TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

A few days have passed since I last put pen to paper and we have left Bormes and traversed the coast to Cannes (2 days) and then our current location of Villefranche near Nice. As usual Cannes was great and we re-visited our old haunt of “Renards” for dinner on our last evening. What came as a bit of a shock was that we were there for the Cannes festival; we monitor boatshows along the coast as they take over the marina but we completely forgot to look out for the biggest film festival on the planet!

As luck would have it our early booking had secured us one of the last berths and we were right there in the thick of it. We have requested another berth there towads the end of the show (21st/22nd) as we have guests aboard but are currently on a waiting list – time will tell. Anyway it was great to be in Cannes again and we both enjoyed cleaning and polishing the boat ready for our first clients.

We moved to Villefranche yesterday and squeezed into the last berth available near the dry dock and said hello to our neighbours who we are berthed against – a 98 foot Azimut super yacht that towers about 35 feet above us. She is the Leonardo registered in Madeira and we have sen her several times in Cannes and St Tropez – anyway a friendly and helpful crew at this stage.

Our first clients (Kate and Lundy Barker) have just arrived nd are sleeping following th usual welcome glass of fizz. They have flown over from Norfolk VA so are approx 7-8 hours behind and therefore landed at about 0400 after a 24 hour body clock day! They are both recovering well and we look forward to some more of their company later in the day. We are staying a second night in Villefranche tonight and will then be departing in the morning to Eze (a medieval town about 12 miles to the East), wher we hope to have secured a reservation for the night.

By the next blog we will probably be in Italy as after Eze the plan is for San Remo and beyond. Wether has so far been kind with temperatures in the low to mid 20’s an winds staying mainly force 4 or below. The trip to Canes had a few lumpy spots and a huge swell (2-2.5 metres) approaching port but in general it is working with us at this stage. We managed to get some “detax” fuel in Frejus on the way up (did I miss that port out! – there for 2 days with excellent company from the 54 foot one off yacht design called Adel after the owners mother),