Not every island wants to keep you overnight. Some are best taken in the middle of the day: drop the hook in clear water, swim before the food, eat on deck or walk ashore for a plate of oysters, then lift and move on before the evening swell sets in. South Brittany is the finest lunch-stop cruising ground I know in France, a scatter of islands between Lorient and the Quiberon peninsula that are close enough to hop between in a forenoon. After several seasons working this patch, here is how I rank them for a midday stop, from the easy and obvious down to the one worth the extra mile.
I am judging these on the things that matter at lunchtime, not at bedtime: can you get the anchor to bite in something sandy, is there shelter from the prevailing west to north-west breeze, is the water clear enough to make swimming worthwhile, and is there something ashore if the crew wants to stretch their legs. Holding and shelter trump scenery here, because a rolly lunch with the anchor dragging is no lunch at all.
Houat
Start with Houat, because it is the south Brittany lunch stop. The great curve of Treac'h er Goured on the south-east side is one of the best-known anchorages in the region, a long white beach with sand holding and water that goes turquoise on a sunny day. Treac'h er Salus, round the corner, is the alternative when the wind backs, and the village is a ten-minute walk from the beach if you want bread or a drink. The island is car-free and small, so an hour ashore covers it. My standing tactic is to lunch off Goured in any westerly, watch the swing, and decant to Salus only if the wind goes into the south. It is the entry-level stop and none the worse for it; everybody comes here and the holding takes the traffic.
Hoedic
Hoedic is Houat's smaller, quieter sister a couple of miles further south, and I rate it just above for a lunch stop precisely because fewer boats make the extra hop. It is more modest, more exposed, and on a settled day that is the appeal: you anchor off, swim in water with hardly another mast in sight, and the village is a short stroll for an ice cream. Pick your day, because there is less shelter to play with than at Houat, but get a calm forenoon and Hoedic is the better lunch. The two together make an obvious pairing, which I lay out in the houat hoedic morbihan islands guide.
Belle-Ile, Sauzon side
Belle-Ile is the largest of the Ponant islands and properly an overnight, even a multi-day, destination, but for a lunch stop the north coast around Sauzon is hard to beat. You can anchor off the entrance to the drying harbour, swim, and dinghy in to one of the best little ports on the coast for a plate of something. The reason I do not rank it top for lunch specifically is that it is too good to rush; you end up wishing you had planned to stay, and a lunch stop turns into a scramble to leave. Treat it as a stop that might become a night. The whole island is covered in the belle-ile-en-mer sailing guide, and it slots neatly into a longer hop, as in the island hopping fortnight south brittany itinerary.
The Glenan archipelago
Now the one worth the extra mile. The Glenan lie about twenty kilometres off Concarneau, a ring of nine main islands enclosing a shallow inner sea the French call the Chambre. In summer the water there turns the colour of a tropical lagoon, genuinely, and anchored in the Chambre on a clear day with the sand a couple of metres under the keel is as close to the Caribbean as Brittany gets. It is home to the first sailing school in Europe, founded in 1947, so you share the water with fleets of dinghies. The catch is that it is exposed and offshore, so you commit to the passage out and you watch the forecast hard; this is a settled-weather stop, not a foul-weather one. But on the right day it is the best lunch anchorage in south Brittany and it is not close. The detail is in the glenan archipelago anchorage guide.
The one I skip when it blows
Honesty time. None of these stops are any good in a strong onshore breeze, and the Glenan in particular turn nasty fast because there is no real bolthole once the wind gets up over the open water. If the forecast shows anything above a fresh breeze from the west or north-west, I forget the offshore islands entirely and tuck into the Gulf of Morbihan or up a river instead, where the lunch is just as good and the anchor stays put. Knowing when not to go is most of the skill. The sheltered alternatives are the subject of the gulf of morbihan by boat guide.
How I actually run a lunch stop
The mechanics are simple once you have done a few. Aim to anchor by about half past eleven, before the day-boat crowd fills the best spots; swim first, while the crew is keen and the food is not yet out; eat by one; and have the anchor up by half past two so you reach your night stop with the light to spare and the choice of berths. Watch the wind direction more than the strength, because two knots from the wrong quarter can turn a flat anchorage into a rolling one. And carry a decent kedge if you want to lie stern-to a beach and keep the swell on the bow.
There is a wider rhythm to island-hopping here that lunch stops fit into. The classic plan is to make a longer passage in the morning while the crew is fresh and the wind is usually lighter, anchor for lunch and a swim at the midpoint, then a shorter afternoon hop to the night's berth. South Brittany is built for this because the islands sit so close together: you can leave the Quiberon peninsula after breakfast, lunch off Houat, and be tucked into a Belle-Ile harbour by teatime without ever pushing the boat hard. The lunch stop is not a luxury bolted onto the day, it is the hinge the whole day turns on, and a good one resets everyone before the second leg.
One last thing, learned the expensive way. Sand holding in south Brittany is generally excellent, but there are patches of weed and rock among the islands that will skate your anchor across the bottom without you noticing until you are uncomfortably close to something hard. Look over the side before you trust the hook; in water this clear there is no excuse not to. Dive on it if you are unsure. A lunch stop is meant to be the relaxed part of the day, and it stays that way only if the boat is going to be exactly where you left it when you climb out of the water.
A word on the food, because that is half the point of a lunch stop here. The best of these days involve no cooking at all: a bag of oysters bought on the way out of the morning port, bread, a cold bottle, and a couple of hours at anchor while someone shucks. South Brittany makes this easy because almost every departure port has oysters and a boulangerie within a few hundred metres of the pontoon, so you can provision the lunch in ten minutes before you slip the lines. The crew that learns to do this stops booking restaurants and starts eating better, on the water, for a fraction of the cost.
The islands here reward the cruiser who reads the day. Pick the wind, pick the island to suit it, eat well, and move on. After enough seasons you stop planning lunch stops the night before and start reading them off the morning forecast, which is when this coast really starts to feel like home.
