Sailing in Provence and the West Cote D’Azur

Calanques, Cassis, Port Cros and Hyeres

I’m not sure whether Geoff would agree but I think this area was one of my highlights this summer. Beautiful scenery, nature reserves and pretty French sea side towns. Great for sailing around as there’s loads to do both on and off the boat.

Provence – Les Calanques and Cassis

We didn’t do all of this coast but started about a third of the way down at Marseille. As I’ve already talked about Marseille I’ll start with the Calanques:

The Calanques – a stretch of coast with sheer cliffs all the way along but with small inlets (Calanques) here and there. The Calanques are anchorages or ports carved out of the rock by icebergs. They are narrow with massive steep sides making them hard to see from the sea and great for French kids to play a good game of chicken and see who’ll jump from the highest cliff into the sea.

The highlights:

• Port Miou – A stunning place with turquoise water, massive cliff sides and a small marina/ pontoon that went for more than a mile deep into the cliff side
• Cliff jumping – No, Geoff and I didn’t give it a go but, it was great watching the French kids jumping from cliffs that were higher than our mast and making a massive booming sound as they hit the water
• Boat watching – this was the start of things to come with along the Cote D’Azure with more and more super yachts appearing in some of the wider bays
• French sailing skills on boats – French sailing is very much like their driving. It makes some great entertainment.

And then there was Cassis. We didn’t sail into Cassis but instead motored in the dinghy to the end of Port Miou, tied the boat up and walked around the road into Cassis.

The town is quite a touristy but it is beautiful and has some lovely beaches as well as a pretty marina and lots of cafes for an afternoon coffee/ glass of wine. Plus, it’s great for a spot of clothes shopping – if you have lots of spare cash and are looking at splashing out on a few designer items for your wardrobe. At the moment that’s not me … so I resisted the temptation and just looked in the windows (Mmm well I may have tried one dress on…).

The West Cote D’Azur

From Cassis we headed into the West Cote D’Azur – Hyeres, Iles de Porquerolles and Ile du Port Cros.

We spent most of our time here around the islands rather than on the main land. Although we did have to pop in Hyeres a couple of times to get the dinghy fixed as it sprung a minor leak (all fixed now though).

Most of the islands around here are nature and wild life reserves so we couldn’t just get the fishing line out when we were sailing around. Each island had their own regulations and no fishing zones but it was so complicated we decided the best idea was to give fishing a miss altogether.

Port Cros was the one we spent most time around. The first thing we noticed when we arrived was the mass of fish in the sea – it was a stunning sight just looking off the back of the boat and seeing so many fish swimming about. The boat next to us (we’d seen this boat of lads a few times over the past week) were throwing food to the fish and the water was bubbling there were so many of them. I think the sight of so many fish had put some people off swimming but we gave it a go.

As well as chilling on the boat we jumped into the dinghy and went onto the island. Here we found some beautiful walks to an old run down fort and secluded beaches. Geoff and I tried out the local cocktails in the bars on the waters edge and had dinner in one of the restaurants.

This really was a stunning place to be and somewhere that really made me appreciate the freedom of exploring by boat as we’d never have come here if we weren’t sailing. Maybe one day we’ll come back and try their cocktails out again!

From here we were heading towards to East Cote D’Azur – St Tropez, Cannes, Nice and Monaco.

No book update his time…  but we have had people out for the past few weeks which have helped with the book and magazine stocks.

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