The ferry crossing from Fromentine, on the Bay of Biscay, to ?le d'Yeu is new to me, and yet the island's coastline appears as if it were a remembered shore. Halfway into the eleven-nautical-mile passage through a lazy swell, a faint blur smudges the horizon. In the wind, sea gulls sway and swoop. The blur stretches slowly into a black line that rises between sky and water to embody the reddish-brown, rocky shelf of the island's east coast. ...