The lagoon

While we carves a furrow towards The Promise' prospective winter berth, I scan the distant shore out to port. There is a line of surf now and not a place to venture but in the heat of summer, there is a narrow entrance and a sandy lagoon there. Le Letty is a popular spot for locals, warm, shallow and peaceful. High tide it's a race track for windsurfers when the wind is up, but low water, it's a secret world of waders and divers. I spent many happy hours there this year just idling. If you wait for half tide, you can easily wade the estuary from side to side. The current fairly rips out but there's no danger except to odd crab nipping your toes as you go. If'n you're sly, you can crouch in the salty waves and approach on all fours like a hippo. The terns and egrets have no idea and you can sidle up to within feet as they're feeding.

The marshes left uncovered by the receding sea are a different world. The sand bars dry into low lying tropical islands, hot to touch behind the protecting dunes. As the land solidifies across the shallows, isolated sunseekers drag canoes and rubber rafts behind them, knowing that as the sea returns, they will have to row, or make a very lengthy trek around the peninsula. In the evenings, low fires burn in the wilderness like Tuareg camps and the smoke of barbeques drift across the lagoon. Beach parties gather and distant music thumps. These dunes extend as far as Mousterlin on this side, and almost to Beg Meil beyond the point. Miles of pine backed, sandy nothingness and I love it.

I'll come back to this spot but right now, a coffee has materialised from below and we keep an eye on the coastguard station on the point. Once abeam, we'll round up and tighten sheets for the run into the bay.