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FRENCH COAST ST RAPHAEL TO
SPANISH BORDER SPRING/SUMMER 2001
Reports from Dick Blamey, Yacht
"SANJOLA"
1.0 Introduction.
We visited 25 ports in France from St
Raphael to the Spanish boarder over a 6 month period last year. Below they are
listed with a sentence or two on each.
2.0 General.
France is easy but not cheap. Heikell has it
all, but better and cheaper is a French 'Livre de Board'. Cost about £10
and available everywhere. French charts are good and readily available.
3.0 Dangers.
The dreaded Mistral. All the year around,
less in Summer. The French weather forecasts are very good and they seem to
understand it now, so listen to the forecasts. Also French men fishing
everywhere.
4.0 Procedures.
Either ring or call up on channel 16/9 to
the 'Capitainerie' a few hours before arrival, or just arrive. Ask for one
night and on arrival go to the office and ask for more if you need it. They
tend to keep your boat papers to ensure that you pay up. Paying in advance is
also OK. They are often reluctant to take bookings but we never had a problem
getting in where we wanted.
Prices vary enormously. If you want to see
the jet set places then you will need to cough up the necessary readies. The
further East you go the less likely to have help with lines on arrival.
5.0 Ports Visited.
Santa Lucia
Modern, very nice,
lots of shops and restaurants in walking distance. Good. St Raphael Centre of
town. Very interesting, next to a nice beach. Good.
Frejus
Brand new Marina in old
Roman town busy but OK.
St Aygulf
Very nice but small
place. We ran aground so are biased. Recommended provided that you do not run
aground.
St Tropez
Excellent, expensive,.
Would not fancy it in high season. Nudie beach, very lux and jet set. A must.
St Maxime
Beautiful, classic old
French chic. Not many visitors places. Highly recommended. We saw 54 knots of
Mistral in the harbour. Frightening but no problem.
Port Grimaud. Very French, very
interesting, a bit of a poor mans' Venice. Parked the boat in someone's back
garden. Recommended.
Cavalaire sur Mer.
OK nice town modern marina no probs.
Bormes les Mimosas.
Nice safe marina, quite modern. Excellent
old village to visit thus recommended.
Porquerolles.
Beautiful, beautiful island. Nature reserve.
Highly recommended.
Port Cros
Even better. Lunch at the 'Le Manoir', a
very famous French restaurant. Will set you back about a hundred quid for two!
We went for lunch and stayed for a week. Very highly recommended.
Plage d'Argent
Anchorage off Porquerolles. Excellent.
Recommended.
Port Man
Anchorage off Port Cros
Island. Excellent. Highly recommended.
Hyeres Plage
Science
fiction.
Bandol
Lovely place., nice old
French town.
Cassis
Another excellent port,
tied up next to some classic French fishing boats, magical. Highly recommenced
if you can get in.
Port Miou
In the centre of the
famous and spectacular 'Callanques', however it is a plastic graveyard and a
disgrace to this beautiful area.
Callanques
highly recommended
but not Port Miou.
Marseilles Vieux Port.
Opera.
Extract from our log 'Sadly the opera house is right in the middle of the
red light district, and as I don't like opera, I was forced to spend the
evening wandering around the naughty bars. Hands in my pockets of course.
Dreadful.' Super city, highly recommended.
Carry Le Rouet.
Nice little
French classic Provencal town. Small and may be difficult to find a place.
Recommended.
Sausset les Pins
Pure Peter Mayle. Log
extract. 'They decided to have a Fete right on the quay where we were tied up.
Put up 100 tables in a howling Mistral wind, stapling the paper plates to the
wood to stop them blowing away. A Rock n' Roll band turned up and played the
whole evening. As the band is funded by the local council and the dancing is
outdoors on the quay, every one turns up. Young folks, mums, dads, grannies,
granddads, village cats and dogs all out there, Dancin' to the Jail House
Rock.- Amazing. We lived in this village 30 years ago and then it was 'Tango'
and 'Slow Foxtrot'. So things have moved on a bit ' Highly recommended.
St Maries de la Mer
Famous church on the Camargue. Tourist
trap, but very good. Nice beach next to marina. Recommended.
Port
Camargue
Very large modern French Marina. Safe, good. All services.
OK.
Sete
Traditional French Port. Very interesting but
tatty. More restaurants per square metre than any where I have seen. Good walks
and Foodies paradise. Highly recommended.
Cap d'Agde
Huge
modern marina, room in August and jumpin'. Nudie beach. Extract from log: 'I
know that you have all been waiting for tales of the skinny dipping at the
naturist camp at Cap d' Agde. Well, we moored up 200 metres off the beach and
went ashore in the tender to check out the scenery. On arrival, trousers were
dropped so as not to appear conspicuous. Jennifer was left in charge of the
Yacht and Helen stayed to guard the tender which was by this time completely
surrounded by nudes. Alan, Thomas and I went for a walk along the beach to, you
know, stretch our legs. All I will say is that I now know where all the missing
curtain rings are hanging. We came back to rescue Helen to find that she had
been scolded by the beach police for having an outboard motor on what is now
seen as, a environmentally sensitive area. Well, I can confirm that there were
some extremely sensitive areas showing on that beach. Not recommended for the
faint hearted I can tell you.' Highly Recommended.
Port
Leucate
Strange place, but OK. Very pretty but exposed. OK.
Argeles.
Beginning of Spanish style marina help. Very nice little
place. OK.
Banyuls
Beautiful place. Help with ropes etc.
Very good but may depend when you are here. Extract from log: Catalonia. These
are folks who live in both France and Spain at the Southern end of Pyrenees
mountains. Neither the French nor Spanish seem to like 'em much, so, to make
their presence felt, they blow up tourists. Not us though, German boat, French
registration, Brit Captain ……..nah…….no
chance…….…BOOM!
What nobody had told us is that they are
beautiful people. Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez would not turn heads here. What is
more, they don't just have Fete days like the rest of France, but what is
called a 'Fete Majeur' ie a major fete. A whole week of eating, drinking,
fighting and shagging - magical.
Banyuls,
end August,
highly recommended. The only bad feature was the 'Sardanes' dancing. This is
some strange traditional dance and takes place between 4pm and Pastis time
(5:45). Not a pretty sight, the lovely people must have been sleeping off their
Siestas. But I now know where Burl Ives got the inspiration for his song 'The
Ugly Bugs Ball'.
6.0 French Riviera
We visited Cannes,
Nice and Cap Ferat by train. All very rich and jet set. Cannes film festival
was amazing. The place was festooned with Pam Anderson look a likes almost
entirely constructed from silicone. Nice work if you can get it but not in my
price bracket.
7.0 Conclusions.
Extract from log on
France: We covered about 500 miles in French waters and enjoyed every moment of
it. Excellent food, wine and beautiful people, even some with clothes on.
The French 'Capitainerie' system can only said to be excellent. The ports and
Marinas are well organised and we had no difficulty in finding places, even in
the high season. In all cases, the marina organisers went out of their way to
be helpful.
Costs for the 42 foot Yacht varied between £15 and
£29 in a random manner. In every case, electricity and water was provided
on the quay, so, well, expensive say some, but for us, cheaper than living in a
house with a car in London.
I gave France 18/20. They lost one point for
the dreadful mobile phone system. I was sold a phone that would not do E mail
which was changed for a 2nd hand one with a sim card that was not capable of E
mail. In St Raphael I was sold a cable that did not work. In spite of help from
very talented friends in Paris, I never managed to E mail from the boat. In
Spain, I ditched the French SFR sim and had E mail up and running within 2 days
with a Spanish card.
They lost the second point for the steaming heaps of
dog s**t . It is everywhere. There seems to be no law against it. French dogs
are perfectly within their rights to strain and dump up a pile on every street
corner, marina, park, patch of grass or beach. I love France and will probably
finish up living there but not until they change the law so that dogs can be
shot on sight for crapping in public.
Cap'n Dicko 'n Jen. SANJOLA, C13,
Marina Port Vell. 3/2/02 |
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