Lost at Sea: Tousled in Toulon

Every region in the Med has its 'devil wind'. In Greece, it's the Meltami, in Croatia it's the Bora. Well in France, the feared wind is from the north west and is called Le Mistral. And one was coming! We'd be prancing around at anchor in Canuobiers, taking day trips into Saint Tropez to rub bums with the rich and wanna-bees.

Spit finding a little nook to call its own.

Harbour front in St. Tropez

Lots of folk playing 'Whose got the biggest...'

The old struggling artist fleecing the tourists

Saint Tropez became famous as the home of the licentious and bohemian in-crowd back in the days of Roger Vadim and Brigit Bardot. However, its time in the sun has long passed, and now it seems to be filled with wannabee beautiful people with very big toys, preening in front of the admiring tourists. Not much excitement here!

Megan admiring the parks of St. Tropez

St Tropez streets

Even the big boys stuff it up parking sometimes...

Anyway, we'd heard that some mistral action was on its way, and wanted to find some safe harbours (there's not a lot of shelter from NW winds on this coast). Toulon seemed to offer a safe refuge, so we fled through a variety of ports on the way to Toulon.

We ventured further into the bay from St. Tropez to Port Grimaud. For our Australian readers, Port Grimaud is a bit like Southport and Hope Island (on Brisbane's Gold Coast) done right. Its a purpose built marina / apartment complex. The architect wished to create an idealised Provencial village, albeit one where you could pull your boat up to the front door. Bye and large, this succeeded, creating a very attractive and sympathetic development. However, you would now need to be very wealthy to afford an apartment here, or even to stay a night in the marina... however, us canny pavlovians used the franchise principle and scored 2 free hours on the quai d'acceuil, enough time to grab the bikes and race out to find an Orange shop for our all-important 4G fix.

Quai d'accueil at Port Grimaud

The village apartments of Port Grimaud, reminiscent of a Provencial village

From Canuobiers (which comes from the word Cannibis, this was a bay where they used to grow hemp for rope making), we headed out to a delightful bay. The settled conditions allowed us to anchor out in the Baie of Briand. The water here was so clear, even anchored in 10 meters, that we felt like Pavlov was floating in an aquarium. From here, it was a short hop to a lovely chain of islands just off the French coast, the Iles des Porquerolles.

Cape Taillat

Lovely anchorage in the Bay de Briand.

We stopped for fuel and a quick shop at Cavalier, before crossing to the Porquerolles.

Modern tourist resort of Cavalier

Pavlov on the quai d'acceuil at Cavalier

The first island of the Porquerolles, Ile du Levant, is owned by the French military. Interestingly, they have created the only port on the island by stranding an old navy vessel to create a breakwater.

Artificial breakwater at Ile du Levant.

We spent a few days anchored off Ile de Port Cros and Ile de Porquerolles. The season has 'officially ended' even though we've had great weather. Consequently, the crowds that would normally flock to these popular anchorages have thinned out considerably. We had a delightful time here, particularly in Port Man. However, the big smoke beckoned, so we headed into Toulon.

Toulon from seaside

Sea walls of Toulon port

Toulon is the second largest naval port in France, after Brest, so it is packed with all types of naval vessels, and most of the huge and well sheltered port is closed to pleasure craft.

Small navy patrol boat

Toulon naval waterfront and dockyards

Pavlov docked in the Vieux Port, Toulon

Megan on the Toulouse waterfront

We ended up staying a week in Toulon. The mistral finally came and blew itself out, we were so well sheltered we hardly noticed. Although Toulon is a working town with little tourist interest, we find that these are the kinds of places we enjoy the most.