June 12, 2025
Kyle and I spent the early part of the morning trying to book a Mont Saint-Michel Bay tour via the city tourism website. We were keen to take the boys out into the bay to look for critters and play in quicksand versus just doing a walking tour of the medieval village and Abbey. The tourism agency noted that guides were required to venture out into the bay given the shifting tides and pockets of quicksand. The only tours available were in French, but we figured we would make it work. The website kept crashing though and we were unable to book a tour. Kyle reached out to a guide directly via a certified listing and thankfully he responded! Romain has been a guide for 20 years and would be able to give the tour in English–a huge win!
The boys woke up at ~8:30am in search of breakfast. They painstakingly made their breakfast cereal selections from a multipack of mini cereal boxes Kyle picked up at the store yesterday mostly out of nostalgia.
Our tour wasn’t until later in the afternoon, so we had a morning homeschool session. Ollie wrote another letter to his class before school lets out for summer. He and I then worked on multiplication times tables which Ollie typically loves to do, but he lost steam towards the end. The boys also watched a video on quicksand and how to safely escape if needed (stay calm, move slowly and don’t wiggle).
It was a quick 25 minute drive from Dol-de-Britagne to Mont Saint-Michel. We parked in the shuttle lot and took the shuttle to the island to ensure we could meet our guide in time. While on the shuttle, the boys were thrilled to use the brief time to search for Pokemon in the area. The shuttle also moved slow enough that the game did not pick up that we were actually in a car so they were able to capture a few Pokemon.
'We met our guide, Romain, at the entrance to the village. He had a knee brace on and Lenny immediately went in with,“What are you wearing that???” He replied, “Because of inflammation.” Lenny, “WAIT what’s inflammation??” Both kids are getting better at waiting to ask questions versus interjecting whenever someone is speaking, but still have room for improvement. Romain was sharing the history of the island, when it was built, when the fortification was strengthened, etc, but the boys were laser focused on when we would be encountering quicksand.
The tour started with the boys delicately picking up shells and looking for small crabs, but by the end, both would be in their underwear and soaked from the navel down. They spent much of the time sprinting across the sand, hunting for shells and critters and play-fighting (of course). The quicksand was a true highlight, though. Romain navigated the bay to find the best areas of quicksand for us to play in. You had to wiggle a bit to disrupt the surface, but in some areas I sank down to my knees fairly quickly. Romain said the quicksand wasn’t the true danger but getting caught long enough that the tide would then move in and cause a problem. The boys really got a kick out of this and Lenny especially loved to pretend to be permanently stuck and kept asking to go deeper.
Kyle and I traded off listening and learning from Romain and keeping the boys in line. I served as shell carrier for most of the day while Kyle would pretend to accept shells from Lenny and then subtly drop them. High tide wouldn’t be til ~8pm in the evening so we were in the clear to explore. Portions of the river flowing out to the ocean would have been shoulder height on me and the current was quite strong so Romain made sure the kids especially steered clear. At one point, Ollie (accidentally!) bumped into Lenny causing him to get soaked in the shallow water. After this, all bets were off and Len would flop into the water dramatically and then proclaim he was uncomfortable because he was so wet.
Romain spotted seagulls out in the bay and noted they were likely eating fish that had been stranded due to the tide. On hearing this, boys boys made it clear that they, too, wanted to go hunt for stranded sea creatures. Lenny too to proclaiming, “Fish Bones!! Fish bones!” whenever he saw a fish carcass. Ollie was excited to find a stranded sea worm.
By the end of the ~2 hour tour, the boys were soaked and exhausted. We rinsed our feet and laid out the boys’ shorts to dry, but knew we didn’t have a tour, or even a walk through the village, in us. We were happy to have learned about Mont Saint-Michel from Romain and pleased to have seen the island from so many vantage points in the bay. We picked up strawberry softserve cones and a ham and cheese baguette from the village and then started the walk back to our car. The walk was ~1.5 miles to the parking lot, but we told the boys they could hunt a few Pokemon on the way. The moment they discovered Bulbasaur at the end of the Mont Saint-Michel boardwalk might be the most excited I’ve heard Lenny shriek the entire trip. We have a stuffed Bulbasaur at home so this was a Pokemon even I knew!
We picked up ingredients for a quick dinner on the way home as a restaurant meal didn’t seem possible. But by the time everyone showered and we were ready to eat, it was past 9pm. We ate and played Uno leisurely at home. Lenny asked me when I was going to fly back to the Coot Club in South Africa to return the Uno cards I accidentally mistook for our own and have been playing with ever since.
The boys had a mini dance off before bed. Lenny incorrectly referred to his moves as “breakdancing’ and Ollie jumped at the chance to correct him, “that is NOT breakdancing. THIS is.” The downstairs apartment must have loved that. The sun didn’t set until after 10pm and its nearly 11pm right now and I still hear the boys whispering back and forth in the room next door. Its hard to imagine the days continuing to get longer, especially by the time we reach Norway.
