Wednesday 25 September

We get up fairly late and have a lazy morning.  We don’t think the weather is suitable for another night in the Calanques.  It is supposed to get very cloudy.  Anyway the constant rocking of the boat in the swell is beginning to get to me.  So we decide to go on to le Ciotat, where we had thought we would go when we wound up in Cassis.  We phone them up and they assign a pontoon space to us.  We are in no hurry, so we decide to sail.  The wind is on the nose, but we want to go out to sea to pump out the holding tank, so we just do a huge tack.  It is slow going, but pleasant enough until the wind dies on us completely.  So we have to put the motor on and at first we go direct into the wind.  The wind dies down to between 2-4 knots and is all over the place.  The sea has a very gentle swell.  But despite this, after about an hour I am feeling rather queasy.  I don’t know why such low wind and benign sea is doing this, but it is.  Maybe it is just the cumulative effect of being rocked around for the last 24 hours!

So we make it in to le Ciotat.  We are in the Vieux Port, in the centre of the town.  The visitor pontoon, where we are is at the end of the harbour near the entrance.  It is about half a mile to the Harbour office and the toilet block!  But it is a cute place and we berth without problems.  That is more than we can say for other boats that come in after us.  One tries to berth next to us and swings around so that he is side on to the pontoon!  He has a bit of an excuse because apparently he has engine trouble.  We know what that is like.  He moves to another berth and then a smaller boat tries to moor up next to us.  They too get into all sorts of difficulties before they finally are able to tie up securely.  Luckily we have no damage to the boat from all this messing about.

The place has developed into a boatyard to build and repair super yachts so there are some huge beasts here on the other side of the harbour.  These contrast with the small local classic fishing boats all around the edge.  The town seems to be very old with small streets and alleys.  Allegedly the Romans were here, but there are no obvious Roman ruins.  There is no harbour WIFI and the tourist office doesn’t have the free WIFI we have been used to.  Richard finds an Italian ice cream parlour which does have free WIFI.  So we indulge in an ice cream and get connected.  We can now download the times and the Archers!  But we must do something about WIFI.  We need to organise car hire for next week and hotels for when we are on our way back to Nice to catch our flight.

We have dinner on board- Couscous Royal from a tin which needed eating up.  I have spruced it up with some fresh veg and merguez sausages.  Nice enough.  I am trying work our way through all the food that would otherwise need to be thrown out when we leave the boat! 

So to bed in a nice quiet and stable berth!