Pierres de Lecq
Encyclopedia
Jersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...
and Sark
Sark
Sark is a small island in the Channel Islands in southwestern English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. It is a royal fief, geographically located in the Channel Islands in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, with its own set of laws based on Norman law and its own parliament. It has a population...
, 6 km north of Grève de Lecq in Saint Mary
Saint Mary, Jersey
-External links:**...
, and 22.4 km west of the Cotentin Peninsula
Cotentin Peninsula
The Cotentin Peninsula, also known as the Cherbourg Peninsula, is a peninsula in Normandy, forming part of the north-western coast of France. It juts out north-westwards into the English Channel, towards Great Britain...
in Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
.
Only three of the rocks remain visible at high tide: L'Êtaîthe (the eastern one), La Grôsse (the big one) and La Vouêtaîthe (the western one). The area has one of the greatest tidal range
Tidal range
The tidal range is the vertical difference between the high tide and the succeeding low tide. Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth...
s in the world, sometimes being as much as 12 metres.
The name Paternosters is connected with a legend relating to the colonisation of Sark in the 16th century. According to this legend a boatload of women and children was wrecked on the reef and their cries can still be heard from time to time in the wind. Superstitious sailors would say the Lord's Prayer
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...
when passing the rocks, hence the name Paternosters.
The rocks are a Ramsar site, and support a variety of small cetaceans including dolphin
Dolphin
Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...
s. It is considered to form a biogeographical
Biogeography
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species , organisms, and ecosystems in space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities vary in a highly regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area...
boundary.
Names of the rocks
All of the names are in JèrriaisJèrriais
Jèrriais is the form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, in the Channel Islands, off the coast of France. It has been in decline over the past century as English has increasingly become the language of education, commerce and administration...
- L'Êtchièrviéthe
- La Rocque du Nord
- L'Êtaîse or L'Êtaîthe
- Lé Bel
- Lé Longis
- La P'tite Mathe
- La Grôsse (Great Rock)
- La Grand' Mathe
- La Greune dé Lé, or La Bonnette
- La Greune du Seur-Vouêt
- L'Orange
- La Vouêtaîse, La Vouêtaîthe, or La Vouêt'rêsse
- La Cappe
- La Douoche
- Lé Byi
- La Rocque Mollet
- L'Êtché au Nord-Vouêt
- La Galette
- La Briarde
- La Sprague
- La Niêthole Jean Jean or Lé Gouoillot