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