Meeting the inhabitants of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel | Saint-Malo – Mont-Saint-Michel Bay

to meet ... of the inhabitants of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel

©©smbmsm Sortie En Baie Du Mont Saint Michel|smbmsm

©Sortie Nature Sur Le Banc Des Hermelles Cherrueix Alexandre Lamoureux 216|alexandre lamoureux

Family getaway in the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel

or when you organise a nature outing with your uncles, aunts, cousins and great-cousin to discover a hidden treasure!
The idea came from one of my uncles: to take a walk on the Hermelles bank. Luckily, La Maison de la Baie in Le Vivier-sur-Mer offered this walk!

At first, I had to promote it within my family, which is my job, and reassure future participants about the length of the walk… Yes, 12 kilometres wears you out! But fortunately this walk is barefoot, so there’s no wear and tear on the shoes! We’re far from imagining what awaits us and the encounters we’ll have, but one thing’s for sure: we’re going to have a great time as a family!

The D-Day / Encounters in the Bay

The D-Day arrives and Yannick, an expert on the Bay, welcomes us. And Mr “indispensable” explains that without him we wouldn’t be able to do this walk! Not all paths in the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel are good ones, and getting stuck in the mud is not a good idea! We’ve been warned.
From there, our exploration begins to discover this hidden treasure of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, the Hermelles bank.

Rucksack, camera, bare feet and off we go for a hike!
Rucksack in place, camera around our necks, here we go for this day, not without apprehension but with a lot of enthusiasm to get together as a family and enjoy the fresh air offered by this expedition.

Here, photo breaks are a must!

To the delight of my photographic uncles, this walk was punctuated by many photo breaks. Lens launched, focus ok! Here we go, shooting the stars of the Bay. It’s Fashion Baie, with Mont Saint-Michel as the Top Model! And as the guest of honour, my little cousin, who’s taking great pleasure in this discovery, wearing her little red boots! She makes us realise that we have to marvel at everything. A lesson well understood by her father, who himself marvels at this little darling.

Picnic break with a view!

Although photo breaks are welcome, another break is necessary: the picnic break! It was lovely to enjoy your sandwich in the bay with such a beautiful view. (I’ll spare you the details of a picnic break in my family, but I can tell you that there wasn’t just ham and butter!)

Encounter with a hidden treasure

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The discovery of the day

After the picnic break and the many photo breaks, we move on to THE discovery of the day, because in the bay, we know, the Mont Saint-Michel, we know, the salt meadow sheep! But what is the Hermelles bank really? In the distance, black spots on the ground; up close, a colony of little cushions! It’s not a colony of birds, fish or shellfish, it’s a colony of marine worms!
Worms that build their own homes, architectural feats ranging from one-bedroom flats to (sand) castles and loft apartments! Yes, we’re not talking about a holiday camp, but a colony of marine worms building sand tubes. And all these superimposed tubes form a veritable reef covering more than 100 hectares and standing more than 1.50 metres high. A construction that would make Vauban pale! Of course, it’s not as solid as the ramparts, but it too can withstand the tides!
We admire the work of these worms, constructions with a thousand holes that remind us of little cushions. It’s fascinating to watch, but of course we don’t touch them. These are protected species! Yannick explains to us the different inhabitants of this shoal, because the Hermelles live alongside shellfish, oysters… Ah, nothing better than a roommate!!

During the nap break for my little cousin, calm on her mum’s back, our exploration of the bay is spiced up by mud breaks. It was a real communion with the material, and some of us were even up to our knees in it! And yes, in the bay, you have to know where you’re stepping… and not just in the sheep meadow. Yannick shows us the way, so we don’t end up as pottery!
We end the walk with the pleasure of cleaning our feet with the polder vegetation. A highly effective solution! In the bay, there’s a solution to every problem! Imagine the feeling of freshness on our feet after walking all day!

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A palette of colours offered to us!

The Bay is a multitude of colours, green, grey, beige, blue, red … The green of the polder vegetation, the yellow of the sand, the black of the sheep’s heads, the blue of the sea and the sky (sometimes), the grey of the mud and the sky (sometimes), the red of my little cousin’s boots … We took it all in with this palette of colours offered to us by the Bay!

A walk that was a dream come true!

An extraordinary discovery of the Hermelles shoal and the Bay as you are unlikely to see it. We were guided by an expert, who was able to share his knowledge with the whole group, who enthralled us! We enjoyed the fresh air, we didn’t lose anyone, we met new people and above all we made a wonderful discovery!

The walk ended at snack time, what luck! Rendezvous by the sea for apple juice and pain au chocolat, in the family, we know how to get organised!

We managed to get away from it all for a day!