After leaving Barcelona, we planned to just sail along the entire coast of Spain, France and Italy.  We came across S/V Sea Whisper, with Lionel and Laurie on board from Vancouver Island, B.C.  They had been cruising in the Med for almost two years, so had a wealth of information which they were more than willing to share with us.  We ended up sailing the same areas as they did over the next couple weeks, finally with them leaving us behind as they had already visited some of the areas where we were headed.

8 August

We are holed up in a cove across from the ‘Golden Isles’ for a couple days due to high winds. Yesterday we just did errands & chilled. Had movie night & watched Pirates of the Caribbean II, which my chef had burned & given to us. That was fun! I wish we had a bunch more movies.
I’ve done a tentative itinerary for the remainder of this month, which we’ll spend along the French coast (if all goes as planned) & then pass into Italy around 1 September. Tomorrow we plan to head to St. Tropez for a day, then on to St. Raphael & Cannes. A week later we’ll be in the Nice/Villefrance Sur Mer area, where we plan to stay a few days. Then it’s on to Monaco. I saw they are having an exhibition on Princess Grace, so I’ll probably go see that. I’ve always been interested in her. Such a fairy tale life, yet tragic to die so young  . . .

We picked wild blackberries on the Ile de Porquerolles two days ago & will have them in/on pancakes this morning.  Yum!

14 August

We made it over to the Cannes area yesterday morning. This is really pretty; I like it better than the St. Tropez area. We haven’t gone into Cannes yet. We anchored off the island of St. Marguerite, which is just across the bay (less than a mile) from Cannes. We explored the island yesterday & it’s very pretty. It has an old fort which we explored. The ‘man in the iron mask’ was held there for about 11 years. We saw his cell. Gotta love the history over here! There have been people on the island since B.C. Amazing!

My back (sciatica) is bothering me, so will take it easy today. Tomorrow we’ll go to Cannes (probably) & explore. Also need to visit the ’sister’ island of this one, where there is a monastery. At one time there were 4,000 monks living on it & it was 2nd only to the Holy Land in visits! Wow! It’s the Ile St. Honorat.

We passed a huge private yacht on the way here yesterday. It looked like the name was Prince Abdulaziz. I’m guessing it was at least 400 feet in length.  You could probably look him up on the internet & learn about him. I’m guessing he’s some Saudi Arabia prince or . . . Impressive yacht! There are a bunch of others right off Cannes, then we were surrounded by huge ones here off the island yesterday afternoon. Hey, I pick the right spots!  (I later learned that the yacht is owned by the King of Saudi Arabia, is 482′3″ long and is the largest yacht built in the 20th century.)

Weather continues beautiful, but I didn’t know the Med waters would be so cold. I don’t swim for long when I go in! The water temp here is the best it’s been, and it’s only 67 degrees! It was in the 50s in many places. I look forward to getting back to the Caribbean where I can go snorkeling. The ocean/sea here is a beautiful color, but lacks the reef fish & other sea life that the Caribbean has.

We’ll spend the next couple weeks along the French coast & then pass into Italy. Will probably go down the coast ’til Pisa, then sail over to Corsica for awhile & then on to Sardinia. Then probably back across to Rome. At least that’s our thinking for right now!

 

 

 

18 August

We are currently in Antibes, France & having a great time. We will be here for a few more days. The throttle cable on our starboard engine broke & we have to get one ordered tomorrow. It should only take a day to get it (just broke yesterday morning & can’t order anything on weekends), so will hopefully head to Nice on Wednesday. Our plan is to anchor by Villefranche-sur-Mer, which is only a short bus ride away in a nice protected bay. We’ll stay there until we’ve seen the sights, then head along the coast to Monaco. We anticipate being in Italy around 1 September.

Today we’re going to Cagnes, where Renoir spent the last 12 years of his life. His former home is now a museum. We also plan to visit the Chateau Grimaldi at Le Haut de Cagnes. It was a 14th century medieval fortress & now houses a display on how olive oil is made (Phil would love it!) as well as artist exhibits of some of those that lived & painted on the Cote d’Azur, including Chagall, Cocteau & Dufy.

As far as weather, I seriously doubt you can beat the Med in the summer. We continue, week after week, to have beautiful sunshiny days. I can understand why so many painters loved this coast. The sun and the gorgeous water are fabulous. But they have a lot of jellyfish here!

Hope everyone has been enjoying their summer. I can already feel fall in the air at night!

19 August

Yesterday we took the bus from Antibes to Cagnes. It’s only about 12 miles east of there on the way to Nice. We first walked up to the Renoir museum, which is at the home where Renoir spent the last 12 years of his life. I hadn’t realized how badly he had rheumatoid arthritis in his hands; they were all gnarled. It was amazing he was still painting. He had a very nice house on several acres on a hill overlooking town & the ocean, with a grove of olive trees that were planted back in the 1500s! His studio was nice, with one entire wall a huge window for good lighting!

Afterwards we walked down to the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer & got a fresh baguette & some cheese & juice, then sat on a bench for lunch. Then we walked up (very steep streets) through the town of Le Haut de Cagnes, which is the medieval village. There are still many, many streets of the old houses & it is wonderful wandering through them. It was better than you’d have at Disneyland or some such of a medieval town! At the top is Chateau Grimaldi, built circa 1300 by Rainier Grimaldi. We toured that; it has a museum of olive oil in part of it, which was interesting. They have finished out the third level to house exhibitions, so I didn’t find that all that interesting. I like when they leave the walls alone! We also discovered a chapel tucked into a corner across from the chateau. I noticed a door with a sign, figured out it was open so we went inside. What a surprise to find this wonderful chapel full of paintings & had it all to ourselves!

Today we are heading to Biot. I know I will have a wonderful time, as it’s the home of over 30 glassblowers! I will have to show great restraint today! Ha! Many of them have workshops each afternoon, so we’ll be able to watch them ‘in action’. I think I’ve located the guy that did the glass lamps which I purchased several years ago when we were in the Loire Valley. Way too cool!

22 August

We spent a day visiting Biot and the glass studios. We enjoyed getting to watch, at several places, people working with the glass and making pieces. I came close to buying a couple things, but spent my time ‘thinking’ and managed to resist!  Ha! When we got back to Antibes & down to the dinghy, we realized that our sailboat had been dragging while we were gone & was now several hundred feet east of where we had left it! Poor Shadow was drifting away all alone! We got up the anchor & motored over to another spot in the bay & had dinner. Awhile later the wind did a 180 in a matter of about a minute & started blowing up a stink. Our anchor started dragging, as did many other peoples, so we pulled & set it again. Most everyone else started leaving. One guy, alone, blew almost into some rocks. We couldn’t help as we only had one engine ourselves & it was very tricky. Then we started dragging again, so we pulled the anchor & headed 5 miles around a point to a different bay. Got there right at dark & Robert headed to bed. I stayed up a couple hours, then headed down. Around 4:30 am, we had another 180 wind shift & strong wind & guess what . . .  Yup, there we went dragging. Robert had watched another boat drag right past us, & saw a couple others in other parts of the bay dragging. One of the huge motor yachts was dragging but didn’t seem to know. We set anchor again, but it didn’t hold for long. So I said, “Let’s head back around to where we came from last night.” So that’s what we did. Right as we were leaving, the motor yacht finally figured out there were in trouble & steamed away to find a safer anchorage. We got back around to the other bay around dawn. It was nice & calm there, so we ate a quick bite & headed back to bed for awhile.

Got up mid-morning & Robert rode the free bus into Antibes to see if our throttle cable had arrived. Fortunately it had, so we were able to get that fixed so that we now have both engines working. Never a dull moment.

Today we are motoring to Villefranche sur Mer, not far from Nice. We hope to spend a couple/few days in this area exploring.

23 August

We’re anchored in Villefranche sur Mer & I am managing to get intermittent internet access via wifi from the boat.  As such, thought I’d try & send a few photos . . .

We went to Nice today & walked around the old town. Really enjoyed it. I got a bus schedule & tourist info. & have mapped out another dozen or so places to see. We can get a museum pass for 6 euros for 7 days, so will spend a couple days going to those. They just opened a new Matisse museum this past June.

We ordered new anchor chain & have to wait for it to arrive, so we’ll be here at least through Tuesday. The bay here in Villefranche is one of the deepest on the Riviera & is very beautiful. Couldn’t find a much prettier place to hang out for awhile!

Photos from the past few weeks:

 

 

 

 

 

26 August

My computer hard drive crashed a few nights ago and I lost everything.  I went to Nice & bought a new hard drive, then spent yesterday at an internet cafe downloading software and updates since everything had to be reinstalled.  I left my hard drive at a repair place to see if they can recover my data.  If not, I have lost all of the photos from our entire trip . . . I’m thinking this means I need to go back to all of the places we’ve been and start over again! ; )

‘Looking for Elvis’, a 62′ Gunboat from the U.S., showed up here yesterday.  We saw them in May at Antigua Race Week but weren’t able to talk to them.  They also arrived at Horta, Faial, Azores as we were leaving.  So on my way back from town yesterday, I stopped by and met and visited with them for about 90 minutes.  They are from Oregon and fly home about every 3 months.  They have two full-time crew members on board all of the time.  We’re going to get together for dinner so Robert can meet them.  It’s always great to meet some Americans so we can TALK!

We will probably be in Nice for at least another five days.  We ordered new anchor chain which is due to arrive on Tuesday.  Robert’s caught a cold and isn’t feeling well, so our sightseeing has come to a standstill.  We still have a few days of that to do, so that’s the charm of ‘jello plans’!

29 August

We are still hanging out in Villefranche sur Mer. Robert wasn’t feeling great (cold) for a couple days, so we stayed around the boat over the weekend as opposed to sightseeing. We spent Monday visiting a few museums, one of which was the archaeological one. It was very interesting, as it’s on the site of Roman ruins from the 3rd century AD. You can still see the ruins where they had extensive baths (with hot, cold & steam rooms!), paved roads, coliseum, etc. They also unearthed a lot of artifacts. I’m sure we’ll see better ones in Italy, but neat for France! Also visited a Russian orthodox church, which was built about 100 years ago under the patronage of their last Tsar, Nicholas II, & his mother, Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna. They say it’s the most beautiful of its type outside of Russia. It’s built ‘true to form’ with the fancy mosaic domes & arches. Really impressive.

I found out my hard drive data can’t be recovered, so all of my photos from our journey are kaput. Oh, well.  Yesterday I revisited old town Nice & retook photos that I took last Thursday & lost when the drive crashed! Actually had a great time & some places which were closed last week were open yesterday. Also visited several other places, along with the fine arts museum. They only had the 1st level open, so there wasn’t a lot to see.

Our anchor chain was supposed to have arrived on Monday, but due to a glitch it now is due to be in on Friday. So we will be spending a few more days here. It works out fine since we still have a couple days of sightseeing to do. We want to see the museum of natural history as well as Terra Amata, which is on a 400,000 year old elephant hunters campsite!

The weather continues to be absolutely perfect, if somewhat hot. But a nice dip in the water solves that problem! The bay here is very clean & clear and we are protected from all winds but south. The Looking for Elvis people treated us to dinner onshore the other night, which was a real treat. They are on a 4 year cruise on their 62′ Gunboat catamaran & have 2 crew with them. I think they’re in their late 50s, retired, live in Sisters, Oregon with a condo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Nice people with lots of money — good to have as friends! Ha!

If we ever get out of here, we are next headed to Monaco & Monte Carlo. Monaco has a Princess Grace exhibit, first ever, which I plan to see. My mom ‘rubbed off’ on me with her interest in the old movie stars (which weren’t so old in her time!). Knowing my luck, they won’t let me take photos, but I may be able to sneak a few anyway. I usually do!  :)