For me reaching the French Riviera and cruising it was a major objective for the trip, so now that we’ve travelled its length what will stay with me?   I guess first the almost dreamlike beauty of our three-day run from Bandol to Juan les Pins, anchoring in quiet bays and swimming off the boat and the tiny chocolate box harbour on Saint Honorat.   Those experiences felt like things that happen to other people, not ordinary Johns like Sue and I.   Not that it was all plain sailing.   Even in calm weather I find the Mediterranean a stressful sea to travel on.   It still feels foreign and the weather treacherous, with the capacity to turn and bite you quite suddenly.   This has made nights at anchor pretty sleepless. Second, I think I’ve been left with a lasting affection for Antibes.   Graham Greene apparently said it was the one place on the Riviera that still had a soul.   I think I know what he meant, the Old Town with its narrow ...

Port Vauban, the harbour of Antibes was full, certainly for us, though not I suspect for the odd passing fifty metre super yacht, but Port de Gallice at Juan les Pins had space and would be pleased to see us and was remarkably cheap.   We arrived in the afternoon and were met at the visitors’ quay by a uniformed marina official on an electric scooter.   The marina office smelt of cologne and after some of the loos and showers we had come across at Frioul and Bandol, which would have disgraced a boy scout camp in the 1960s, the facilities were, well, palatial.   The atmosphere of the marina is summed up, I think, by the Manager, who wore white shirt, shorts and long socks and was always courteous.   We stayed five days, making full use of the loos and showers and the charming public beach, less than 100 metres from our berth.   However, we didn’t I regret to say make use of the Helipad. During our stay we did little except sunbathe and st...

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 ...

La Ciotat is a charming spot, the Old Port is full of yachts and fishing boats and is surrounded by shops and cafes on three sides and by the massive cranes of a shipyard that builds and repairs oil tankers on the other.   After Chris and John left, Sue and I strolled around the port taking in the almost too perfect harbour atmosphere – quiet cafes, strolling couples, the reflection of street lights rippling across the water of the harbour.   We settled down at one of the cafes where I tucked into moules frites.   Inside were a party from “Topolino” a British yacht we had first met in Avignon – two crusty old blokes and the charming partner of one of them, who clearly makes sure that the old blokes survive and have clean underpants.   Outside, where we were sitting, three young Brits and Antipodeans were at a nearby table, the “Topolino” people explained that they were carrying out work on a boat in the harbour.   Also outside a party of two ...

The Mistral at Frioul was my first real experience of a wind with its own name.   Sailing in the Med has given Sue and I an increasingly personal interest in the weather and how it works and we’ve started to read up on it.   Our “Mediterranean Cruising Handbook” lists thirty-five different named winds in the Med from the “Arifi” (the Sirocco from Morocco) to the “Vardaarac”, which must have been christened by a Scrabble enthusiast from its native Greece where it whistles down mountain slopes and out of the Gulf of Thessalonica.   The Mistral is one of the most feared of this lot and is apparently a “mountain gap wind” produced by cold air getting bottled up in Central France behind the Massif Central and the Alps and then suddenly blasting its way down the Rhone Valley, which is the gap between the two.   The Mistral lasts for as long as there is a reservoir of cold air, three, six, nine days or more – rather like squeezing a spot. I can see how th...