Vendée Globe

Every four years Vendée makes the international news when the Vendée Globe single-handed boat race leaves Les Sables d'Olonne, just 40 minutes up the coast from here.

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We drove there on Wednesday, unsure if we could get parked up as we had heard they'd had big crowds, in fact 700,000 visitors BEFORE the race itself. Despite very grey skies we had a wonderful time, jostling with the crowds to see the boats themselves (magnificent) and quite a few of the sailors too.

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As well as seeing the boats there were two big marquees with stands and displays (à la Boat Show in London) where we couldn't resist taking the photo of Tine as fish-bait!.

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Hope you appreciate the expense we went to for the last two photos: the helicopter was VERY expensive! Shame we stayed at home then, avoiding the rain and enjoying a bird's-eye view on TV from the comfort of our living room. The Aviva boat is skippered by Dee Caffari, one of two British women in the race (in fact the only women). 'Roxy' in the first photo is skippered by Samantha Davies, the other British woman. Ellen MacArthur is a goddess in these parts.