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They didn't.
If anything they worsened. But we were booked on and so off we went. We were accompanied by bottle-nose dolphins most of the way, a new experience for us in these cool temperate waters. Prior to departure one came right into the harbour and allowed itself to be patted!
If you head out due west from the Pointe du Raz you will come to Île de Sein and even further west you'll get to Ar-Men. However, we went by boat from the aforementioned Audierne, to the Île de Sein.
The island is small and elongated. It has no natural water supply so l'eau has to be brought from the mainland. A few granite islets have been joined up by shingle banks and sands. Humans have gone out there to live on it. No trees. Not much of anything in fact. But there is a lighthouse! Two if you count the harbour light, (Men-Brial) which some do (green lantern, see picture below).
As you see, we had sunlight but the haze was unrelenting. One could still get the general idea, and work out that fishing must have been the principle means of survival. Nice little sea port but apart from the Grand-Phare, which incorporates a water purification plant, there isn't much else; the odd hotel and a good café we took refreshment in. In heavy weather the island can get fragmented further than it is already…
This is a staffed station controlling the other lighthouses of the area. Huelse has a postcard view of the original lighthouse, a 43 m (141ft) stone tower, which was blown up by German troops on 4 August 1944. The first light here was built in 1853. One can visit but only in summer. Why only in summer? We have, of course seen this light giving it out at night, from Ouessant to the north, and if it had been clear we should have been able to see Ar-Men from Sein, especially from the gallery of this fine phare. But not to be.
So please settle for Jean Benoît Héron's postcard renditions of these two lights; if you want to see photographs of Ar-Men – well there are lots of famous snaps of Ar-Men, most often in storm conditions; the facts about it are accessible from The Lighthouse Directory and I hereby acknowledge LD for information gleaned therefrom. The photos are mine and I own the IGN map with the inset of the Île de Sein on it.
STOP PRESS! I have constructed a memorandum in the form of an appendix, to cover Ar-Men lighthouse, even though we have only witnessed its night time characteristics (seen from Île d'Ouessant) – because Ar-Men is probably the most iconic of all the Fr phares, given that it is so often beset by the most dramatic of swells. Don't leave this blog without sucking up appendix two, then: you know you want to…
