Med. France

Feb 1st - Mar 17th (Lock-down), 2020

Another beautiful anchorage in Costa Brava, Cape Bear. Also a very nice hike out to the lighthouse

Once again it's stunning to sail in the Mediterranean and look at the snow capped mountains. The Pyrenees these are

Early morning sail towards Cap D'Agde, over the Golfe du Lion

We stayed in Marina Cap D'agde for two weeks to get some boat projects done. Working on the boat keeps you fit ;-)

The stormy weather didn't keep these men from playing Boule

Same beach different days and different weather

Mini vacation/roadtrip to Andorra. Last time we were here was in the 80's with motorcycles. We don't recognize anything, except for the windy roads 😆Fun to see it again though, Darn it I forgot my snowboard 🏂

On our way again towards Toulon with crew Nina, Anette's sister, and Keith.

After a great day of sailing in 15kt and calm seas we tried to go in to the canal in Port-Camargue to anchor but it was too shallow so we found an anchorage outside by the beach. Lots of kite surfers surrounded us, Fun to watch

Next Anchorage, after a brisk sailing day, was Port Carro. Cheers

Next to us in Port Carro was this heart painted on the rock. Nice colors in the sunset

What a difference a day can make. Today totally calm seas. Motoring along and taking in the beautiful scenery of the French coast

Can you spot the hole in the rock

Our guests are enjoying this calm day. Spotting anchorage for a lunch stop. Anette wanted to snorkel in this crystal clear water. Good that we have the wet suit on board. Water temperature was 12C

What a spectacular anchorage this is, Sormiou. Can't imagine how it will look in high season. But we had the whole place to ourselves :-)

Magnificent colors and scenery

Another brisk day of sailing. Downwind with genoa only. Doing 9-10 kts the whole day. Gusts up to 40 kts.

Arrived in Toulon. Our marina, Darse Vielle Marina, was next to a French Navel base. Great marina in the center of Toulon. The big ferries goes to Corsica

Went to the local market in Toulon today. I felt like a local pulling my bike cart around 😊🇫🇷 Bought a lot of fresh veggies and fruits. Very busy. Fun experience

Hiked out to this La tour Royale and along the coast line. Came upon a couple of nude beaches ;-)

The Pirates are after the Americans...

Notice my fishing line! At least the seagulls believe in my fishing skills

Enjoying being at anchor again in our own secluded cove on island Port Cross. The calm before the next storm. Tomorrow we sail to Saint Tropez to hunker down in a marina. This is the cruising life in the Mediterranean 😊⛵️

Our own cove. Probably a different story in high season. Fantastic clear water in Port Cross island.

Saint Tropez. The calm before the next storm. We will hunker down in Marina Port-Cogolin

Yepp, it was a little windy here in the marina last night 🌬💨

We're still in Marina de Cogolin, near St Tropez. We're waiting for some parts coming. We are mixing doing boat projects and exploring the area by bike. What started with just a regular cleaning of the bilge ended up with scraping and repainting the bilge 😁

5 layers of new two part paint in the bilge. Anders is doing a great job!

Everything back in place. We also did some improvements. We wanted to move the lower pump to be centered, and also move the float-switch to be in line with the pump. In other words, wanted pumping to work equally well on starboard and port tack.

Visited neighbor town, Grimaud. Also called little Venice. Very cute

View from the tower in Marina de Grimaud. You can see our marina in the distance

Bike trip to another neighbor town, St Maxime

Fun start of the hike, along the shore line. Horizon is anchored on the other side of the bay

Selfie from the top. Ile D'Or is the little island with the tower behind us

One night anchorage up the coast. Enjoyed a beautiful hike around Cap Dramont. Then back to Marine de Cogolin awaiting next stormy weather...

Natural arch with beautiful scenery. We saw this when we sailed in to the bay

First we thought we were back in Boulder, except for the ocean;-) These mountains looks very similar to our Flatirons

Nice mackerel sky ...And yes, it brought us rain and the pressure was falling quick...Next storm is rolling in...

We are sort of stuck here in Marina de Cogolin, in the st Tropez area, awaiting what will happen with the Corona virus situation. We are fine and staying positive and active. Sharing our time between boat projects and exploring the area by bike.

It's a beautiful area. Love all the small towns on the different hilltops. Most of them are from around 1150.

Old city of Grimaud. Lots of narrow alleys.

Bike ride up to another old town on top of another hill, Gassin. Pretty good workout biking up to here. Also here the marina is in the background

Love our bikes :-)

The ruin of the old Chateau on top of the hill — at Chateau de Grimaud.

At the ruin looking down on the roofs of the old part of Grimaud. In the distance is our marina, and behind that St Tropez

This is Ramatuelle, on the next hill from Gassin. Love the colors of this building

More narrow alleys. So many plants everywhere

The eastern entrance through the protecting wall to the old city of Ramatuelle

Very sadly, all our boat batteries has died (see all nerdy details here: https://horizon.rhodin.co/the-battery-story-2020). Probably not by Virus. But nevertheless, they died. The nice part is that the manufacturer reimbursed us for all of them under warranty (after asking a ton of questions about the installation and all charging systems and how we use it etc. etc.). Apparently they could not find any flaw in our system design or our charging system or our usage, so they gave us our money back. Very nice after 18 month.

So we're replacing the batteries with new technology. By doing that we get one of our battery compartments totally empty.

Anette has not decided yet what to use it for. She tried it out as a bath tub, or a sea-berth. But I think the final decision will be to increase our Wine-Storage-Capacity on Horizon and rename the Battery #2 compartment "The Wine Cellar".

Life is Good.

Today I biked 10km up in the mountains. There I did a two hour trail ride. Fun with lots of galloping. Beautiful scenery. On my way back I stopped by a winery for some wine tasting. Sometimes you need a day off the boat, by yourself 😊

Btw, Anders preferred to stay on the boat doing more projects. He thinks horses are too uncomfortable 😆

Left the marina today for a couple of nights anchoring. Nice sail along the coast. Suddenly we got company by some dolphins. They sure know how to make you happy 💕Happy Friday to all our friends and family round the world. Stay safe and healthy.

We had a great weekend out of the marina. Anchored at the islands outside Cannes. First night at Iles de Sainte Marguerite which is a Nature reserve.