St Cast August 2009

Bav34

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See previous post here:

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210485



Free WiFi was not good!!!

Anyway…. here’s another try from ‘somewhere in France’

Pics link


http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u286/moonshine33/YBW/St Cast Aug 2009/



As it was the talk of the shower blocks along the Brittany coast I thought you might like to see some photos and read a very rough pilot guide.

First of all TOTALLY disregard any charts or pilot books that you have. Look at my chart plotter photo and compare our track to the marked waypoint taken from Wiley’s Online Almanac. Two of the rocks shown on the chart plotter are INSIDE the marina! The pointer shows a ninety degree starboard turn. The breakwater above the waypoint now extends to where we turned.

We arrived at the first port hand buoy with a tidal height of 7.7 metres. There was 9.5 metres of water so I guess the new channel is dredged 1.8 metres below C.D. giving 24 hour access. This doesn’t tie in with some reports of deep draught boats aground at LWS but a dredger was pulling up a lot of mud and rocks from the actual entrance. See pics.

The new lateral buoys are easy to see but VERY close together. When you get to the last green you hang a REALLY tight right to enter the marina.

Erwan Frog … sorry… Froge…. was in his R.I.B. to show us to the berth. All very professional.

The whole waterfront looks like a tidy building site. To the right of the walkway is reclaimed land … flat, muddy, rocks plus some very un-French looking apartments with restaurants underneath. Give it time. A few potted palm trees and some tarmac will make a big difference. To the left is the same but there you will find the showers and port office … in Portacabins. Again give it time.

Free elec, free showers at a cost of 28 euros for our 34 feet. That’s the most expensive so far. Worth it? I don’t know. After countless locked/silled marinas along here it is refreshing to have somewhere that we can just leave from but it will be interesting to see how they develop the waterfront.

I am now putting on my H&S high-viz jacket to warn you that all the above is my opinion only and that if you park your boat on the mud …IT’S YOUR FAULT!

They’ve spent 26,000,000 of somebody’s Euros to get you in there 24/7. (Where did that come from?)
 
and the login is ?????? that's better thanks ! very interesting... I see they have silly pntoon fingers like cherb used to have.
 
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Wi-Fi works ok at hight water, look like it will be good when they finish the work,
b,t,w, it took 18 months to do the work so far,don;t expect too much from a building site,
 
St Cast

Just had 4 nights in St Cast (we were the only Brit in there!) and thought it was great. OK, it's not finished, showers/wc's in a portacabin at the moment, but as long as you don't go at peak time they are very hot and good, and there's no charge.

'Bav 34' showed a pic of a pontoons with rather alarming unprotected metal bits. We noticed that, but on F pontoon (where we were) they are larger and fully protected with rubber.

The marina staff greeted us on arrival and showed us to a berth. They even tie their RIB up and take your lines!

We arrived from Jersey, making the east cardinal Les Bourdinots our waypoint. Dredging was still taking place in the entry channel so we had a bit of a seat-of-the-pants entry as it was near low water and we had to pass between him and the end of the mole, but the least depth was 3.7m. When we left this morning he'd moved position so there was plenty of room.

We really enjoyed our stay, fantastic sweep of beach, pretty town and coastal footpath. We shall definitely be going back next year. It looks as though St Quay has a rival!
 
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