Charlotte and Laura-Lyn went for a run and came back bubbling about kittens they had seen en route. Charlotte returned with some milk and other food to feed them and took these photos.
They were holed up under this shed.
Apparently they behaved like typical kittens.
Just as a refresher, link to a Google Map that shoes Cap Ferret and its position within the region and relationship to the Basin of Arcachon. We decided to take a day trip to Arcachon and caught a 30 minute boat ride on a 30-35 ft. boat from Cap Ferret to Arcachon across the Basin.
On the 30 minute shuttle ferry to Arcachon we met a delightful French couple from St. Malo who were cycling around France. He spoke relatively good English and we used it as an opportunity for Charlotte to translate our conversation. Meanwhile, Allister was performing translation services between Laura-Lyn and his wife. As Laura-Lyn has observed, these were some of the most friendly French people we met anywhere on our travels.
This was the view as we approached Arcachon. Its economy seemed to be that of a vacation community and revolved around its marina and tourism.
The kids were glad to see that France also celebrated Halloween.
Arcachon had the largest pleasure boat marina I have every seen and boats of all types, large, small, power and some high performance power boats and this very fast sailboat.
Arcachon also had some distinct architecture. These were probably trophy homes, located as they were on the grand promenade, but nonetheless, I thought they were interesting and unique in their design.
You read about the boardwalk on places like Coney Island and other beach areas near densely populated US cities but I haven’t seen too many. Arcachon’s was extensive (at least 3 km) and extremely well maintained. It wasn’t hard to believe that this would be popular with tourists and summer residents.
This merry-go-round was accessible from the boardwalk and fit right in with Arcachon’s resort theme.
I went for a walk one day up the beach at low tide and came across a couple of small fishing villages. The photos below were taken in one of them, L’Herbe.
The main street was the only one wide enough for a vehicle. The other streets were paths between a number of small cottages laid out on a grid that are presumably the homes of fisherman. Here is an example of the passage ways between cottages.
A view from the beach side of L’Herbe.
Cap Ferret was also known for its oysters. Here is a picture of the cages used to grow them (left) and a close up of one of the cages. It made me curious about the oyster farming techniques on Vancouver Island at places like Fanny Bay.
A couple more photos of the fishing village and hits harbour.
In earlier posts, I mentioned our visit was outside the season in Cap Ferret. Here are some pictures of what became a common site during our visit – homes with shuttered windows. More and more of these shutters were opened as our week there ended because Saturday, Oct 25th, our last day, was the start of the French school holiday and we noticed an influx of new people as we were packing up to leave and on our way on Saturday.
We took a walk along the inside (opposite of the Atlantic Ocean) side of Cap Ferret and found some excellent beachcombing.
This was the view across the Basin of Arcachon towards a large sand dune on the mainland. There were literally thousands of mooring buoys scattered in every direction along the shore of the Basin. Things weren’t too active at this stage of the year – I can only imagine what July and August here would be like. Busy, very busy!
Trying for an artsy shot of some of the pilings on the beach.
We tried to lever this jelly fish back into the water but it was too amorphous and resisted our attempts to get it onto a piece of wood. Plus, it was big and heavy.
Finally, a look at some of the community of Cap Ferret clustered near the lighthouse. We don’t know what the range of tides was, but the sight of boats high and dry was not uncommon.
There were multiple paths over the dunes to the within 5 minutes drive from our rental property. That is the Atlantic Ocean directly ahead and the first couple of days we were in Cap Ferret were sunny and over 20 C. The next few days were almost as warm (17-20 C) but more overcast, despite this, we enjoyed every minute of it.
It didn’t take Allister and Charlotte long to start enjoying the beach and its surf.
The view of the dunes from the beach included some concrete bunkers left over from WW II, now covered with tagger art.
Great stretches of the beach featured sand as nice as we had seen anywhere in Hawaii and Mexico, interspersed with small stones and shells.
Kids and a beach are a great combination. Besides swimming, they have no trouble finding lots of other things to do. Charlotte started a large sand castle project and we all helped her extend and complete it.
We weren’t the only ones on the beach in addition to some ‘au natural’ sun worshippers, we were joined by runners, other swimmers, fishermen, ATV drivers, and surfers.
The season is usually over in Cap Ferret when we arrived but it had been an unusually warm fall. Here Laura-Lyn uses here toe to line up a photo of the pool and deck of the Cap Ferret property we had rented through www.abritel.fr from its Bordeaux owners.
Even though the water was a little nippy, it didn’t take Charlotte and Allister to get in and start enjoying the pool.
The view of the house from the front yard. If you thought the ground here looks suspiciously like sand, you’d be right. Even the parts of Cap Ferret where houses were constructed were sandy.
The house had a typical vacation house plan – open kitchen separated by a counter from the dining and living room. Two more bedrooms on the main floor along with a bathroom and the laundry room. The second floor had another bathroom and 2 more bedrooms. In all, a very nice layout for this type of property.
