In the morning,we went back into town, within the old city walls, to do some more exploring and shopping. We found a Provencal street market where I was able to buy a big bag of the Camargue salt that Sharon loves to use for cooking. Actually, I bought a big bag and a small bag, so I could give her the small one and then surprise her with even more (ha ha, I'm a comedy genius).
You can barely make out our party, having a late breakfast, dead center in this photo.
We climbed up and down all over the old town. Note here the swimmers in the water near the rocks.
Just a random street scene from a residential neighborhood.
Mandatory addition to the collection of cats spotted on vacation trips.
Finally we made our way back out through the old city walls and to the marina.
Gerhard showed us his smaller sailboat, recently outfitted with a new interior. Cozy!
From there, I went out on my own and visited the old fortress that looked over the harbor.
A tour guide led us around and gave us the history, and we were treated to the gorgeous views of the harbor and old city beyond.
Finally after lunchtime we set sail again, passing the oil baron yachts again on the way out. Antibes was as far east as we would sail along the French coast. The next stop would have been Nice, which is a practically a metropolis (and which I'd visited briefly as a teenager). Monaco was beyond that. They are all fabulously glamorous destinations, I'm sure, but probably a bit of a pain to deal with in a little sailboat, and a stretch for us if we wanted to get back to Marseilles in time for my train out, and so we were now going to head back to the west.
We put up the sails and made good time, which was a good thing because we had a pretty long way to go to make it to Andreas' desired stop for the evening.
Along the way, a French destroyer passed us.
Here's a view of the instrumentation at the captain's position. The map display at right shows (with a small red X) our intended destination for the day. The black lever at bottom is the engine control, shown here set to neutral / off.
As we approached our destination, we passed the rusty cliffs and outcrops of the Estérel mountain range, illuminated by the setting sun.
After a long afternoon of sailing, we arrived in the Bay of Agay just in time to watch the sun set over the hills across the bay. We dropped anchor out in the water, not docked, rather just anchored out in the water among a lot of other small sailboats.
Since we were in a sheltered area, but not right inside a marina, this gave us a chance to do some swimming, which would stand in for showers at this stop. The water was very clear, and about 10-12 feet deep, and you could dive down and barely touch the seaweed growing on the bottom.
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