Visitor

The friendly dolphin came between our boat and our neighbour before disappearing back out to sea.

The Yacht Club of Saint Tropez had a live concert in the afternoon with fantastic singers. We listened from the tender close to the beach. It got so hot we watched from in the water where we danced with our little tender to some great songs.

Our last evening in Saint Tropez was spent people watching, window shopping in Gucci and Louis Vuitton. We were tempted to a meal of cavier but some of the prices were upwards of 5000 Euros and Christine had forgotten to bring her money.

A quiet night at anchor followed by an early start. We caught the sunrise as we left the Gulf of Saint Tropez. There was no wind forecast but we had some excellent sailing until about 11am. Then no wind at all, so motored into Cavaliere Sur Mer and dropped anchor.

We walked approx 2 miles along the beach to the centre of Cavaliere Sur Mer. It was pretty busy, full of restaurants and a couple of beach wear shops. We watched a young girl at the harbour having her 'Insta' photos taken in all sorts of fake glamorous poses.

We walked back along a promenade that went for a long time until eventually stopping. To continue we had to choose to walk along the beach in the dark with our headlight or along the pavement. We chose the pavement but that eventually disappeared so we headed along a really long track to continue along the beach.

In the morning we took a gentle breeze off the land to push us along to our next destination, sailing under jib alone which is nice and easy! We saw what appeared to be flying fish on the way to Port Man. Port Man is a very picturesque calanque on Ile de Port Cross - the small island of the Porquerolles.

Although quite deep for anchoring the surroundings are spectacular here. The underwater life pretty spectacular too, so many fish that just follow you around whilst snorkelling. A slight downside is that all of the jelly fish are blown into the calanque. Lots of little stinging pink ones. However another jelly fish was exquisite. Slightly larger, no tentacles as such but small purple and yellow domes with a pulsating disk to propel it along. Stunning.

No wind in the picture perfect anchorage and we took the little tender on a tour of the calanque. There was some interesting rock shapes and a castle on the point. We relaxed and enjoyed the view ...

No rocking last night. No wind, no waves and no fast motor yachts disturbing the water. We woke to see the sunrise over the sea before taking the little boat ashore in the cool early morning air. Many jelly fish bobbed in the shallow water as we climbed out of the tender. We tried not to tread on any for fear of a painful sting. We walked the short path to the castle through the trees but the castle was closed to visitors. It appears to be owned by the national park and had a sign explaining the history of the castle.

When the boat next to us took up their anchor we followed. A gentle breeze enabled us to sail downwind to the next little island Ile Bagaud. Last time we visited here there were so many fish it was wonderful for snorkelling. We spotted lots of buoys in the water and not a single boat at anchor. The national park must have buoyed the whole area to try to protect the underwater environment, particularly the posidonie (sea grass). The buoys were free during the day but you had to pay if you stayed overnight. We decided not to stay. We had seen too many jelly fish this time and that prevented the spectacular snorkelling experience on this occasion. Next time.

The wind increased from the East and we decided to head back to Borme. As the wind increased further and short chop started to form we decided the anchorage at Borme may be a little rocky and uncomfortable. The stronger wind pushed us along at 6 knots to the shelter of Cap Negre once again. Here we were assured of a more comfortable afternoon.

An afternoon float on the ocean rather than swim was followed by some great snorkelling along the rocks. The highlight was an octopus who we watched for quite a while. He seemed to put one of his tentacles into a hole and grab something out to eat. We watched him swim gracefully from the rocks to a sandy hiding place. His skin changing texture and colour to perfectly match both. An amazing creature!

As evening arrived we moved the boat across to the other side of the bay. The wind had moved to the west and there was better protection there. As darkness fell the music was turned up a notch and out came the disco lights - a blue neon strip, red flashing strobe and a green signalling laser. We were hosting our own Wednesday night disco for the over 50's. Both us were able to attend but luckily no one else turned up as there is no room on our little ship.

Today people appeared on the beach a little earlier than usual. One small swim to the beach revealed all. Well actually it was the early beach goes that revealed all. It appeared that clothes were an optional extra at this beach!

We decided to go for a walk, not along the beach but onto the headland. It was really pretty - covered in in bright green trees and the shore littered with hard to access coves. It was decided that snorkelling the edge of these coves would be our next task. We quickly donned our snorkelling gear and dived in!

There was one area that really stood out. 2 rock pinnacles a little further off the shore contained a wide variety of fish and loads of coloured sponges and other critters. We found a beautiful purple skeleton of a sea urchin on the bottom. We reminisced of our trip to Jeffries bay in South Africa where the beach was littered with green sea urchin skeletons. We collected about 10. We then lined them up in different sizes from super teeny to giant! They were all very beautiful but decided the Australian Immigration Department would take them and the best place for them was where we found them.