Dive Into Lorient

A bit more wind and some heavy rain, on our sail to Lorient.  Doug seems to be attending to the navigation below!


We worked our way through the extensive port of Lorient with its five marinas, ferries rushing all around us, and motored into the marina in the middle of town (named the Marina of Lorient). 

It was too late to meet any marina staff and we made the slight mistake of choosing a berth as soon as we could find one, not realising that we had not yet entered the Port de Plaisance and were still amongst the private pontoons.  Never mind, the French owners nearby were happy with us here and we had some interesting neighbours in the form a small colony of Arctic Terns nesting on 2 wave breaker pontoons that had been adapted for them with gravel trays and rope edging to keep the chicks from falling off!  We enjoyed watching them catching tiny fish and feeding them to their chicks.

Fish carrying duties

Diving to catch fish nearby

Fledglings behind the rope - guarded by an adult carer

But our main reason for stopping at Lorient was to visit the Submarine Museum and the WW2 U-Boat pens.  So, next day, we headed to the "bateaubus" terminus next to the marina for a trip to that part of town. 

Submarine Pens dominating the Lorient skyline

View inside one of the pens that was used to bring U-boats ashore for dry docking

After the war, the French Navy took over the submarine base, with its capacity for up to 30 submarines, and this was the largest such facility along the Atlantic wall.  
When the base was closed in 1995, the area was transformed into a centre for the development of racing yachts and a museum dedicated to ocean racer Eric Tabarly named "Cite de la Voile" and a set of WW2 historical museums.  This massive dockside complex is collectively called "Le Base".

We took a tour over a Daphne class diesel-electric submarine "La Flore", that was in active service from 1955 to 1989.

La Flore submarine

Forward torpedo tube compartment

Doug getting stuck-in to life on board

That evening we moved to another of Lorient's marinas - at Port Louis as we had discovered this lovely peaceful place on one of our multiple ferry trips across the harbour en-route to the museum.

Beautiful Port Louis Marina

This deserved another day in harbour, so next day we followed the marked route around the edges of the local towns and inspected the fortifications against those devilish English (and other) past invaders.

Citadelle of Port Louis

The walk near Port Louis

Comments

  1. Bruce&CarolJuly 8, 2023 at 7:13 AM

    Quite nostalgic for us(but don't remember any rain!) Guess you are too early for Folk Festival

    ReplyDelete

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