Noirmoutier's oceanside

The sun will come up here in Saint-Aignan at twenty minutes to nine this morning. Whether we see it or not is another question. Yesterday was a dark day. Today may well be the same, but the weather is changing. There was a breeze when I took Tasha out for a pee at five o'clock. The morning is not really cold, and we may get some rain today. (Actually, at 6:30 it is already raining.)

I'm still enjoying the beach photos I took on the Île de Noirmoutier in late October on a sunny, warm day. They remind me of my home region, the coast of North Carolina. I've been comparing the Noirmoutier photos to photos I've taken on the beaches in N.C. over the years.

One thing that surprises me about the beaches along the French Atlantic coast is all the seaweed that washes up. And I know where it comes from, or think I do. The Gulf Stream brings it here from the Sargasso Sea, which lies not far southeast of N.C., and a long way southwest of France. If I'm right... A strong southeast wind can bring that kind of seaweed to the N.C. beaches.

According to Google Maps, my home town in North Carolina is almost 4,000 miles southwest of the Île de Noirmoutier, as the seaweed floats, and a little bit farther from Saint-Aignan. The beach we were on at Noirmoutier is called the Plage Saint-Jean. You can't see the Cape Lookout light from there.

We had finally got to the ocean side of the island, but the sea that I saw on that day in October really didn't look like the ocean. I think it looked more like the Gulf of Mexico, which I've seen a few times — except maybe for that seaweed. The water was calm and flat, with no real surf. I wonder if it's always like that. In this last photo, I realized when I enlarged it on my computer screen that people were actually sunbathing on the beach that day.