Brittany Kayaking

During my recent vacation in Brittany, I rented a kayak for one day.  Bonnie would probably not approve of the type of kayak used - it was not a "decked" one (I don't know if that is what you call them in English - in French they are referred to as "ponté") but a sort of one piece molded thing. You sit on it, not in it. It kept us afloat, but obviously you could not do a roll in it.

We started out in Baden and, carefully timing things to be going with the tide both ways, paddled over to the the Conleau part of Vannes and back.  Nothing dramatic, but a nice paddle including a stop at one of the many islands on the way.  We saw several large jellyfish that I wasnt familiar with - their main bodies slight bigger than a basketball and very solid looking. A guy at the kayak place said they are harmless.

But the most interesting part of the day was observing the French at the kayak rental site. In the morning, we saw several young men preparing to rent kayaks and all were bedecked in costumes, the best being the above young man dressed up as Obelix (the PFD looked like a real paunch).  I have no idea why they were dressed up, but he was happy for us to take his photo.  However, he did confess when we asked that his cigarette was not a Gaulois.

Then on returning there was a wedding party of some dozen people renting kayaks, including a long dragon boat.  They all had straw hats with the bride and groom's names on them and they had all clearly been partying before they got to the kayaks. They were taking the boats over to a nearby village and I suppose there were some sort of continuing festivities there to greet them.  We watched them take off in various states of efficiency/sobriety. The women on the dragon boat were singing lustily and it looked like they were having a great time.