Awoke to find ourselves
surrounded by weird mud shapes sticking up around 1m. So much for
local knowledge! But no harm done.Glad we didn't land on these
Awoke to find ourselves
surrounded by weird mud shapes sticking up around 1m. So much for
local knowledge! But no harm done.
We were expecting the flood around noon, and when the adverse current had dropped to 1/2 knot at 11:50, raised the main as an offering to the absent wind gods and motored up the river.
At 14:00, the ebb was still running hard, and we'd only reached Blaye, all under motor. So we anchored for lunch. On our way we'd passed a trawler anchored with all its gear set, but completely deserted.
At 14:30, the tide at last condescended to turn, but with no wind, we had to motor all the way to Boardeaux. The Gironde estuary is interesting, with glimpses of wine chateaux on the left bank, and hills on the right, until it splits into the Dordogne and Garronne, after which it becomes rather industrial.
We tied up at a pontoon by the lock leading into the ship basins, but were told by the skipper of another boat that the lock was broken and wouldn't open for 2 or 3 days. We were around a mile or more from the town centre, so we unshipped the bikes and set out to explore.
Bordeaux construction site
The
town of Bordeaux itself was a construction site. There were
massive works to remove the remaining ship terminals along the
bank and replace them with gardens, shopping malls, etc. No doubt
it will be great when it's finished. I hope they include a
pontoon to allow yachts to tie up in town. The square around the
cathedral was also a building site, so we enjoyed a beer looking
at the works round the cathedral. We asked the waiter why the
town was deserted, and he reckoned that people were escaping the
heat by staying indoors or going to the seaside. Disastrous for
his business.
On our return found the ebb in some spate, and we doubled up the mooring lines.