Mountains and lakes

I've said before that mountains are the best place for sailors away from the sea, we've been staying in the French Alps for a couple of weeks in a village overlooking Lac du Bourget thinking that we could perhaps have the best of both worlds.

The area is idyllic, the lake is at 220 meters altitude, our house was at 640 meters with fantastic views while behind us the peak Le Revard rising up to 1500 meters. Lac Bourget is about the same size as lake Windermere  at 18Km long but as a friend joked, surrounded by real mountains.

Of course the problem with lake sailing, especially in the mountains can be lack of wind, this was a typical day on the lake which didn't persuade me to rent a beach cat just to drift around especially at the Euro 45 per hour they were charging for rent,

Of course there are other ways for a stranded sailor to make the most of light airs, every day we watched the parachutists jumping off the Revard and gliding high above our house. Joseph was keen on taking a tandem flight, but even that was outside mum and dad's comfort zone - maybe in a couple of years.

Fortunately Joseph decided that he really preferred the mountains to the lake, so we spent more than a few days hiking around the peaks. Below looking down on the Dent du Chat with the lake beyond, it's about 1500 meters altitude and breathtaking.