Very nice passage from La Ciotat to the Island of Porquerolles on Saturday. Light winds again in the morning, but it picked up a bit in the afternoon, and we sailed the whole way on full main and Code-0. The code-0 is an easy sail to handle and boosted our speed a few knots in the light air.
We anchored at Porquerolles off the main beach on the North side of the island and took the tender to the beach for a swim, then we had dinner ashore on the island. Very charming place and a good stopover location. The anchorage was very crowded and wasn’t very comfortable, and we had to search for a patch of sand to anchor in after dragging when we lowered into a bed of seaweed.
We moved on the next morning after entertaining a French customs patrol for half an hour while they made sure all our documents were in order, and then we headed to St Tropez.
We has a nice 30 mile sail over to St Tropez under main and Code-D. We had light winds until early afternoon and then had a lot of fun sailing in 15 to 20 knots all the way into St Tropez. No room in the marina for us in St Tropez, I think because we were under 30 meters in length and they don’t let “little” boats in, so we anchored in the bay about 1 mile away, with an easy dinghy ride to access the port of St Tropez.
We were very happy to see our countrymen aboard their new Outremer 51, Akaroa II who were anchored just outside the entrance to the port!
We are staying one more day in St Tropez, before sailing to Cannes tomorrow.