Non, monsieur. Il n’y a pas de place ….. It’s hard to believe but we did not get a berth in Marseille. There are literally thousands of berths in the old harbor but none for us. I had emailed ahead a couple of days earlier but never received a response (until after I had received the oral response). The response from the last purveyor of berths in the Vieux Port changed from “qui” to “non, desolee” when I asked that the response be repeated in English …. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Eberhard left and David arrived on Saturday, which was a full on domestic day on SV Kincsem. Three loads of washing machine. Luckily, the weather cooperated and all got done quickly. It was only briefly interrupted by my having to help an elderly couple in their 1987 Amel Maramu performing a chaotic mooring maneuver next to Kincsem. They did reciprocate by pointing out that we absolutely needed to get on our bikes and visit the next village, Collioure. That turned out to be a good tip and the exercise was rewarded with some great photo opportunities and a cool 1664.

The sail to Marseille gave us the opportunity to get the Parasailor up in a 8-10 kn Westerly breeze and again, we were impressed what a great, stable sail it is. Nothing like gliding along in full moonshine with the chute up! Of course, the wind veered at 3 am and the thing had to come down but not a problem either thanks to the snuffer. All in all, we sailed the entire way except for 1 hour of motoring. Not bad for the Med in what is slowly becoming summer time.

With Marseille being out, we made some more calls to other harbors close by and the answer remained the same: Non, desolee. There was a regatta going on apparently. So we motored a few miles down the coast and anchored in Calanque de Sormiou. This is part of the National Parc de Calanques, which are wild bays surrounded by rugged, limestone rock formations. Sormiou has very steep mountains which make for spectacular scenery and a lot of climbers clinging to the cliffs, showing off their craft. One thing about the park is that you are not permitted to anchor in the Posidonia sea grass, so you have to look for a sandy spot. I thought that would be a big problem based upon the chart we had showing grass everywhere, but no, plenty of white spots for our anchor! Interestingly, in Spain, nobody seemed to want to anchor over night. Here, we had 10 boats staying on a Monday night. French holiday? No. This is France. Lots of people are out sailing all the time.

After a wonderfully quiet night, we tried again with getting into a harbor. We struck gold with Cassis, where we are now moored next to a standard sized motoryacht from the Netherlands. Cassis is a picture perfect version of a post card Provence harbor. Colorful houses on the waterfront, neat, colorful little fishing boats everwhere and a few sailboats as well. Quite touristy but enjoyable nonetheless. We’re also enjoying the arrival of summer with temps in the 80s. Took a while! Tomorrow, we’ll head for Marseille by shore transport. It’s only 30 kilometers away.