LEAVING THE CAMARGUE

Port Napoleon is on the eastern edge of the Gulf of Lyon, the western edge is close to the border with Spain.  The Rhone valley empties into the Med here and the weather is famous for being windy. The weather patterns funnel up and down the massive valley. Sunday came bright and with a great sailing breeze, from the right direction as well - something of a miracle!  We set off at dawn and were soon out of the bay of Fos and into the Gulf itself.  Our original plan had been to day sail around the Gulf stopping each night but the weather conditions were perfect, so we headed out across the Gulf on the 120mile route towards Spain.

Up at dawn to leave

A salutary lesson to obey the buoys

Halfway across the wind literally stopped and we ended up motoring the rest of the way.  We’d planned to get to Roses, just in Spain, but decided to shorten the passage a little and head in to Banyuls in France.  It proved to be a good idea as we could see an electrical storm way in the distance over the Spanish coast and mountains.  

The boat sailed well, it doesn’t point as high into the wind as our previous boat but in every other way its faster and more comfortable. 

Land sighted as the sun set - we arrived just before midnight

Banyuls actually feels like the Med to us - for the first time since leaving the Rhone, a small fishing and pleasure harbour surrounded by ochre coloured buildings and small beaches.  We decided to stop for two nights, just to enjoy having somewhere to walk out to in an evening - and to buy some of the famous Banyuls wine.  We checked the prices at some of the towns Caves and then headed to Carrefour where a local women advised on the best priced banyuls wine.

Banyuls - our boat is bobbing about in the harbour behind

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Banyuls is a cute town

Weather permitting heading to Spain tomorrow. Have to dig out our Spanish courtesy flag.

Rigged!

We got back from Porto on the Thursday, the wind was still too strong for the crane but at least it looked like the rig was ready to go.

On Friday the mast was rigged and we started to look like a sailing boat again. By mid-afternoon we had all the rigging in place, the rig was tuned and we had sails. Finally!

mast being lifted - always a tense time

Looking a bit more like now - just the sails to go

Saturday we took the boat out into the bay for test sail, lots of tacking, gybing, reefing and unreefing - it all worked perfectly and we now look fit to go. We moored that night in Port St Louis du Rhone literally next door to Port Napoleon but we’d had enough of that place.

test sail - ideal conditions and all went well

Time to celebrate with our friends Megan and Steve who have just sold their boat and are on their way back to Australia soon.

Can't complain about this food - what a spread

Steve and Megan have signed contracts and boat sold!

Endurance competition venue in Port St Louis - brought back memories

Horse fix

 Carole's interesting  facts:

No ?:   The Camargue is a flat, wet, very windy, mosquito-ridden area.  I would not be offered a tourist officer job there.

Porto

After the comedy of the rigging now being too short - the mast was raised then lowered and will have to be raised again once the rigging is replaced - we checked the weather and realised that even if the new rig appeared the next day the wind strength was too much for the crane to operate for much of the next week.

After t’internet half hour we found Ryanair cheap flights from Marseille to Porto and a cheap city centre hotel for the same price as a weeks car hire in France. So Porto it is.

What a good decision, Porto is officially our new favourite European city, and fantastic value compared to France. Great old centre along the Douro river banks, port wine houses everywhere.  We were lucky and had hot weather with blue skies.

The difference in price compared to France was huge. We ate in a good local restaurant, full of locals, Carole had sea bass for €8, the same fish in an average French restaurant was €17.  We had 2 coffees for €1.40, compared to €4 in Port St Louis.

Carole -  I will leave you with a select of photos of Porto......

Classic Porto picture

Lovely traditional shops

Great old market - sadly falling to pieces

this is the railway station!

Another of the railway station - amazing

Porto is just so photogenic

Past the high bridge

Taken from the 'port caves' side

Pretty everywhere you look

Evening

Just which photos do I include?

The roofs of the port wine houses

Gutting fish takes concentration

This in the centre of Porto ??

Rigging, again

The crane has been fixed,  huraaaaah!

The new, new rigging is too short!  Boooooo!

How hard can this be?

This company is supposed to be one of the best in the U.K. I just despair.  We even sent them our original rig for them to copy.

The weather is now closing in and even if the rig goes up early next week it'll be weekend before the weather is fit for us to sail off!

The 50% discount we have negotiated so far will have to grow.

Rigging - part whatever

Rigging, so simple, bits of wire joined by bits and bobs to the boat and the mast......

The new, new rig 's arrived, and it fits,  horaaah!

The bits and bobs have arrived, and they fit, horaaaah!

The riggers are working on the boat, it's all coming together now!

The boat yard's crane has broken - Booooooooo!

Still here.

Weather looking absolutely rubbish to sail off over after the weekend, big winds until next Thursday....

Marseille

Got a bus and a train to Marseille and found the Adagio Aparthotel we’d booked on line - good old booking.com - great location, great facilities and reasonably priced too.

We walked miles and miles around the city found all sorts of different areas around the edges of the Vieux Port.

The port has a really dramatic entrance - going to have to sail in one day - it’s packed with all sorts of boats and one section was just lined with beautiful classic wooden yachts - the one from 1874 was my favourite, the boom and bowsprit were so long they doubled the length of the boat. Must have been the race boat of its day.

Dave's favourite wooden racing boat, from 1874

We found big areas of Arabic, north African and Asian communities close to the centre.  We ended up eating in Lebanese, Armenian, Tunisian and Vietnamese restaurants.  Great food and stuff we’d not had before.

Interesting artists quarter

We also wandered into the Intercontinental 5 star hotel overlooking the Vieux Port to see the view - had to have a pastiche to soak up the ambiance - only the one as price made my eyes water!

View from the posh hotel

One morning was raining so we ended in in a new dockside shopping complex, built in the old warehouses - full of hip and trendy shops - not sure if we fitted in that well! All fascinating and expensive.  Ended up getting haircuts here - most expensive I’ve ever had at €27, and Carole said she’d never had her hair cut by a man before, very trendy staff - tattoos and beards and beanie hats - have to concede it was a good haircut too.

The shopping centre was a great building

Dave with newly shorn look

Turned into an expensive trip but well worth it as a treat.

Great reflections

Large Armenian population with great food

This bandstand couldn't take the heat

M for Marseille

More train and bus back to the boat.

Still no sign of the rigging from the UK.

Will be discussing a large discount on the price!

Rigging!

The new rigging has arrived  Hurrah!

It's got the wrong fittings on it!!  BOOOOOOOO!

Now decided that this is the only way forward !

Testing Pastis

The whole rig saga is like some Ealing comedy.

Going to Marseille tomorrow - on holiday - will worry about the rig when we get back. 

Still in Port Napoleon

Well, progress on the rigging is going slowly - its proved cheaper to have the Beneteau agents in the UK build the rig and then ship it out here rather than get a local rigger - it was supposed to be quicker as well….  After confirming they had all the parts in stock the riggers at the last moment said they were missing a part - the somewhat crucial bits that join the bottom of the wire rigging to the boat hull and now we’ve got to source that bit from Beneteau’s main riggers in France - frustrating but at least the weather has been good and we are able to get out and about and the rest of the rigging is now on its way to us.

So we’ve had trips to Grand Mot, Beaux en Provence and back to Arles as well as Les Saintes Maries de la Mer for the horse riding.

This plaque and doors below brought home the horrors of the Nazis

Carole loved the riding - on a white Camargue horse through the marshes and galloping along the beaches.  She initially went with a couple of other paying riders but the rest of the stable hands joined them and they ended up riding out for nearly 5 hours - 60€, very, very cheap compared to the UK.  Good, responsive horses that looked liked they’d had a good time after the ride too.

The stables round here are very basic compared to home

The drive out to Grand Mot meant that we could meet up with some friends and have a seafood lunch overlooking the harbour.

We went to Beaux en Provence after dropping Megan off at the airport so she could fly back to Aus to see her new grand-daughter.  Hubbie Steve came with us, he’s stopping here as they are in the middle of selling their boat.  The art exhibition is based inside a limestone mine and they project the paintings onto the walls and create images detailing various parts of the art works - the current artist is Marc Chagall.  Amazing images - he’s described as a colourist and you can see why.  The mine also showed a homage to Lewis Carole.  All very atmospheric and with a thumping good sound track too!  Not to be missed if you get to the Provence area.

Beaux en Provence

Chagall sound and light exhibition the tunnels - fabulous

Full surround senses

We took the car back on Friday, had another day wandering around Arles - great  place, famous for its links with Van Gogh. We went to the Van Gogh Foundation but were a little disappointed to find they only had one of his paintings - suspect they couldn’t afford any more, but the rest of the centre was filled with works by a modern artist - Urs Fischer, that was well worth seeing.

Urs fisher exhibition - intriguing 

All made of bronze, but looked like clay!

Rooftop reflections

Its all got quite busy on our pontoon - for a while we were the only ones living there, but in the last few days a lot of boats have come and gone - most to be lifted out for the winter or to have their masts taken down so they can go up the canals back to Northern Europe.  I always thought the French were fantastic sailors but having seen quiet a few try and park their boats I’m not sure now!  Still keeps us amused.  The English speaking group of sailors keeps changing and we’ve had quite a few good nights out meeting them.  The bar and restaurant at the harbour is pretty good.

low-flying planes have been spraying for mosquitoes

Black rice - locally grown (very good)