Hyeres and its beautiful Îles d’Or

Îles d’Or are a group of four Mediterranean islands off Hyères, Île du Levant is mostly for military use except for a long-established naturist community centered on the privately owned village of Héliopolis, Port-Cros the most mountainous of the 4, part of Port-Cros National Park, noted for rare flora and as a bird refuge,
Île du Bagaud – uninhabited with no access, and Porquerolles.

We only visited two, Port Cros & Porquerolles.

Port Cros

Port-Cros is the wildest and most unspoilt of the Îles d’Or. With its 700 hectares, it is the heart of Europe’s first national marine park, created in 1963. Here, no cars, not even bicycles: just calm and serenity.

We arrived here on the 28th August after a lively beam reach then downwind sail for 15NM’s and picked up our reserved buoy. There is a tiny marina here but we preferred to be a little out of it on a buoy in the clearest waters we have seen all summer. We couldn’t arrive until 6pm, but that meant we didn’t need to leave until 6pm the following day, so we chilled out on board for the evening!

Our mooring for the night!

The following morning we then took the dingy ashore for a walk about in the tiny village which sort of had a bit of a Caribbean feel to it.

and then followed the coastal path for a while…to take in the views across the islands.

That afternoon we spent paddle-boarding, and testing the board as a kayak with David doing all the paddling, happy days, snorkelling and swimming with the fish. There were so many that we took turns being in the water with each other throwing bread in for them very close, it was amazing, they weren’t shy, at times knocking into our masks to get the bread!

We were by this time in dire need of some provisions and given there was wind but on our nose which means we were going to need to do some tacking, we left this wonderful spot at 3 and tacked our way to an anchorage near Hyeres, called La Captre, where we stopped for the night before going ashore in its tiny harbour.

La Capte

A sweet little town with, as it happens, a market on that day, so we happily did our provisioning, had a cup of coffee, and made our way back to Seaclusion.

Only in France…. serious knifes on sale, that probably would be banned in the UK, or at least need a license!

We were also very low on water, so contacted Hyeres marina to see if we could come in to fill up. They were really accommodating, so we headed in, but just as we started our manoeuvring, the bow thruster gave up the will to live.. arggh, still there was little wind so it didn’t cause David too much of a problem, it was an alongside mooring so of course David was in charge!. Once in, and the tanks were filling we set about diagnosing the issue to find that the bow thruster battery, which was pretty old, had fallen off a cliff, so to speak. Thankfully we were in the right place and managed to source one before the deadline by which we had to leave, well by 5 minutes!..

At 5.30 we left Hyeres and had a lovely, if too short a sail to Porquerolles, 6 NM’s away, and dropped our pick for the night.

The following morning we went exploring to find that this really is an island to explore, by bike, but perhaps not in flipflops… the only other mode of transport was golf buggies! Next time we come back we will be better prepared, so we just had a wander around the little town, and of course, a coffee..

Porquerolles Island

We then set sail again to the west side of the Hyeres Peninsular for better shelter as the wind had changed direction, and stopped just tucked inside a tiny island called..

Ile de La Redonne

The following morning we went exploring a little on the paddle-board, before setting sail again, westwards towards Seaclusion´s winter home.

31st August 2024