Back from Bassin d'Arcachon

I am finally back from my holidays at the Bassin d'Arcachon and I thought it was worth posting about it.

The typical part of this area is its bay. As it is connected to the sea and rather flat, the tide has extreme influence over the landscape. The water coverage varies from about 155 km2 at high tide (picture on the left below) and only 40 km2 at low tide (picture on the right). This peculiarity has been exploited to grow oysters. 

Note that the Atlantic sea is on the left and the sand coast is whitish on the pictures, habitations are grey-ish.

A couple of pictures I took to illustrate this effect:

Andernos, full (high tide)

Same place a couple of hours later, empty (low tide)

Claouey, low tide

La pointe aux chevaux, low tide
(where we made the horses cross at low tide to go to the island in the middle of the bay)

Same, on its way to high tide
Boats are now floating; you need to calculate and accommodate to the tide when
you want to navigate: you cannot go whenever you want as you need to have
enough water both to leave and to come back.

Petit Piquey, low tide

Same place, with the famous Dune du Pyla in the background

This dune is the tallest sand dune in Europe, with a height of 110 meters above the sea level. Have a look at some pictures I found on the web; it's like a trip to the Sahara's desert!