Yacht JACK TAR: August 2011

Jack Tar has essentially completed the planned westward transit of the south coast of France, being now at anchor in the lee of an island just off the port of Marseille. While at Juan les Pins on the Cap d`Antibe peninsula we made a trip into Cannes and to the small high village of Biot. Next to Ile St Marguerite off Cannes port for another fantastic fireworks display. It was then on to St Tropez. It is now school holiday time and the crowds of boats and people are almost overwhelming; yet it is fun to see the activity. Entering the gulf of St Tropez there were so many large motor yachts moving at speed that the whole gulf, three miles wide and five long, was completely chopped up and we were flung about like a cork in a washing machine. Anchored off the entrance to the port we were surrounded by more large boats apparently all wanting to see yet another fireworks display. We then sailed to the Porquorelles islands near Toulon and found an anchorage off Port Cros, a lovely national park island. All these anchorages have kept us on our toes, as it seems that the French, like the Italians, are not very good at anchoring safely. Our salvage score to date is two untended yachts rescued after dragging free into deep water and two people in a broken down runabout having been blown to sea by the mistral. From there we sailed on to Bandol and then lovely Cassis but were forced to run away back downwind to La Ciotat, another pretty town. Tomorrow we will head into Marseille as a strong mistral is forecast to blow for a few days. After that, it is on across to the Balearics, when the weather suits, a two day passage.

The blog editor still seems place some photos seemingly at random.

Two story merrygoround St Tropez

Waterfront Port Cros Is

Acrobat sculpture Cannes

Port Cros anchorage - the main issue is finding water shallow enough to anchor in. We were routinely anchoring in 20-30 mtrs. From up here we counted 200 yachts under sail within 10 mls.