Wednesday 8thOctober – windsurf **** Beauduc, Camargue – sunny periods
We had a lovely relaxing lie in after a windy night parked here on the beach at Beauduc in the Camargue. We did our exercises in the warm sunshine and then I unloaded my windsurfing kit to have my first session since 28thAugust!!! Several kiters were already out but with the wind cross off and gusty it was a job to pick a sail? I took my biggest board to the water’s edge with my wind guage and with the wind gusting 20 mph + I decided on the 7m. I also chose my full wetsuit – a big mistake as it was very warm even if by now the sun had disappeared:( In this direction you could sail for approx 2 miles down the left hand side of the bay past the wooden fishing jetty. The water is shallow close in and you had to walk a way out and I set out flying in the fairly flat water until half way across the bay when I hit a huge length of rope holding a drift net!!! This ruined the mornings hour attempt as there were marker bouys everywhere and it made you very nervous about going too fast!:( The full suit is tight on my arms and I was cooking so was pleased to finish the first hour. I came ashore for lunch with Mag, who was enjoying a lazy day reading and snoozing, and to watch the kiters. Two fishing boats were laying drift nets everywhere which would make the afternoon session interesting! After mending yet another hole in the 7m – that’s 3 panels with holes in now – its amazing I still had a sail at all after all the big crashes of the morning! With the sun now out and the shorty on the afternoon hour was a lot better, making 29 knots and sailing the whole length of the bay without any major wipe outs! :) With the hour up I decided to beat back to the van and had a big crash in front of the wooden jetty and managed to get my feet tangled in the nylon fishing line drift net. I had to take off both my shoes to untangle them! By which time my sail had popped off the uj just like it did in Felixstowe and my board set off in the direction of Stes Maires de la Mer with no way of me catching it:( There was a fishing boat in the direction my board was heading but they were laying more nets so I returned to my sail and started to swim ashore. Then my saviour appeared! The fishing boat had laid its nets and was heading to pick me up and they had my old Xantos on board:) Sadly by this point I was well tangled in another net but I managed to free myself and climb aboard just as they recovered my sail:) They then took me ashore and dropped me in the shallow water by the jetty, after handshakes and thanks all round I set off back to the van where I got 20 euros for the fishermen for recovering my board:) We then had a relaxing hour before a walk along the beach as the sun disappeared. There is a horrible caravan/shanty town right by the jetty with a rabid dog and more derelict caravans in the dunes. There is also a skip in the car park over flowing with rubbish which has started blowing around. We then walked over the flooded beach to what must be the village of Beauduc and what a derelict, mosquito ridden shit hole that is! We were glad to get back to the van. We are not great lovers of parking on sandy windy beaches and will be moving off tomorrow. As for the sailing its certainly no Gruissan/La Franqui, better suited to kiting than windsurfing and not worth risking the van in a 2m chicane and a 11km bumpy track! As for the Camargue, apart from the flamingos horses and cattle it has little to offer and is best avoided!