The desire of many people is to have a boat in the South of France. It sounds so romantic and inspires dreams of flat seas and empty sandy beaches!
I went half shares in a boat in the Gulf of St Tropez about 5 years ago together with a French friend who loves going out in the boat. We purchased a 6.25 meter cabin cruiser with a 200 Honda engine, which made it very fast.
When we bought it a friend told me that there are two memorably good days with a boat, one when you buy it and the other is when you sell it. Of course I did not believe it!
I really do love boats but the Gulf of St Tropez is not ideal even if it is beautiful.
To begin with it has a lot of days when it is quite windy, delightful for the yachts but not when you are plying over waves and your boat bangs down hard after each trough. Then there are the times when there are jelly fish which prohibits swimming, which is one of our delights when moored out in one of the many bays in the area.
Getting back in is not easy if there is a wind as ones boat acts as a sale and makes it difficult to get back into your mooring without either damaging your boat or getting snarled on somebody else’s mooring ropes.
On top of this on the few days a year when the weather is right just when you think it is wonderfully hot weather all the large motor yachts arrive for the season and they stir up the sea as if they were food mixers making every trip a nightmare.
The above does not consider the mooring costs the way the boat drinks petrol or the problems, with the engine (that you have hardly used) discovered when you have paid to have it craned out of the water for the winter to have its bottom cleaned. The boat people rarely come up with a bill for less than €2000 for some vague problem with the engine or its pivoting system! One cannot really argue with them as you know little about engines (and they already have it in pieces!).
From the above you might think that I hate boating in the South of France. This is not true; I just hate cleaning it after every trip! I really prefer golf!
Will I be selling my boat? Well I really love looking at it and my grandchildren and friends love it, and perhaps this is what it is all about.
Mr. L. 21/08/09
This morning I went down to the beach early, as dogs are not allowed on after 8 am in the summer. At present we have My friend Mark's dog Lady staying with us so off I went with the pair.
