Villefrance sur Mer

On Friday, the 26 June, we sailed on to Villefrance sur Mer - it is just east of Nice. It turned out to be an good anchorage, very picturesque. 

Dinner at Villefrance sur Mer

Anchorage Villefrance sur Mer

Saturday was spent relaxing and sitting on the beach. In the evening we were treated to a fireworks display. On the Sunday, Carlos returned back to Toronto and later in the day, I was joined by Colin and Sabrina, who will be staying for 10 days (if they can last that long). We all took a swim in the sea and went ashore for a sandwich and to pick up some fruit. A gentle breeze was blowing from the east, with a gentle swell from the south - to non boat peops this means the boar rocks a fair amount. If one is tired and a bit jet lagged this can make for an uncomfortable experience. By the time we were back on board, the wind had changed and was blowing from the south, which made thins much better.  After dinner that night everyone had a nice rest and we were off to Sanremo.

Farewell Marines Des Cogolin, St Tropez

On the 22 June, having being splashed, I washed the boat as it would appear that a flock of burrds had decided to turn my boat into their outhouse. Carlos had come out to spend a few days with me, he arrived at 22h30 and was kind to buy dinner on the first night.  On the Tuesday I installed some fans in the aft cabins and 12V sockets and USB chargers. Carlos went off exploring not paying any attention to the heat or water. The following day he was a bit the worse for wear. On the Wed did a quick provisioning run and we were off..  We motored to just outside St Tropez.

Nick from Marseilles - we clipped another boat's line (40kts of x wind will make any docking attempt a challenge)

Back in the water

This is a racing sled (note retractable prop)

 I took this picture in the marina on the second night.

My little boat, next to a *BIG* sailboat (Magic Carpet)

At anchor outside St Tropez harbour.

Farewell St Tropez

We sailed out on 25 June, the wind initially was nice and steady 4 knots, it then took a break and I had to motor. After another 30 minutes of motoring, the wind picked up a bit and it started blowing 4-5 knots, I put my sails out (no reefs) and we were promptly going at a nice 4-5 knots. The wind picked up a little bit more to 7-8 knots and then we were truly moving - 8-9 knots, which is nice. On that night, we anchored SE of Juan les Pins.

At anchor on the 25 June

Time for a break..

I had to return to Toronto for Sabrina and Colin's wedding, catch up with some friends and do take care of some admin. 

I got taken out of the water on the 2nd June, and Mike and Michelle put me up for the night. On the Wednesday, I took a bus from St Tropez to St Raphael and finally to Nice airport. I had booked into Hotel de Baou, supposedly near Nice. The information desk at the airport had never heard of the hotel and after a google they informed me of two things - 
a) the hotel wasn't in Nice 
b) all the buses that could get me there were on strike. 
It was suggested I take a taxi at 40OORO one way, I tried to find alternate buses and failed miserably. An hour an a half later, I was back on Expedia looking for a hotel close to he airport and I found one. The following day, on the plane and left for England, to spend some days with Derek and then head back to Torono.

I was welcomed by Derek and Taz at the Queen's Head, once I got Wokingham. Derek has rescaped his fyshetank and all the critters therein seem happy and thriving.. We had good Sunday lunch at a pub Derek suggested..

Sunday lunch - highly rated!

Derek's amemomee

Very photogenic fyshe

I flew back to Toronto on the Monday and was picked up at the airport by Laura, which was nice of her.  I went into work on Tuesday as I had to do some admin for IIROC as they needed some info on an Individual we had the misfortune of entering into business with - may the road rise up to meet him and may he get everything he deserves! 

Wednesday, I managed to get a storage unit to pack my belongings, as I decided I was putting my place up for rent. On the Thursday, I managed to get my car washed and take some pictures of the Bike and Car and I posted those. I got a couple of hits on the car, by individuals offering to pay the full price and pay me via paypal - having had a *BAD* previous experience I politely declined and am waiting for offers of *CASH* or any other means of currency so long as the bank clears it *AFTER* ensuring that the funds are good.. 

On the Saturday, I did my best man bit and was plagued by a photographer who insisted I be in as many pictures as possible.. After 40 minutes of photos I took my tie off and went on to hang out with the other guests. The wedding was nice and very much Colin and Sabrina. I took a couple of pictures of them as I had a front row seat for the shindig while the photographer was doing her thing.. 

Doing the admin bit

The first dance - Congratulations Mr & Mrs Small

The remainder of the last week, I spent packing up my belongings, with help from Laura. On the Friday, before I left Carl bought my scooter, my she bring him as many awesome trips and many KM's as she brought me..

Bye bye, beast!

Bye bye Condo - view from my balcony on the Friday night

On the Saturday, Laura kindly gave me a lift to the airport and I was on my way back to the boat. Being conscious of luggage wight restrictions, I weighed my bag so it was 23kg and put my books in my carry on backpack. Upon checking in I was asked to put my bag on the scale - WTF? Turns out that it is unsafe for the bag to be over 6kg, so I had to put the books in my back an cough up.. Welcome to Cond-or what airlines! After paying for the extra weight my bag was safe again and I could continue on my merry way.

Bag is approved - it is now safe!

Leaving Toronto..

  I had a 7 hour stop over at Frankfurt airport - I had to take this picture..

Inter terminal trains - down to the second

Then I flew on to Nice, which turned out to be a pleasant surprise. After checking into my hotel, I decided to do a bit of exploring as my initial impression of Nice was that it was incorrectly named (I suppose grotty would not be much of a tourist trap.. :-/). The area around the train station, isn't the prettiest part of town, however, the old part is full of restaurants and little alleyways to explore.

3/4 of the length of the runway is lined with biz jets

At the base of Rue Lamartine

On the Monday, I took the train to St Raphael, then but to Marines des Cogolin

Ready to be splashed in again

Boat bits and Boat speak

At the suggestion of a non sailor, I will put a short Glossary of sail boatspeak, so when I use any boatspeak, everyone should understand it. So here is a picture of a sail boat with most of the terms

Original picture can be found here - Original. On my boat the Jib is called genoa, because it extends past the mast and is bigger than a Jib.

Jib - Genoa on right

The above image  courtesy - By Fluzwup at English Wikipedia (Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

My genoa, is roller furling, which means it is wrapped around a roller on my forestay. To let the sail out, I pull on a line(rope in boatspeak) and let out as much as is appropriate given the wind conditions. I currently sail with the genoa also on the 2nd reef (I only let out a fraction of the sail).

Roller Furling Genoa - Original

When I talk about reefed sail- means, the sail's size has been reduced. You can reef your main or your Genoa. This is typically done, when the wind gets too strong and the boat becomes difficult to sail. I am reefing my main and genoa as this slows the boat down and gives ms time to make mistakes while I do things. As I get more proficient and confident, I will start using the reefs for their intended purpose.

Reefed Main sail - original Reefing a sail

My main sail has 3 reef points - I am currently sailing on the 2nd reef, so the boat is not going as fast as it could go, but then again things are happening a lot slower, which is good if you don't know what you are doing :-)...

Triple Reefed main

The main sail will start off looking like the above picture and as the wind increases, you reduce the mainsail down to the picture below.

With 3rd Reef Original Image and page

Saint Tropez

We decided to hang around the Gulf of Saint Tropez as Flying Fyn was getting a new autohelm and this was a good a place as any to stop. I needed to get back to Canada and the Italian Riviera was a heck of a lot more expensive to leave the boat. So it made sense to leave her here.

At anchor outside Marines des Cogolin

The closest marina is the Marina des Cogolins. I decided to get in more anchoring practice so I just changed spots and set the anchor. After some practice I packed it in and went for a cycle, so went to Saint Tropez and to Saint Maxime.  On the Saturday, we went to anchor outside Saint Tropez harbour and went ashore for the night.

Two Dogs

Saint Tropez used to be a quite fishing village, it was brought into the limlight by Brigitte Bardot. It is quite nice to walk around, it is a maze of small shops/boutiques and lots of little restaurants. The harbour is dominated by PCLs(personal cruise liners) for the not quite so filthy rich - boats smaller than 80m, but bigger than 40m. On the Saturday we were there they were having a Voilles latines festival so some of the PCLs had to anchor.

Saint Tropez harbour

On the Sunday we went back to the SW corner of the bay, which is quite nice except for the $%&(*!@ Mozzies! Michelle in one of her recce trips came across a gem - a restaurant on the beach, which serves awesome food at good prices. this is the view from the restaurant.

Sundowners at the restaurant

On the Monday, the day started off foggy and later we were entertained by a couple of water bombers practising.

Early Morning

Water bomber at play

 On the Tuesday, I was fortunate enough to get lifted out of the water - they were initially only going to lift me on the Wed, when I was planning to leave for Nice. I got lifted out and got on with the job of getting most of the salt water off the boat and cleaning her up.  That was a good day's job

Leaving the water

Little nick

Once out the water I could take a good look and see if any damage had been done, the nick above looked a lot worse than it is - it is a scratch mark, must have been some fisherman's pot that I missed or when at Saint Louis du Rhone, some random bit of debris the Rhone brought with it.

A tender to a PCL

I had to take a picture of this - this is the runabout for a bigger boat, this thing is a good 40 ft long..

On the hard

After a hose down and some cleaing, she was clean and ready to be put back in. I however have to do either do some work or get some work one on the boat. I initially noticed that the transom had some bad gelcoat repair done to it. Only on close inspection did I see that the along with the repair being pretty shoddy, there was more of it to be done. So now I am waiting on a quote, should the quote be excessive, I will return a day earlier and fix it myself. This repair needs doing as it is exposing the fibreglass of the hull and it is frequently getting wet..

Extasea

Took a picture of this PCL, it only takes 14 people...  - Ecstasea. Some of the radio calls of these things coming into the gulf was entertaining - one boat had 2 passengers and 19 crew, she must have been a good 80m+ boat..

On the Ferry Dock looking at the Gulf of Saint Tropez

Porquerolles to St Tropez

We left Porquerolles on Monday and the weather forecast turned out to be wrong. There was very little wind and the direction was out was well. Instead of a SW, we had a SE, so course had to be altered to look for the  wind. I managed to find some wind and we were off. Flying Fyn was initially struggling to find wind, but we got going. As the winds were below 10 all the way I decided to host my main to 1 reef and Genoa to 2. Immediately speeds went from 3-4, up to 5- 7, the winds were only 8kts. We were unable to make Saint Tropez so we anchored  in a small bay. It was full of jellyfish but looked quite pretty.

Anchored for the night Cap Tailat

On the Tuesday we completed our hop to Saint Tropez. The wind stated pretty well, but soon lost interest. I went down below to take GPS reading, by the time I came back up I was facing 90 degrees of course, with the wind having gone from 6kts to 3kts. After about a hour of this nonsense, I stowed the sails and motored to Saint Tropez. Immediately we noticed a couple of personal cruise liners.. One of them even had it's own slide.. We anchored at the far end of the gulf and decided to take a few days off as the winds were forecast to be marginal.

Entering the Gluf of Saint Tropez - Personal Cruise liners

Note slide on side of blue boat (I have to get me one of those)

On Flying Fyn, planning the next few days

Sunset