Porquerolles

We set off from Bandol on Monday 30^th September in dead calm and sunny weather for what proved to be the most magic three days of our journey so far.  First we motored to the Island of Porquerolles, arriving there in mid-afternoon and anchoring in a quiet bay close to the island’s capital village and marina.  We let the autohelm do the tedious job of steering and mostly sat on the foredeck watching La Fulica’s bow cut its way through the silver-blue water and seeing Toulon slip past in the distance.  Porquerolles is a rocky and tree covered paradise of sandy beaches and clear blue waters, partly occupied by the French military, so tourist development has been limited and low key.  In the height of summer there are literally thousands of yachts at anchor off the sheltered Northern coves of the Island, but we found only a handful.  We dropped anchor in about five metres of water, where we could see La Fulica floating above the rocky and sandy seabed.  Sue and I went for our first swim from the boat and slightly apprehensively I took my goggles, snorkel and flippers to inspect the bottom of the hull.  Being used to the dull muddy waters of the English East Coast swimming around ones boat and being able to see the sea bed with crystal clarity is a strange and exhilarating feeling.  To my relief the hull was clean as a whistle and the prop had suffered no damage from its encounters with barge towropes and driftwood.  Swimming over the anchor I could see it buried in the sand and holding us as it should, with the chain snaking across the seabed and up in a lazy arc to La Fulica’s bow.  Then I swam to the nearby beach while Sue rowed across in the tender.  Later we enjoyed our first solar shower (basically a plastic bag full of water with a shower rose attached to it) in the cockpit, before dining on French bread with mountain cheese and dried sausage.  In the evening we motored the tender across to the village for a beer and to enjoy the laid back atmosphere, rather like I imagine the Florida Keys to be.

The next two days continued in this vein, with bright sunshine and flat calm seas.  We skirted past the Gulf of St Tropez and spent the next night at anchor in the bay of Agay, a famous anchorage in which there were again no more than a handful of boats.  En route there was a big sailing festival in the Gulf and we saw hundreds of modern and traditional yachts under full sail, trying to tease some forward motion from the light and variable airs.  Agay has a popular bathing beach and it was good fun to row across in the tender and then go sunbathing and swimming among the mainly middle-aged holidaymakers.

We spent a mildly uncomfortable night at anchor, with a slight swell entering the bay and setting up a pronounced rolling motion and so were happy to set off next morning for the Isles de Lerrin, off Cannes.  One can tell just by looking at the Charts that the Isles de Lerrin are a special place, tree covered and with just the odd fort and monastery and on the smallest of the two, Saint Honorat, a tiny harbour with a shallow entrance and a water tap.  After a short run from the bay of Agay we lay at anchor just off the harbour with a few other boats, no doubt mainly out for the day from the busy marinas of Cannes.  The Islands did not disappoint.  We rowed into the tiny harbour on Saint Honorat and then strolled through its quiet scented woodlands to the Monastery and back.  The place really is a paradise made for contemplation, so much so that one can even ignore the odd middle-aged German tourist stomping around the place out of the trip boats from Cannes and trying to capture the atmosphere with their video cameras.  Later we swam in the calm clear waters having ‘phoned around for a berth for the next few days somewhere around Antibes.