2024 has Officially Started!

We finally left sunny Cabrera on Tuesday 21st May 20024 and had an uneventful drive up through Spain and into France, stopping overnight at a cheap and cheerful Ibis hotel on the outskirts of Narbonne which left us only a couple of hours driving the next day to get to Port Saint Louis du Rhone and Seaclusion.

On route we made a slight detour to see the town of Arles, once a provincial capital of ancient Rome, it is also known for its Amphitheatre and Colosseum, which featured in one of David’s favourite movies of all time, Ronin! Below is an aerial image, pinched from the Internet, to show just how magnificent it is..

Arles

The town itself is beautiful with lots of cobbled alleyways, very quaint and well worth a visit, but we will let the pics convince you more…

A couple of hours later, we set off again, some what nervous as to what state we would find Seaclusion in, after a windy winter at the bottom of the Rhone. And it was with great relief when we saw her with her shiny newly copper coated bottom and aside from red dust, in great nick, even the dinghy cover was still in tact!

So, having put her sails, sprayhood, bimini, safety gear, anchor and davits back in their rightful place, bought the necessary provisioning, we set about testing everything to ensure we had no issues once in the water. 3 problems came to light, one a cracked toilet, god only knows how, a very poorly outboard engine, and an immersion heater which kept tripping the electrics as soon as it was turned on. The first, being the most important, we actually easily fixed, the part being in stock at the local chandlers, even if it did hurt our pocket a little. The second, again, easily fixed but with an even bigger hole in our pocket, as a new engine was the only answer, the third however not so, as we couldn’t source the parts needed and even if we had, we couldn´t find an engineer with any available time to fit it for us, hey ho, no hot water, could be worse things to have to deal with in the summer with the sun shining, or so we thought!

So after a big food shop, we had some time on our hands so set about going precariously up a ladder, replacing our waterline stripes, something we had planned to do last year but ran out of time…

Finally we were ready and the day of launch (27th May) arrived…

And she is in the water. We then had a few minutes to check she wasn’t taking on water anywhere, that the engine was sweet and there were no other problems. All was going swimming well until we tried the bow thruster, which just wouldn’t open. We could hear the electronics trying but no joy.. so we had to get the guys to lift her again so we could see what the problem was, which they dutifully did.. and low and behold…..

Or so we thought… having tested it a few times she was then lifted back in, but on testing it again, still no joy. So we begged the guys to lift her a second time, and this time, with sandpaper in hand we properly cleaned the joint and had our fingers and toes crossed when she went back in as the guys weren’t going to lift her a third time, we had already put their schedule back almost an hour by this time. Phew is all we can say, that did the trick and we were off down the canal and on our way westward, seeking shelter before the start of the mistral.

We had a fabulous downwind sail for 29nm’s to a tiny island called Ile du Friole just off Marseille, somewhere we had missed last year and which was meant to be lovey for hiking and chilling out, which, had the anchorage on the east coast been proved as good as Navily suggested, we would have done!

Ile du Friole

But things never go quite as planned. A couple of boats had beaten us to it and so we had to anchor behind them, not quite so sheltered and not much sand to ensure a good anchor hold… but the winds weren’t meant to get bad until the following day which, we thought, would give us time to find somewhere better, if neither of them moved…

HAHAHA, by 4am, it was blowing a hooley already and if the winds didn’t wake us up, our anchor alarm surely did as we started to drag, luckily it reset itself within about 10 metres, but it did mean a rather sleepless night from that point. Giving up a 7am, we surfaced and had just popped the water on the stove for our wake up cup of coffee when the anchor alarm broke the quiet once again, and being too close for comfort to the rocks behind us, we soon forgot about the coffee and tried to re-anchor…but we just couldn’t get it to grab, so we upped sticks and left, venturing out into 30 + knots of wind, and a very rolly sea that was side swiping us for the first 40 minutes until we turned the corner and it was then surfing us along very nicely. it took a good hour before our first cup of coffee touched our lips.

Sadly Ile du Friole will have to wait, again.

11nm’s later, after what turned out to be a fabulous downwind sail with just a reefed Genoa, touching 9 knots at times, we turned the corner into the first anchorable Calanque. What is a Calanque you might ask, well a calanque is a unique kind of geological formation made of limestone. They are big rocky coves forming a steep and narrow valley inland, Here, off Marseille, the Calanques National Park is a protected and highly regulated area, stretching over 20 km’s from Marseille to Cassis, with 26 Calanques of various sizes, most too small for anchoring in or to offer any protection from the Mistral…but the one we chose, Sormiou had the most breathtaking scenery, just like a miniature fjord with turquoise waters, and protected from the swell, if not entirely from the wind gusts.

We were there for 2 days, which, despite the winds blowing round us, gave us the chance to test our new outboard and have a wander around the tiny village at its head.

Calanque du Sormiou

But all good things must come to an end, and with the forecast showing winds of 40+knots, we decided to leave this little haven after 2 days and head for the Port du Cassis and the safety of a pontoon, (plus the hope for finding someone to help us with our immersion heater), which happily takes us to our next chapter in this adventure.

31st May 2024