A voice from above – welcome to Marseille
43° 17′ 47″ N 5° 22′ 12″ E
July 2, 2016
“Ronja!”
The name of our boat thunders down upon us.
A voice from heaven?
Or the voice of the harbour-master shouting through a loudspeaker?
We have just sailed in between the two impressive fortresses that mark the entrance to Marseille’s magnificent harbour, Vieux Port. We look anxiously skyward. The voice continues: “Ronja. Keep in the center of the basin. You will be picked up by an inflatable boat! “.
It has been a terrific sailing day. The first real sailing after Ronja for several summers have worked its way through the French rivers and canals using only engines and having no mast (the mast had gone ahead on a flatbed truck with a German haulier). Now Ronja is reunited with her mast, and with a dizzying amount of water under the keel. The Mistral gave us this morning a loving nudge in the back at Beaufort strength 6. Full sail from Port Saint Louis du Rhone. And now we are in Marseilles
… with the voice from on high. An inflatable boat comes rushing with a port captain and two mates aboard. “How long do you plan to be with us”, the port captain asks. When we say two or three days, he looks skeptical. His facial expression makes us understand, that it will be very difficult. An almost impossible mission.
“Follow us,” he says. And here comes the trouble.
Not one of the nearly 1000 boats in the Vieux Port is located with the bow toward the bridge, as we are used to in Denmark. All boats – and I really mean all – are facing aft end toward the dock. They back in! They are crazy, the French. This kind of stuff we do not do.
Intuitively, we are against. Our boat is relatively long keeled and maneuvering clearly worse backwards than forwards. And why should all absolutely be moored cockpit to cockpit in towards the docks, so everyone can follow each other’s dinner menu?
Some beautiful maneuver it is not either. Ronjas bathing platform wedges under the pontoon bridge, and one of the fixed lines, which we according to the same outlandish French tradition must pick up from the harbour bottom and attach the bow with, gets tangled. The port captain shouts, that we must back up, so his line can come free. His aides giggles. Ronjas skipper refuses to back further into the pontoon bridge in the interest of the pinched bathing platform.
It all resolves itself. It usually does.
But there really is something with the french and arrogance. They invent a foolish mooring technique and require all to use it – as if it were a government decree – and so they allow themselves to frown openly about the unfortunate foreigners who can not figure out how to dock at its port.
View from the boat. Notre Dame Cathedral in Marseilles
But what a place. What a view. What a city.
Everyone should try to be in the middle of Marseilles central harbour and enjoy the special light, the beautiful buildings, the amusement wheel, the beautiful church on the mountain, the relaxed atmosphere of cafes and restaurants that surround the entire harbour while enjoying the intense energy, that is being created through daily fish markets, other markets as well as an endless entry and exit from fishermen, excursion boats and yachts.
Marseilles is “guarded” by two old fortresses
Marseille is an underrated city. It still has a reputation of mafia, drugs and other crimes over it. But the city has improved itself. There are renovated houses and new ones. It has created architectural masterpieces in the form of new museums and refurbished shopping centers in old warehouses. Norman Forster has created the covering to the metro station at the harbour. Fascinating.
The crime rate here may still be high, but then it is done in suits, and live a more discreet life than the one we know from Gene “Popeye” Hackmann’s troubles in the films “French Connection I and II”.
Marseilles Vieux Port – one of the most beautiful city-moorings we have had
Marseille is a very exciting city. Large, magnificent, vibrant, charming and French – with a significant contribution of immigrants from North African countries. You meet very few tourists from Germany, the UK and Scandinavia. Marseille is a French city. So far prefered by the french themselves.
There is nothing but good to say about Marseille. … well, that would be the harbour master’s morbid insistence, that all boats must turn the same way at all the pontoons in the port. Either it’s insane aesthetics, or it is a fascist desire that we all must march equally and concurrently.
Fact: It cost € 37 per night to stay in the Vieux Port. Electricity and water just off the boat. Unique location but some noise at night. Toilets and bath almost inaccessible – they were on the other side of the harbour, a stroll of one and a half kilometer. Port captain said that we could just call, he would pick us up in his dinghy, when we had to use the bath. But to be honest: We came from the beginning a little crooked in to that harbour master.
Marseilles is a fantastic city. Much better than its reputation
Again in France, now Mediterranean
43° 23′ 15″ N, 4° 48′ 15.84″ E
June 29, 2016
Our driver is agitated. Why do those women not move their car so he can get past?
Fools! He opens the car window, shouting to the two women, that they should turn into a parking lot, so he can get past.
He did not quite understand the situation.
The two women backed out of their parking space exactly at the same time as our driver and they prepare to drive one way while he prepares to drive the other way. Now it is bumper to bumper. One woman gets out of the car and explains that this road is one-way, and that he is heading in the wrong direction. Therefore he must leave room for them to continue.
He snorts. Women. “Oh, la, la“. With his hand, he shows that these very women are impossible to explain to. “Je suis importante,” he said in a last attempt to win the match. “I am important.” It makes no impression. Our driver drives cursing back into position, leaving the women to pass and drives out again, while he mumbles about amateurs, women, people with no respect for authority and rules of the road.
They are experts in moving boats in and out of the water at Navy Service
Kirsten and I are sitting in the passenger seats and we see how the large arrow in the roadway show that it were the two women who were right. Our driver is a fool.
And we are back in France. Ready to resume our “circumnavigation in stages” on the good ship Ronja. A Swedish-built Malö 36, beautiful and solid. The past 11 months she has been parked on land 50 km west of Marseille. At Navy Service in Port Saint Louis du Rhone.
Our fool of a driver has just fetched us in the arrivals hall at Marseille airport with a sign from Navy Service: “Mr. Jensen “. It’s us. He is certainly 80+, looks like an angry Santa Claus with a white beard and rimless glasses, speaks only French and has probably exceeded the expiration date on his driver licence. When we came out from the arrival hall of the airport’s parking lot, he could not remember where he had put his car. Wait right here, he said and circled aimlessly.
Sigh. Who are we going to entrust our life here? He finds the car, we throw our two soft bags into the back – and then comes the two women and insist on their right. It’s not his day, this driver.
Navy Service is a great place. They have 1,200 boats in winter storage on land. They have specialized in lifting the ships on shore, park them and later – after several months – to put them in the water again. Others cannot. They operate cranes – boom cranes and ship cranes. And they are good.
Ready to reunite boat and mast
In the living area – like some parasites – a dozen small independent craft businesses are operating. Some of these may prepare your engine for the winter, other repair epoxy damage, others can sew your storm- and cold- resistant nordic cockpit tent into a light and airy, Mediterranean-bimini. It is expensive. But damn it, it’s great.
I think it is a French specialty: Port du sec. Dry ports. Large paved or gravel areas where French and globetrotters leave their boats winter storage with masts on. It protects the boat against fouling, let them dry out and perfectly suited to those who still have only a sailing season of a few months.
Finally under sails again. Skipper is happy
Even with help from local craft people we sailors often forget, how much work it takes to make a sail boat ready to sail. The mast must be cleaned. Shroud and stays needs to be adjusted. Electrical installations between the mast and the boat must be restored. Bulbs should be changed. The drain should to be cleaned. Sails has to be put on. Defective parts replaced. Everything must have cleaning and polishing. Water and food should be stored.
It takes days. More time than anyone just walk around and remember. We get it all done, even if the sun above the Rhone delta is relentless. We prefer to work early morning and late evening, and at night we struggle with mosquitoes.
While we work we sometimes get a glimpse of our driver from the airport. He seems to function also as a worker in Navy Service. Today he drives a truck, moving containers and large bins with a tight-lipped expression.
No need to get in his way. None.