Sometimes a walker on the coastal path stops, surprised to hear a deaf detonation under his feet while a spray of foam gushes out of the rocks below. The tide is high and a wave has just rushed into a cave of the cliff. The mass of water had violently compressed the air in the cavity and, like in the mouth of a cannon, it had noisily expelled this air as well as the water that blocked its passage outside. The walker, delighted, is watching for the next wave, takes pictures and then resumes his walk. His mobile phone will keep a firework display of marine scum in memory.
At low tide, it is from the beach or the strike that you are drawn to the mysterious world of the coastal caves. What child did not dream of its fantastic exploration ? Which lovers have not taken refuge there?
Since a few years, the Iroise Marine Natural Park has undertaken a systematic study of these caves, which abound around the islands and all along our coasts. Most of them are only accessible by boat and are therefore preserved. These are exceptional environments because of their hygrometry, their temperature, the small fauna that occupies them, and the red algae which come from the sea depths and develop here in complete peace. Sea caves are a unique heritage world that we dream of discovering, but that we must preserve from any pollution in order to pass them on, intact, to other generations. And we will keep them all our lives in an intimate little corner of our memory.
The past has no reality except what remains in our memory... tells us in French the author of the poem below.
La Roche Brune
©
Un poème d'Irène Gaultier-Leblond
![The entrance to Rochebrune](../../photos/LeConquet/grotte1.jpg)
Méandres du hasard, allégeance ou fortune,
Je voyais approcher sous le récif puissant
Qui arpentait la côte en limitant le vent,
L'entrée de la retraite appelée Roche Brune.
![Inside Rochebrune](../../photos/LeConquet/grotte2.jpg)
Et je revivais là, sous promesse de lune
D'un pas aventuré, curieux et prudent
La parenthèse émue d'un souvenir galant
Gravé dans cette grotte à la nuit opportune.
Mais le temps en avait rongé la griffe intime
Tout comme la mémoire en refusait l'accès,
Etait-ce Arthur ou Jean, ce sourire sublime ?
Je ne raviverai ni le nom, ni le leurre
Puisque les cœurs du moins sont restés enlacés,
Le passé n'a de vrai que ce qui nous demeure.
Irène Gaultier-Leblond
***