1st July - 18th August

France

Mike and I crossed the Ligurian sea without much wind, motoring much of the way. We arrived at a place called Beaulieu, a wealthy peninsula with gardens and large villas. There was a small beach to land the dinghy and a promenade running around the bay to a village where we caught a bus to Monte Carlo. We visited the casino and my 5euros lasted an hour playing the roulette wheel. Mike flew back to London and I stayed on at the anchorage another 10 days there, walking around and visited the palace and oceanographic museum in Monaco.

There was a seriously rich motor yacht anchored out in the bay. It had a yacht the length of Weatherly on one side, another motor launch the same size on the other, a helicopter on the stern and apparently a submarine which docks underneath - I kid you not.

The tasteful houses ashore oozed the same kind of wealth, though many seemed to be unlived in.

The oceanographic museum in Monaco has a vast number of aquarium tanks and species of fish. There was even a huge shark tank with rays and menacing looking sharks cruising around. I admire Prince Albert the first for establishing the museum and for his work as a researcher.

I sailed on to Antibes and found another sheltered anchorage, staying a week waiting for the newly restored Picasso museum to open.

One evening, a fireworks barge was towed into the bay and anchored right in front of me while I was cooking dinner. I was disgruntled to be asked to move at short notice and claimed I had engine trouble to buy some time, asking why they couldn't move the barge a few hundred metres instead. After some hauty exchanges with a police launch, while munching my dinner, they roared off at high speed, I thought it prudent to actually move Weatherly. I didn't need it impounded or expired tourist visa scrutinised.

I accidentally broke the screen on my new camera when carting my refrigerant gas bottle around. It took ages for me to look for an adapter for the Italian bottle, including a trip to Italy to try to get a fitting. It seemed a futile mission, calling the manufacturer many times for parts or a contact agents. They posted me 3 useless parts which didn't even come close to the diagrams I drew for them. I the end I discovered it was an obsolete connection and I gave the uphill mission a break.