Beach of the week: St Michel en Grève

As summer is finally making it's appearance, and we certainly have more time for outings during the holidays. We once again appreciate how close we live to so many wonderful beaches. The north of Brittany is not exactly the cote d'azur in terms of weather, but I think the beaches are more spectacular!

This week is St Michel en Grève. It's a 10 minute drive from our house, and one of our most frequented beaches. The word "grève" means shore, or seaside made of sand and gravel. St Michel has 4 kilometres of sandy beach. A very wise person decided to install swings, a climbing frame and a seesaw on this beach which makes it extremely popular with children and parents alike. But as long as you know what time to get there (i.e. before 10.30am) you can have these to yourself!

One sad downside to this beach are the deposits of "algues vertes", green algae. They appear from April to October with every tide and they smell quite bad if they are left to dry out. I remember when we used to pass through St Michel en Grève in 2000/2001 when I was living here for a year, that we literally used to hold our noses as we drove past. It's no longer as bad as that, not since they started doing something about the problem.
A lot of work has been done on studying these algae, the reason why they appear (in one word: pollution), and what to do about them. They had very bad press last year when a wild boar died on the beach, intoxicated by the gas from the algae. See this article.
However on a more positive note, there is now daily action to reduce any indesirable effects they cause. Most days, even Sundays, you will see one or two tractors working hard to remove the green algae, they dump it into the waiting truck who then transports it to a holding area inland. After that some returns to the farmland (which is ironic as it's the farmers who are blamed for the problems due to the nitrate fertilisers they use), and other organisations and companies are trying to find other uses for it.

May 2011

plenty of room to play!

July 2012

But, please do not let this spoil your trip to this beach, it certainly doesn't deter the locals. There are signs which instruct you to remain 50 metres from any algae, this is easily possible as the beach is so big. And even if you did get too near, it wouldn't harm you, the algae needs to dry out for it to be harmful, and the tractors will have got to it before then.