudy, at low tide and a good number of boats on the water. The weather most of the time was mediocre, and there is a saying in Brittany. The weather is fair every day, several times a day!