The Gulf of Morbihan is an inland sea to the south of Brittany, France, about 10 miles by 6 miles wide and dotted with picturesque islands. Outside is the sheltered Bay of Quiberon, surrounded by attractive destinations for a yacht. The area is a premier water-sports playground. Think of Veersemeer in Holland, or Poole Harbour in England: this is the French equivalent - on a larger scale and even more scenic.

It is just within range of a long summer holiday cruise from England, but would be ideal for bringing a trailer-sailor, with many convenient slipways. A surprising number of English people keep their yachts here, for Vannes is little more than two hours drive on uncrowded roads from the ferry ports at Roscoff or St Malo, as well as accessible by train.

We were to spend three weeks there in July and August, while various relatives dropped in during their summer holidays. First there was Andrew's sister Helen with husband Des, and with them a seemingly endless stream of extended family: daughters, their families, and inlaws coming and going from what sounded like an enormous gîte somewhere inland. They took in turns to escape for a day with us. Then Lyn's daughter Nicola and her three year old grand-daughter Rebecca came and stayed aboard for five days. Rebecca was much taken with the yacht, saying it was like a home down below, and loved her new orange jacket. Sailing though had to be limited with her on board.

Tides.

Getting the tides right is the key to cruising the Gulf. Such a large area has to be filled and emptied through the narrow entrance, via even narrower passages between the islands, that streams are fierce and daunting to the newcomer. Ignoring the advice in our pilot guide, we first entered the Gulf at full flood on one of the highest spring tides of the year, to find we were being propelled uncontrollably inwards at seven knots above our speed on the water. With water eddying around each island there is major turbulence at the bottlenecks, with overfalls and whirlpools. It was quite a sight to see the water piling up against the sides of the buoys marking the channel, and kayakers using the wake for scary white-water practice.

For several days we just motored around, trying to work out what the tides were doing and picking our way gingerly around the shallows. Much of the Gulf is shallow, but the cruising area is extended considerably by tides that range up to 4 meters at springs. By three weeks though we had the hang of it, taking short-cuts between the islands, using back-eddies to work our way against the tide, and using the rise to shove into shallow inlets. The trick is to be travelling in an inwards direction in the Gulf on a rising tide and an outwards direction on a falling tide, and each day's cruising was planned around this. But if you do get it wrong, then there are worse places to be sitting in the sunshine and getting nowhere for an hour or two, as we saw many yachts do. The tides are not so strong in the large area east of the Île aux Moines.

Fighting the current.

Navigation

The Gulf is reasonably well buoyed, and all the rocky shoals have marks on them. But in the quieter reaches, the far marks are sometimes difficult to spot. We realised after a while that certain buildings on the shore are picked out in bright paint to provide leads. There was a particularly helpful one looking like a small castle on the shore at Arradon, giving a lead for several reaches to the east. None of the marks are lit apart from Navalo lighthouse and Crouesty marina at the entrance. All sailing stops at dark.

Sentinel in a peaceful island anchorage.

Islands

There are an amazing number of islands, about 60 in total if rocks are included. They are little hillocks topped with trees, and with a field or two or a garden. The smaller ones are all privately owned and usually have a single house. The two largest, Île aux Moines and Île d'Arz are public, each with a tiny car-free village, once of fishermen but now over-run with tourists. In August overloaded vedettes were dumping day-trippers in endless droves on the Île aux Moines. With queues for everything, traffic jams of hire-bikes, and then queues again for the returning vedette, it is indeed true that tourists destroy just that which they come for. Ile d'Arz was smaller and less crowded, and mercifully retained its charm.

There are many tiny beaches on these islands, but most are only have sand above the high water line, below is rock, mud and weed. The only decent beaches for those wanting them, were two on the west side of the Île aux Moines, one at the entrance to the Gulf at Navalo, and one just outside near Port du Crouesty.

Marinas and Mooring.

Just two marinas serve the Gulf. Port du Crouesty right at the entrance is vast, 6 basins with upwards of 1,500 berths and all services. It was comparatively expensive at €28 per night for a 10m yacht. Around is a pleasant enough modern holiday complex the size of a town, full of shops selling seaside tat, but there is a very handy large supermarket for essential supplies, also two decent yacht chandlers, a travel-hoist and all possible yacht services.

The other marina is at Vannes, about as far into the Gulf as it possible to reach, along a narrow canal with yacht pontoons running along either side, reminiscent of many Dutch towns. This marina is locked, and only accessible for a couple of hours before high water to an hour after (during daylight only). Vannes is a gorgeous old walled city, with an ancient cathedral and many well-preserved 17th century buildings. There is an expensive chandlery close to the end of the marina, and around the town we spotted a range of other specialist yaching services. Both marinas are extremely well-run, with a boat at the entrance to greet the evening run of visitors and however busy, to provide each with a berth that is likely to be exactly tailored to the yacht's beam. Île aux Moines also has a few visitors' pontoons served by a water-taxi, that fill quickly.

Vannes in Jazz week.

The Gulf has thousands of moorings, tucked into sheltered bays out of the tide streams. Each mooring area has its own 'cale' (slipway) making landing easy. It seems acceptable to pick up free mooring. We think a number on the outside of each mooring area are deliberately left available for visitors, but we were never charged. Mostly these mooring areas are near small towns or villages. We particularly liked one on south-east side of the Île d'Arz handy for the island village, at Kerners on the south side of the Gulf, Le Passage at the eastern extremity where hardly any visitors seemed to reach, and at Port Anna, a fishing village on the way into Vannes. We visited this last on the day of the annual festival. A typical crowded Breton knees-up, awash with cider and a pudding called 'Far Breton', Celtic style dancing, a "Son et Lumiere" local history of fishing projected onto a sail on a barge moored in the harbour. And above the rest of the hub-bub, the over-amplified singing of a folk group on a precarious stage, a sort of cross between Gaelic folk music and New-Age Pop, doleful dirges with much reference to "sweethearts never returned from the sea" and the like, accompanied by an electronic Irish harp and bagpipes. The finale, as always, was the firework display, on the water close to where we were moored.

A Morbihan 'Singotte'

Port Anna

Bay of Quiberon

Just outside the Gulf is Quiberon Bay, a large well-sheltered expanse of open sea, almost completely surrounded by land on the north and east sides, the peninsula of Quiberon to the west, the islands of Belle Île, Houat and Hoedig and the reefs which connect them to the south. It is a wonderful sailing area, with a number of marinas and yacht harbours around the perimeter, and attractive destinations at the islands two or three hours from Port du Crouesty. Belle Île is the largest island, about 6 miles long. Le Palais, its capital, is a fascinating walled village overlooked by a huge, Vauban designed citadel. Ster Wenn on the north-west side is a remarkable fjord that has become a popular yacht anchorage, but was quite unapproachable in the strong north-west wind as we went by.

We did get to Houat though, on a sparkling day-sail in a fresh breeze with Helen's daughter Katy and husband James. The main harbour was rather exposed in the north-west wind, so we anchored off a beautiful long sandy beach at the eastern end of the island, which was enough to tempt in Lyn for her first swim of the cruise. Once the island harbour was here, until it was swept away by a winter storm fifty years ago. The little town stretches safely enough along the spine of the island: tree-less and car-less it seemed somehow in miniature with small white painted cottages around triangles and squares planted with copious flowers. Out of season it would be a bleak and desolate spot, with no shelter from the Biscay gales. Hoedig, though we did not visit, looks very similar. As well as the islands there are many other major attractions in this area: the long surfing beaches on Quiberon peninsula, the megalithic dolmens and tumuli at Carnac, scenic ancient towns such as Roche Bernard, all of which we visited during our stay.