I came to south Brittany expecting crowds, because everyone I knew who had cruised it talked about La Trinite in August and the queue for the lock at Le Palais. What surprised me was how easy it is to find a bay to yourself if you are willing to drop the hook off a beach rather than queue for a pontoon. After four seasons working this coast in a 11-metre sloop, here are ten anchorages I go back to, with the numbers that matter and an honest word on shelter.
A note before the list. South Brittany is tidal, and that catches Med-trained sailors out. Spring ranges here run roughly 4 to 5 metres, less brutal than the north coast but still enough to leave you aground if you do your scope sums at high water. If you have never cruised tidal water, read up on anchoring in Brittany first. It saved me a grounding more than once.
1. Sauzon outer pool, Belle-Ile
Sauzon is the prettier of Belle-Ile's two harbours, and the drying inner pool is famous, but I rarely use it. The outer anchorage off the entrance gives you 3 to 5 metres at low water over sand, sheltered from west through north. Get there before 1600 in July and you will find space; arrive at dusk and you are rafting on a buoy. The ebb runs hard out of the harbour, so set against it and check your transit.
2. Ster Wenn, Belle-Ile
This is the one people photograph. A narrow fjord-like inlet on the wild Atlantic side, Ster Wenn cuts deep enough that you tuck in behind the cliffs and the swell dies away. Depths inside are 2 to 4 metres over sand and weed. There are shore lines fixed to the rock because the place is too narrow to swing, so you anchor and run a stern line ashore. It is exposed to the west at the mouth, so only go in settled weather. The adjacent cove of Ster Vraz is a touch larger if Wenn is full.
3. Port Guen, Belle-Ile
On the sheltered Quiberon Bay side, Port Guen gives 2 metres at low water over clean sand and good holding. Bornor headland blocks the northerlies and the southerlies, which makes this a reliable lunch stop and a passable overnight in anything but a fresh easterly. Nine official anchoring spots ring Belle-Ile, so if Guen is busy, Port Yorc'h or Port Fouquet are a short hop along the coast.
4. Treac'h er Goured, Houat
Houat is my favourite island in the bay and Treac'h er Goured is the easy-access beach anchorage on its eastern end. Big sandbanks spread across the Rade de Houat, so holding is excellent and you can drop almost anywhere in 2 to 4 metres. It is open to the east, which is the catch, but with anything in the west you sit in flat water. The whole anchorage is protected from north round to south-west.
5. Beg Salus, Houat
Round the corner from er Goured, Beg Salus is better tucked from the north-easterly land breeze that gets up at night in summer and rolls boats on the more open beaches. It is a smaller pool, sand throughout, 2 to 3 metres at low water. I use it when the forecast hints at a nocturnal nor'easter, which on this coast is more often than you would think.
6. Locmaria, Ile de Groix
Groix is quieter than Belle-Ile and Locmaria on its south coast is a genuine hideaway. The bay offers natural shelter from the ocean swell and a sandy bottom in 2 to 4 metres, but it is only good in settled weather and is reserved in practice for smaller craft. Port Tudy on the north side is the all-weather bolthole if the wind backs into the south. I have sat out a blustery afternoon at Locmaria watching the swell wrap round the headland and known I had Tudy as a fallback an hour away.
7. Ile aux Moines east side, Gulf of Morbihan
Inside the gulf the world changes. The entrance race off Port Navalo runs up to 8 knots at springs, so you time your arrival for slack or a fair tide. Once in, the east side of Ile aux Moines gives sheltered anchoring away from the worst of the streams, in 2 to 4 metres. The snag is mooring buoys: the best bays are carpeted with them, and you often end up anchoring at the outer edge. For the full picture of the currents and the buoy problem, my notes on the Gulf of Morbihan by boat go into the timing in detail.
8. North of Ile d'Arz, Gulf of Morbihan
Less visited than Moines, Ile d'Arz has good holding off its northern and southern shores. The tidal range inside the gulf drops to around 3 metres at the eastern end against 5 at the entrance, so the maths are gentler here than out in the bay. Keep clear of the main race that runs from Port Navalo up towards Arradon and Vannes and you will lie quietly.
9. The Glenan archipelago, La Chambre
The Glenan are a ring of low islands enclosing a shallow inner lagoon, and La Chambre is the central anchorage where everyone converges. Sand in 2 to 5 metres, turquoise water, holding that is generally excellent once you are off the weed. It is busy by midday in season but thins out at dusk. The whole archipelago is exposed when it blows hard, so this is fair-weather cruising; my dedicated Glenan archipelago anchorage guide covers which islets shelter which wind.
10. Anse de Penfret edge, Glenan
For something quieter than La Chambre, edge over towards Penfret on the eastern rim of the Glenan. The lighthouse end gives you 3 to 4 metres over sand with more room and fewer neighbours. It is more exposed than the central pool, so I treat it as a settled-weather spot and move back into La Chambre if the breeze fills in from the south.
A word on Hoedic
I left Hoedic off the numbered list because it shares an anchorage type with its bigger sister Houat, but it deserves a mention. The smaller and quieter of the two islands, Hoedic sits just south of Houat and has anchoring off its beaches in 2 to 4 metres over sand, with the little Port de l'Argol giving some shelter. It is even less developed than Houat, which is saying something, and on a settled night you can have a beach anchorage to yourself within sight of the mainland. Like Houat it is directional shelter only, open to the east, so I rotate between the two islands depending on which way the wind has gone.
The Odet and the rivers
Not every quiet anchorage in south Brittany is off a beach. The rivers give a different kind of solitude. The Odet, which winds up towards Quimper, is one of the loveliest river passages in France, a deep wooded gorge with anchoring in pools along the way, completely sheltered from the sea whatever it is doing outside. When the bay anchorages are untenable in a blow, running up a river like the Odet or the Aven is the south-coast equivalent of the northern bolthole: flat water, trees overhead, and not a swell in sight. For a crew that finds open anchorages stressful, the rivers are where south Brittany becomes genuinely relaxing.
Picking your night
The pattern across all ten is the same. South Brittany shelter is directional, almost none of these bays are good in all winds, and the trick is to carry two or three options and choose at the last forecast. Belle-Ile alone gives you both an Atlantic-side and a bay-side anchorage, so a wind shift means a one-hour reposition, not a ruined night. Watch the night land breeze in summer, do your scope against high water, and remember that the prettiest spots (Ster Wenn, La Chambre) are the first to fill and the first to turn nasty when the weather goes. Get there early, leave early, and south Brittany gives you the emptiest cruising in France.
