Carteret : marée basse, marée haute

The village of Carteret, in western Normandy, is now part of a bigger town. It merged with the town of Barneville in 1965 to create a new municipality called Barneville-Carteret. This is a photo I took from in front of a hotel in Barneville where I stayed with my mother and her sister in September 2004. I wanted them to see Carteret, since both of them had lived since 1936 in Carteret County, North Carolina, in the U.S. — which is where my grandmother was born.

In the photo above you can see how wide the beaches at Barneville-Carteret are at low tide. The old village of Carteret was built on a rocky promontory that is called le Cap de Carteret. (There is a town in N.C. called Cape Carteret, founded in 1959.) In N.C., Carteret is pronounced [KAR-tuh-rit]; in France it's [kar-tuh-RAY], or [kar-TRAY].

When I was in Carteret in Normandy in June 2004, I saw the channel that leads to the port when the tide was sort of medium high. The water was very blue, and small boats were coming and going. I took the photo above looking westward toward the sea. By the way, the Carteret family originated on the Isle of Jersey, 15 miles off the Normandy coast, more than a thousand years ago.

I must have taken this photo of the channel and waterfront at Carteret from up near the lighthouse, which stands on the promontory you see if the first photo above, overlooking the sea. You can see how low the tide was. This was in May 2005, and I was looking eastward (inland).

Here's a photo of the phare de Carteret that I took in September 2004. The lighthouse is only 18 meters (59 ft.) tall, but it stands on high ground and the total elevation above sea level is 85 meters (275 ft.)

Compare the French Carteret lighthouse above to the lighthouse at Cape Lookout in Carteret County, North Carolina. The Lookout light is built on sand, basically at sea level, and stands 163 feet (about 50 meters) tall.