Friday 27 September

In accordance with our plans we left le Ciotat for Bandol at about 10am.  The weather was cloudy, but warm.  It seemed to be in line with the forecast.  Even going out 3 miles to dump the holding tank, we only had 9 miles to go.  Not exactly a long journey.  We couldn’t sail.  There was only about 2-3 knots of wind, so again we just motored.  What they say about the Med is true, there is either too much or too little wind.

I forgot to mention in my log before the bit of interesting wild life I saw the other day when we went to le Ciotat.  I kept seeing splashes in the water.  I thought at first it must be a diving bird, but it seemed too big for that.  Finally there was a fish that jumped right up out of the water.  I thought at first that it might be a dolphin, but it was the wrong shape, not quite large enough and did not have the proper dorsal fin.  In the end, after looking at the book I am convinced that I saw a tuna!  Very exciting.

Nothing like that today.  Nothing at all to see really.  We get in to Bandol just after noon and are directed to the visitor pontoon.  Richard again does a wonderful job of mooring us stern to.  He is getting very good at this.  We decide to go straight over to the Harbour Office to sign in and then have showers.  It is a very long walk even though our berth is directly opposite the office.  The problem is that the only way ashore is in the opposite direction!  We are therefore very disappointed to find the office closed for lunch (from 12:00 to 13:30)!  So we trudge back searching the back streets for a bakery, which we eventually find.

Lunch on board is whelks and crab claws bought in the Hypermarket yesterday.  Very nice.  But we are a bit surprised to realise how good the weather is.  It has got quite sunny and hot.  Had we known it would be like this we would have found an anchorage for the night, but hey ho here we are.  The town seems quite nice and sophisticated.  But we can’t find much in the way of shops to provision.  There are a few butchers, but no grocery stores, greengrocers or even small supermarkets that we can see from our limited search so far.  A trip to the tourist office does tell me that the only launderette is too far away to walk to, so any plans to start the laundry have to be scrapped.

So we have a quiet afternoon.  We go back to the Harbour office when it opens, but this time we take the dinghy.  It is only a very short row.  Much better way to get there so long as not too many boats moor along side us so we can’t get the dinghy to the pontoon to get into.

I spend most of the afternoon in the cockpit under the bimini ready Ulysses.  I have got to the last chapter, Molly Bloom’s soliloquy.  So it looks like I shall finally finish the book, but wait and see….

This evening we walk around the town.  We couldn’t get in to the restaurant we wanted as it was fully booked, so we have booked for Sunday night (if we stay that long).  We therefore just look for somewhere to have a light bite.  We find a very busy place and stop there and have Moules frites, which were quite good. 

The harbour has free WIFI, but it is very weak.  However, it is free and I am now listening to the BBC online.  It does stop every once in a while, but better than the French oldies channel, Nostalgie, which is the other alternative. 

We don’t know what we will do tomorrow.  I would like to try to find a coach tour of the vineyards, but I don’t think there are any.  We shall see what the weather is.