Boat Cemetery

While I was traveling across France, I had maybe twenty minutes before the last bus out to my next destination, and I was fucking thirsty. So I checked Google Maps to see if I could find a Nettos or something, and instead spotted the words "Cimetière à bateau" nearby.

Boat cemetery! 

Screw hydration and ensuring that my physical body doesn't shrivel up and die. We're going there instead!

Granted, there was a time limit. I wouldn't be able to climb on all the boats and pretend I'm a pirate, but I could afford a quick mooch. I absolutely love the accidental adventures. I had a whole bunch of planned stuff to see in France, but the accidental discoveries just hit differently.

The port here is still in commercial use, and you'll see plenty of non-abandoned boats sailing by in the background, but all the nooks and crannies of the cove are used by fishermen to beach their old trawlers. When a boat is no longer fit for purpose, it's taken here to sit out the rest of its days.

The boat cemetery is sort of regarded as a museum by locals, having some pretty old fishing trawlers, dating back over numerous generations.

 

Some might look at this and see it as a massive fly-tip smeared across nature, ruining the scenery and harming the environment. The arguments have been argued. Points have been bludgeoned to death. But the thing is, for these towns with a strong fishing history, places like this are revered. It's a tribute to the labour of the people who worked on these boats far away from civilisation for long periods of time just to provide for their community. It's regarded as a memorial of sorts. The concept of a boat cemetery is a matter of tradition

That's not to say it's necessarily good for the environment. Tradition doesn't always equate good. But it is tough to get people to budge on this sort of thing.

 

I did manage to identify some of the boats and dig up their backstories. The blue and white one is called "Saint Quido," named after an ancient French hermit monk. I have conflicting sources of its creation, some saying 1965, and others saying 1981, but it was abandoned here in 2007. 

And because the internet is a rather spiffing tool when it's not being used as the toilet cubicle wall of the modern world, I have found some photos of it before it was abandoned!

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

 Other boats are a little harder to identify.

This gorgeous little boat is The Sea Elf, an 18 metre tuna trawler that was built right here in this town in 1964. It had a good life, traveling about kidnapping fish before returning here in 1994. A lack of maintenance led to it becoming unfit for purpose, and it was abandoned here in 2007. 

 

 

What broke my heart about the Sea Elf is it's totally possible to climb up onto it. But alas, I didn't have the time for any scrambling. I was just passing by. I had to keep this brief, or else I would miss my ride out of here. I begrudgingly turned away the temptation and promised myself I would make it up with something epic later on. 

 

 

Well at least I can get on this one without any effort. It's not much to look at, but this just adds to the intrigue. Some boats have been here for so long that they've completely wasted away.

 

 

This one is called The Kermoor. It's 15 metres long and was built in France in 1959. As a rather interesting factoid, the original owner, Jacques Le Derout, was lost at sea in 1976, at the age of 39. But then quite a few of these old boats have probably had owners and crew members perish in the same way. This just happens to be the one mentioned on the internet.

 

I have managed to find a photo of it when it was still in use!

(Photo not mine, obviously)

The Kermoor came to this town in 1991 but can't have been too run down at the time because it was dragged out of retirement in 1995 to be used in a movie.

(Screenshot from Elisa)

 

The movie "Elisa" is about a woman who lives a life of crime and tries to assassinate her father for abandoning her family, but then finds out that he only abandoned the family because his wife was a prostitute. It sounds pretty interesting, and I'm always down for watching something that isn't the same formulaic garbage spewed forth into the world by Hollywood. Some of my favourite films are from Europe and Asia.

 

 

I have found a few more names of some of the boats here, but alas, I have no way of determining which boats they belong to. But somewhere among these wrecks is the Tom Souville, a boat that was built in France in 1952, and had a harpoon launcher for hunting sharks. And then, even more surprisingly is the Katie Ann, a Welsh trawler that was built in Swansea in 1921. 

 

And that just blows my mind a bit. The reason why some of them look like they've walked out of a Michael Bay movie is because they're positively ancient! The Katie Ann, wherever it is, is a century old, and perhaps so are more of these wrecks. People have been dumping boats here for decades, and regardless of whether you see a memorial paying homage to the fishing industry, or a great big bin ruining an otherwise picturesque part of the world, I can't help but find it kinda cool. 

 

 

 

The last ship is a short trek away. This is "The Janine."

 

 

The Janine was built in 1957 and was named after the owners wife. It was primarily used to fish for lobsters in Morocco and Portugal. 

 

It was sold in 1972 and again in 1995, before being abandoned and left to decay in 2003. But its story didn't end there! It was purchased in 2004, with the aim of restoring it, but it seemingly ended up more of a decoration in 2007, being listed as a historic monument at some point before losing that status and being dragged here in October 2011. 

And there are plenty of photos of it on the internet.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously) 

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Here it is on display in 2007.

 

 

It still has its little propeller thing that exemplifies why I love doing urbex in other countries. If this was in the UK, this would have been yoinked for scrap long ago by some guy who looks like a Jeremy Kyle guest. In Europe there's just a lot more respect for these things.

 

 And that's all I've got from the Boat Cemetery. Alas, there are plenty of other boats around that area that I missed, but I saw the majority of them. I just wish I'd had enough time to scramble all over them, but I had to run and catch a bus to the next stretch of my adventure. And I really can't wait to show my next spot in France. But first, I need to spew forth a tirade of photos of abandoned houses on the local blog. 

In the meantime, you can get updates on my blog by following my social medias. I'm on the main three- Facebook, Instagram and the even shitter one, Twitter. I'm also on Threads, and I'm trying to grow an audience on Vero and Bluesky too, so that I can still stay active if Zuckerberg or Musk decide to ban me for something ridiculous while allowing nonce's and bigots to freely flaunt their weird opinions.

 

Opinions are like nipples. Everyone has them. Some make a good point. Zuckerberg wants the best ones to stay hidden. 

 

Thanks for reading!