St Valery sur Somme

St Valery sur Somme sits on a limestone promontory in the heart of the bay where the canal maritime heads inland to connect with Abbeville.  St Valerie  was visited by both William the Conqueror and Joan of Arc. Today the former medieval city with cobbled streets,has been given over to tourism.

The old town quay must have been a great place to sit out bad weather, the channel turns left and out into the bay

 Looking inland toward the canal the town marina, with the huge tides and associated strong currents in the areas not to mention the many sand banks and shallows it must be a challenging area to sail, probably like north Norfolk coast or the Severn or Dee estuaries in the UK.

The Somme Bay railway has a terminus in St Valerie, originally built during the Epoque, traditional carriages are drawn by  steam locomotives connecting to the nearby towns of Le Crotoy, Noyelles-sur-Mer, Saint-Valery-sur-Somme and Cayeux-sur-Mer for tourists who enjoy the quaint charm of Victorian travel during a tour of the seaside resorts

 

Unusual launch

Poor photo which was taken pretty much at the end of range of my ancient iPhone, the bows which can just be made out, were almost square, presumably the underwater profile was different.

 The stern suggested some kind of electric propulsion, it was moving along a good pace so seemed effective.

Remembrance Day

 Is still alive and well, there was a good turn out for the parade on Sunday led by local Scouts and Guides from the two villages Hamble and Netley.

Around the area the local knitters (actually crochet) have been decorating local post boxes, above classic RAF pilot and nurse are brilliantly represented.

The door to St Paul's on the green at Sarisbury, a few of us gathered outside by the war memorial with a small party of children from Sarisbury school, the Mayor, local Councillors, armed forces and police.

 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. 

At the going down of the sun and in the morning 

We will remember them. 

Laurence Binyon, 1869 - 1943

Working Boat at Itchenor

Looks like a serious piece of kit, presumably for maintenance of the many harbour moorings

 

Hurdel Baie de Somme

Located at the end of a spit in the Baie de Somme, the area is part of a nature reserve, the last vestiges of sea side holiday making and the casino at  disappear as you head north east from Cayeax sur Mer along the trail in the sand dunes.

With tide out there are vast stretches of empty beach, I didn't check tides for Hurdel but just along the coast to. the west where we were staying the rise was 8 meters, presumably similar here with some very strong tidal currents going in and out of the estuary.

The remains of a massive gun emplacement form the war, presumably the tidal erosion has undercut the foundations over the years leaving it like stranded wreckage form a Start Wars movie.

The village is still active with some fishing boats,pleasure boats and yachts tucked further up the river and day trip boats taking visitors out to see the seals with

 To give a little scale to the gun emplacement
 

Dayboats

 I do have a thing for day boats and this is an interesting example it looks like a Swallow Boats Bayraider and apologies if I have that wrong, but a very worthy modern successor to the original Drascombe.

 That comment might have Drascombe aficionado's rushing to the comment  section, although probably few if any read this blog. Both are great boats but personally I like the greater sailing and especially upwind performance of the Bayraider, the kick up rudder while not essential just makes life easier and I much as I like the looks of the original Lugger personally I think the Bayraider has it on looks especially as seen here in navy blue with white spars.

Swamwick Hard clear up

 The council has served a notice of a clean up down at Swanwick hard which requires all dinghy owners to remove their dinghies or they will be removed and presumably scrapped

 They did a similar thing a couple of years back, as I recall legitimate owners removed their boats for a couple of weeks and then were able to return with a registered number. Then as usual over the years a few unregistered and or derelict dinghies turned up, so maybe time to sort things out.