Sunken ships

 From St Nazaire it was off round the coast some more. Where else?

We found this chap in a CWG Cemetery that we stumbled across while Tomtom was struggling with a diversion. 

 We expected to find some commandoes, but they are somewhere else. A large number of the interred died on 17th June 1940, in the loss of the Lancastria. This was the biggest single Allied loss of life in the war, though it was covered up and few know about it. Only a fraction of the 3000-7000 dead are in this cemetery.

When we eventually found our way out of Pordic we had lunch at the beach. It so happened that we had stopped at the point opposite where Lancastria went down, and there was a tiny plaque to mark it. Underwhelming.

The beach was covered in plastic from these oyster farm floats. The farm should be made to clean them up.

These are like the Trabocchi of Abruzzo and Molise in Italy.

This is what happens when you lose your hat at sea

We stopped at a canal-side reserve for the night. It had been dug to bring ships to Nantes without the danger of striking sand bars in the Loire. It closed in 1905 to big shipping but continued on as a ship graveyard after that. The Germans sunk 6 boats in the lock and blew up some of the machinery.

This one tried to escape.

The canal meets the Loire again

Trying to get some balance

Beer and waffles. Interesting mix.

A couple hundred of theses concrete barges were built by the French because of shortages of steel between the wars. There are now just these two remaining.

We ran out of power again, so not even lights.