La Baie

The Bay of Mont St Michel is a pretty unique place, with the second highest vertical tide in the world (mean 14m/45ft) over a relatively flat bay. This means that, although the water comes right up to the grassy duke behind our rental house, it is over 4km away at low tide. Yes, 4km. The first day here, I tried to run to it but got bogged down in the mud about 1km in. However, tractors routinely drive boats  (or tourist trains) out and there are even boats equipped with wheels for the purpose.

The view from our second floor:

Six hours later: the mud flat. The dark line is the 

Mytiliculture (mussel aquaculture) or fish trapping structures. The edge of the bay ((low tide mark) is all the way to the point at the edge of the bay, which you can see here.

It's given me a new perspective on just how much water moves with the tides and how fast. And, more than any other coast I've visited, this world changes drastically twice a day: from a peaceful sea to a relatively ugly but productive mud patch.

On a tour of the mussel production, we saw the ropes of baby mussels.

And the fish traps

The birds lined up to wait for our departure. And Dave ate a fresh, live, whole shrimp (but I didn't get a picture).