Monday 23 September

I didn’t post for a couple of days, just out of laziness, I guess.  We spent a second day in Porquerolles harbour.  It was very congenial.  A typical French holiday island.  We had a nice walk around the town and to the beach.  We sat on the beach for about an hour and although we got quite warm, not warm enough to go in the water, which is surprisingly cold, especially for the end of the season when I would have expected it to have warmed up.

Back at the boat we watched a super yacht moor.  They need all that crew in matching tee shirts!  Then we went out to dinner.  We found there is a one Michelin rosette restaurant on the island, but decided not to go because the main dinning room was booked with a private party and, although they said they were serving their gourmet menu in the other restaurant, we weren’t keen.  So we just chose what looked like the most popular restaurant in the town close to where we were.  It was quite expensive, but an interesting meal including raw sea bream and spaghetti with squid. 

On Sunday we decided to go wild as it were.  We have been staying in marinas all the time and decided that with the weather being very settled and there being no wind to sail, we should anchor out for a night.  We were going to go over to the mainland, but at the last minute we decided to go into a bay just around the corner from the marina.  It was very crowded during the day.  Reminded us of East Heat in that way.  But it is lovely.  It is overlooked by the Fort St Agathe, the local monument.  We even got into the water!  It is only 19c, but it was a very hot afternoon and it felt good once you got in.  We had a nice dinner on board and sat out to watch the sunset.  The sky turned the most wonderful colour red.  The bay has cleared out a lot and there are only about a dozen boats staying the night.

This morning we were fairly lazy in getting going.  We weren’t sure where we would go.  We can’t sail because there just is no wind.  I think at the highest it got up to 5knots!  So we motored west for 20 miles and have wound up in a pretty little town called Sanary sur Mer.  The harbourmaster directed us to a rather strange berth.  We are on the inner end of a pontoon and surrounded completely by classic boats!   Next to us is a 1935 Nicholson.  There are a few local boats said to be over 100 years old.  Of course, they have all been restored.

We have managed to get hold of some free WIFI from a local bar.  Mind you to get the password we had to buy 2 very expensive bottles of Perrier.  It might have been cheaper to buy internet access, but then there is none here and we are wary of using the Domino for fear it will run out of credit again and there will be no where to top it up.  With the free WIFI Richard has downloaded some Radio 4 programs, so I am now listening to the radio!

The weather is going to turn a bit.  It looks like it will get cloudy and maybe even rain.  We have yet to decide where to go to best use up our last 10 days before the boat comes out of the water.