Wintering between La Rochelle and San Sebastian

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IKARUS

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After our summer cruise this year we intent to leave our boat somewhere between La Rochelle and San Sebastian. We'd appreciate if somebody could recomment a suitable boat yard in this area. We are looking for a place on the hard with the possibility to carry out some works by ourself. Any proposuals are most welcome.
 
3000 berth marina with an eight year waiting list - it's the only place I'll never, ever go again. Visitors' pontoon full of local boats permanently moored and the staff just tell you to find your own mooring. Of course, you can't, so you try to raft up and everybody tells you to naff off. And it was €60 a night. Access over sand bar and through shifting channel is a bit of an adventure, too.
Bitter, moi?
 
Can recommend Hendaia (Hendaye to the French) and Hondarribia (Fuenterabia to the Spanish), both on the estaury of the Bidasoa on the border between France and Spain.

A passenger ferry runs between the two sides of the estuary, from the Hendaia marina to the town of Hondarribia, about a 10-mins walk from the marina on that side.

If you are staying onboard for any length of time, you can "pick and mix" the two different atmospheres and cultures. The French side is quieter, the Spanish more populated and live. Served food is also better and mostly cheaper there too.

Both marinas are just a hop, step and jump from the local beach (plage to the French, hondartza to the Basques).

Sanitary facilities in both, when I last used them, were first class.
 
We thought Cap Breton was terrific, as a welcoming marina and nice town. Enrty can be very hairy, however. And I don't know about hard facilities.
Zumaya is a pleasant marina and may have good hard facilities - there is a shipyard there. Bit of a hike into town, though.
 
I'd go for Rochefort personally. Normally space, particularly if you book ahead, as boats come out of the water for winter. VERY CHEAP! (& quite an intreresting place.
 
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I'd go for Rochefort personally. Normally space, particularly if you book ahead, as boats come out of the water for winter. VERY CHEAP! (& quite an intreresting place.

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Yep, don't know about over-wintering there, but we love the place though the marina was looking a bit scruffy when we were last there in 1999. At the time there were loads of liveaboards with some of them turning the place into a bit of a 'marine gyspy' encampment, with stuff stacked everywhere round their boats.

Still a great place to stop for a while though and hopefully it will have been tidied a little by now /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Apart from Arcarcharon there isn't anywhere.

I'd look at somewhere round la Rochelle - Rochefort if you must, but Marans (up the Sevre-Niortaise and through the Ecluse de Brault) would be my choice.

Do call it Donostia AND NOT San Sebastian if you want to have reasonable relations with the locals.

Probably the best place to eat out in the whole of Europe!!!
 
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Zumaya is a pleasant marina and may have good hard facilities

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Can second that. I did not consider anywhere further west than Donostia, as the question limited the scope to between La Rochelle and Donostia. However, I can confirm that Zumaya has good hard facilities, with plenty of space.

The marina has nothing to do with the shipyard, which, by the way, has built several oil rig support vessels, one named the Grampian something or other, and now working in the North Sea or in the Irish Sea.
 
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