We set sail on……….. a three hour tour

Of the basin D’ Arcachon (or Arcachon Bay).

We boarded the smallest one of these boats along with 48 other tourists, most of them on a group trip from a Nursing Home who needed help with wheelchairs and walking sticks.

You can see how crammed we were on the boat. This next photo is of the Captain (Marin) who I thought might be going to give us a safety talk, but no. Even if he did bother with a safety talk, most of the people on board would have needed help to fit a life jacket and some sort of flotation device for the wheelchairs.

Now this is the only photo I got of the captain of the boat and it is not a good one of him. Makes him look smug? Unfortunately, he and I did not get off to a good start when he asked if there were any Italians, Spaniards or English on board. We indicated we were English (a mistake I tried to correct immediately explaining in my best French we were Australians). We were the only non French on board. He made a few smart remarks that most of the other tourists giggled at and I got his drift and replied that I understand some French. Anyhow, the whole three hours he did not stop talking and it was all inFrench. Now I am OK with that as we are in France, but why ask if there were any other nationalities on board. To rub things in, as we were getting off the boat he said in his best English he was sorry he could not speak more English and smiled towards the tip jar. I pretended I could not understand English at that point and walked off.

The huge tide variances I mentioned in my last post are perfect for oyster farming. This has been done in this basin since 1852 and it produces 10,000 tonnes of oysters each year plus 70% of the 4.5 billion baby oysters needed in France.

The boat tour took us along the length of the inside coast of the bay and we got to see 100’s of boats moored in an odd arrangement as well as lots of houses with their own beaches.