Ecological beach cleaning

St Martin de Brehal is a seaside resort near Granville, in the Bay of Mont St Michel. It has a couple of miles of sandy beaches, a restaurant, a bar/brasserie, and a standard bar, plus a couple of shops selling beach stuff. At one end of the beach there are commercial mussel beds, which are visible at low tide.

St Martin de Brehal looking towards Granville, August 2013

Like most French beaches, local equivalents of bye laws forbid playing radios, and taking dogs on the beach from May to October. Unlike many British beaches, St Martin de Brehal has no litter problem. This is partly because in general the French take their rubbish away with them, and the French are very keen on keeping everything propre – clean and tidy.

Nonetheless, in high summer when there are a lot of people on the beach, some litter does appear. Some of it is odd bits of paper that blew away unnoticed, some is just odd items overlooked in the chaos of a family with a couple of young children trying to gather up all the clothes, toys, and other stuff they had to bring, and some of it is brought in from who knows where by the tide. The rubbish has always been collected at the end of the day, not a big job.

A week ago, when the temperature was over 30 degrees in the shade, and the summer season is well under way, I was sitting on the beach while my wife and a friend paddled in the sea, after a good dinner in the restaurant. Behind us, the few bits of rubbish left on the beach were being collected.

Each piece of litter was put in the appropriate dustbin on the donkeys' backs – the recycling rules are followed everywhere.

(There are other references to St Martin de Brehal, including pictures, on this blog: Here

Normandy beaches

Contrary to the Hollywood version the D-Day landings took place (almost) simultaneously on five different beaches, code named Sword (British), Juno (Canadian), Gold (British), Utah (US) and Omaha US), and involved all the western allies; US soldiers were a minority. For those who want to understand that extraordinary event, you must visit the Caen Memorial Museum, exit 7 on the Caen peripherique (ring road), which includes archive film from both sides. This is a museum dedicated to peace not war, and also shows a great deal of very moving information about the Occupation and the effect on civilian life in France, rather than the usual boys' toys and violence.

However, this post is not about those beaches along the northern coast, but rather those further south in Normandy, and as they now are. All along the west coast of the Cotentin peninsula, as far as Avranches, are some splendid, sandy beaches that are little known. The picture is of St Martin de Brehal. Part of that is because of their history, as well as their location. When the railways came to Granville and the region, a whole series of little holiday villages developed. This was because it had become possible for the Parisian middle class families to send the wives and children to the coast for the summer, with the men joining them for August.

The beaches were ideal, because being part of the shallow Bay of Mont St Michel, they shelved gently, were very sandy and safe for children. The holiday villages grew up because the villages after which they are named are actually almost all a couple of miles from the sea. Places such as Breville-sur-Mer or Lingreville-sur-Mer are not sur mer. The sea retreated several hundred years ago, leaving exposed land that has been turned into excellent market gardens. Especially good for leeks and root vegetables such as carrots. But the villages were too far from the sea for small children, maids and mothers to walk every day, in both directions. So, all sorts of little cottages, chalets, bungalows and, occasionally, fairly grand houses, were built beside the sea. Many were rented.

If one visits, say St Martin de Brehal, today, many of the properties directly facing the sea are being renovated and extended, and there are many newer developments, including apartments, being constructed. In summer most of the beaches have life guards.

Apart from miles of sand, many of the beaches are also used for farming mussels, oysters and other seafood. Mussels are grown on ropes of coconut fibre (it doesn't rot in sea water) and where there is a mussel farm, at low tide the poles with their ropes are exposed, and tractors and trailers drive across the beach to maintain and harvest them. These mussels are moules de bouchot – highly prized, plump little fellows, and now have their own AOC, like wines and cheeses.

At the solstices, when there are extreme high and low tides, there is a phenomenon known as the peche a pied – fishing on foot. The tide goes out an enormous distance, exposing rock pools etc that are never normally seen. Thousands of people arrive, with rakes, shovels, buckets and other equipment, in search of wild shellfish, crabs etc. And I do mean thousands – more people at the December low tide on the beach than at the height of summer.

All year round, splendid walks and sights.