05 June 2019

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.



7 comments:

  1. It's good you were able to take your mother and aunt to see Carteret. Maybe you can find a few days to go to the seashore this summer or fall....

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    1. We really want to go up to the Baie de Somme, on the English Channel, but so far I haven't been able to find a good gîte up there that will accept the dog.

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  2. Don't know if this is acceptable: https://www.gites-de-france.com/fr/hauts-de-france/somme/la-sittelle-g94010 ?

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    1. Merci. elgee. That gîte looks perfect. I'll contact the owners about possibilities next spring.

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  3. Oh, good! That really pleases me! Thanks, Ken!

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    1. Thank YOU, elgee. Do you know if this gîte is a very recent listing? I did some searching for gîtes around the Baie de Somme in 2018 but didn't find this one.

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  4. No, sorry, I've no idea. I just googled on gites, Baie de Somme, animals allowed, 2 rooms and this came up. It looked okay to me, closed garden, which we find ideal when you bring dogs, so I just hoped you might like it as well. However, if you didn't come across it last year, it might well be a new listing . Alterntaively, they may have just hooked up with Gites de France? Anyway, really pleased you like it - hope you'll be able to go there some time next spring.

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