On Tuesday 2 March I managed to reach Avranches in my boat. Avranches is a town six miles inland from the south east corner of the bay of Mont St. Michel. The trip was the result of five months' planning. I had the help of an English-speaking guide who walks parties across the bay of Mont St. Michel and who repeatedly plotted the course of the River Sée from Avranches to Tombelaine. We also consulted arial and terrestrial photography but even then had to wait for the best conditions when the river was in spate and the tide was as high as possible.
The difficulties of the route centre on a section from Le Grouin du Sud (a rocky peninsula just north of the Sée/Selune estuary) and Le Rivage (the point at which the Sée heads north east). The depth of water here is minimal and navigation is hampered by the tide flooding the fields adjacent to the river course. About five miles upstream we encountered a low lying bridge under which we had only two inches of air draft.
We anchored at La Route de Granville right in the centre of Avranches and quickly became the centre of attention. People were telling us that they had never seen a boat at Avranches in living memory. I suspect that "Archangel" was the first foreign vessel to reach the town for a very long time, perhaps ever.
Since we had no chance of returning to sea before the tide fell we stayed overnight and left the next morning. Downstream, we encountered a 3-ft bore from the incoming flood and had to deal with some quite violent currents and large items of debris. I dropped Ian the guide off in his canoe at the Grouin de Sud and after a quick stop-off at Mont St. Michel I headed back to Jersey. The wind that morning was a F6 from the north east and the journey home was disgraceful. Still, it was all worth it, believe me.
Here's a link to a video of the trip:
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