ABC Wednesday - Buoy

Buoys aid pilots by marking a maritime channel or marking hazards so ships can navigate safely. This one has fetched up on dry land and the only thing it is marking is - learning in progress, for it is outside the school in La Richardais. Its markings of Buharats Number 2 West is in fact an actual buoy which is near Dinard and used as an end point when attempting sailing speed records from Cowes on the Isle of Wight, a big sailing centre, to Dinard on the north coast of France. There is also a triangle races from Dinard and here is a competitor in the 2005 race bobbing buoyantly along
on route to Buharats. Photo from the owner of this Aphrodite boat, the Vert-Galant, race site

But back to our buoy.
La Richardais is a popular sailing centre on the Rance and not too far from Dinard but despite a trawl on the Internet I could discover no more, although I did discover the school's January dinner menu. I was almost tempted to sign up. The mentioned of Viennoiserie attracted my attention, never got that in an English school although there was no sign of sponge puddings which we did get a lot. Swings and Roundabouts. Just beyond the church in the distance is the local artisan cake shop, I wonder if they supplied them to the school.

The school is called Louis-Brehault in honour of a resistance fighter killed in August 1944 aged only 17. The French Resistance had played a major but invisible role at D Day but the Brittany Campaign ,started in August '44 to secure the ports, was one in which they fought openly against the Germans. 20,000 men and women were based in Brittany and Louis-Brehault must have died at the start.

Now when talking of buoys, which is a word of old french, dutch and Latin origins, it is as well not to mix them up with the similarly pronounced

boys. If your language is American English then the root will have come from the French of bouee so the mistake will never be made. You will know it is a bouee in the water and not a boy.

This cross like a buoy is also a marker. Ana Cross is on Spaunton Moor, North Yorkshire, and a prominent landmark for hundreds of years. The 10 foot high cross is a replacement for the original ancient one which now resides in Lastingham Church, two miles south of this point in the village of the same name where
you will be able to purchase beverages from the Blacksmiths Arms which also has a beer garden at the back.

Discover more interpretations of the letter B by the participants of the 6th round of the ABC Wednesday meme here