Our Final Run for 2023!

On the 13th September, having left La Ciotat and its wonderful scenery behind us, we motored in no wind along the coast for a while, enjoying the surprising scenery up to the Baie of Marseille, having not quite reached the flat marshlands Montpellier way.

And finally the winds came out to play and we had a fabulous sail for 3 hours, including a little race with another yacht, which we are pleased to say, we whopped their arse.. negotiating all the tankers in the bay, some on anchor and some on the move, right into our wild anchorage for the night behind the sandbank that formed the western side of the horribly commercial area know as the Baie of Fos, where we settled in for the night, planning a very early start to get the Genoa down and folded away, which is no mean feet on the deck, before the winds picked up.

We would be so lucky… we had chosen this anchorage as the bottom was mud, which for us yachties is like glue, we put over 50 metres of chain down, just in case the forecast wasn’t as accurate as we would like. Sure enough, the winds came with the dawn, and we did a good job of sailing around our anchor with the genoa out before we were able to lower it in such a fashion as to be able to flake it neatly. Getting quite good at it now after all these years, as an hour later with no raised voices, it was in its bag and down below, and we motored off to the marina we had booked to weather out the incoming storm and start work… in a place called Port du Bouc.. our last mistake of the trip..described as an all weather port, we spent the best part of 4 days in a washing machine, the wind and the sea from the short 1/2 mile waterway hitting us straight on our port bow, to the point we had salt water splashing over it, never had that before. We did try to find an alternative berth elsewhere but they were all full, not surprisingly with the storm, so we just needed to put up, shut up and get on with our jobs!

Still we did have some quieter moments, when we could get some work done, like winterising the outboard, taking off the davits, laundry, lots of laundry of cushion covers, throws etc, not just our clothes, sort everything out down below, get David a much needed haircut, and have a wander around the town… not a holiday destination in any manner of the word!

Port du Bouc

They do love a wall painting here…. the people were generally lovely and friendly, not prejudice against the English what so ever, and I finally found a proper rollo au fromage, but not from Chez Chris!

Finally on the 19th, with the wind a little more settled, we crossed over the Golfe of Fos, Fos is the site of a major port development operated by the Autonomous Port of Marseille. The facilities include container handling terminals and a gas (methane) terminal, as you can see, to the the Navy Service quay, (Seaclusion’s yard for the winter), to do the last bits and pieces, including getting the main sail, bimini, sprayhood etc down, and clean, clean and more clean!

Unfortunately, their quay was rammed, with boats rafted up to each other, and given the work we still had to do, we decided to continue up the Post Saint Louis canal a little further and stay at the little marina there.. oh did we wish we had gone there instead of Port du Bouc, it was so lovely and sheltered!

With everything done that we could until she was lifted, we ventured back up the canal the following morning and were finally lifted out of the water at 8am on the 20th, and popped into her new home for the next 8 months. Now the final job, the hull. We kinda knew that our coppercoat antifoul was coming to the end of its life, we had seen the growth when swimming and she certainly wasn’t as fast as she used to be, but we were still a little shocked at it up close…. but 3 hours later, with a very powerful jet-wash, a scraper, and with lots of elbow grease, she looked so much better when the guys who are likely to be working on her over the winter saw her, they didn’t think it was too bad, until we showed them the photos.. 🥴

Seaclusion´s Winter home for 2023/2024

And now its time to come back to our home on land, in sunny Cabrera!

In total, we visited 4 different countries this year, covering 1698 NM’s over 98 days, with a full 24 hours of night sailing, with a mix of some rather challenging to benign conditions, and rather too many engine hours for our liking, but over all we had a wonderful trip, and found some fabulous places we can highly recommend and will at some point return to!.

We would like to thank everyone for following our sailing steps again. We really hope you have enjoyed it with us. We will be back on board Seaclusion probably mid May 2024, to do the South of France all the way to Northern Italy properly, so watch this space! 😛😍

Chantal & David