What we love the most, as a host, is to talk about the most beautiful assets of our region, La Manche. The Hotel des Bains in St Jean de Thomas is a perfect base camp and we are pleased to help you discover all its treasuries.
12km from the hotel, The Pointe du Grouin du Sud
If the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel is the main attraction, we invite you to discover another type of landscape, a few minutes from St Jean de Thomas.
A beautiful place quite wild, a little part of paradise that you may rediscover each season. Dunes, beaches and marshes compose this scene splendid game of natural lights.
This point allows to discover a different view of the bay, Mont Saint Michel and Tombelaine. And the small paths allow a pleasant walk in good weather, without particular difficulties. Not to mention a sunset on the magnificent Mount!
Among the most beautiful observation points of the tidal bore
This wave, locally called "the bar" is a phenomenon that can be observed only during high tides which exceeds 90. The cape of La Pointe du Grouin South then becomes a wonderful observation site: the tidal wave sweeps along the banks of the river channels with the flow in a wave of 20 to 70 cm.
Our tip would be to come at least 1:30 before the high tide. The sooner you arrive, the better you will be placed and be able to take the scale of speed of the phenomenon.
Seals-calves marine at binoculars
The Grouin is also before a privileged observatory for seals-calves marine. At rising tide, they follow the fish and the current. The bottleneck of the point facilitates fishing, a real show not far from your point of observation.
Since 1997, the bay count about twenty individuals, one of the largest French colonies of this species. You can observe them quite easily with binoculars, unwiding on the sandbanks at low tide.
Brought with tides, the sediment settles on the pitch, constituted by a thin layer of sand brought by the flow then completed by a deposit of fine particles in the slack, when the currents become null before being reversed.
The tangents (deposited sediments) of the Mont Saint-Michel bay were formerly exploited to amend the fields of the region. This sediment indeed contains a major part of limestone shell debris. Until the second half of the 19th century, salt harvesting was also carried out on the top of strikes.
At each high tide, between the southern Grouin and the Pointe de Roche Torin, up to 200 million m² of seawater and sediments enter the estuarine zone.
All you have to do is to bring your picnic and tyour camera to discover La Pointe du Grouin du Sud, a site that really worth visiting!
