Med Marina Suggestions/Costs

petem said:
Dunno about France but I managed to get two speeding tickets within 15 mins in Spain, which is more than the previous 35 years of my driving career!
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Interesting
I received my first Spanish speeding ticket this week.
143kph on the AP7
Maybe things are changing.
It took 3 months to get the ticket.
I did a bit of Googling because I thought it might be a scam.
But when I looked back at my diary and put the camera location into Google Maps, I was definitely there.
There seems to be a consensus that you can just ignore the ticket - especially if you were driving a hire car.
But my fine was only 50 euros and I don't want the worry of being pulled over and arrested later.
Even if (as everyone says) they don't have a record of your driving licence.
So, I put it down to an extra road toll for that day.
 
Firefly625 said:
best thing of having a company shell fuel card is free tolls...

I happened to be driving down to southern Brittany a few days before Le Mans and had some smart machinery pass us at high speed. At one of the main toll's there were 3 such cars pulled over just after the toll with multiple police in attendance so I assume they had been clocked on time between tolls... prior to that I thought it was an urban myth!

However I still believe its fines only..
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It is still fines only up to a point, but it should be remembered the French Police can remove your licence and vehicle on the spot for going above a certain level of indiscretion.
 
adey said:
Cut n paste from a previous comment

Expensive for what it is if you pay the full price through the marina.
Mosquitos. Lots and lots of them! Made having breakfast or an evening meal/drink outside impossible.
It's miles from anywhere. Two hours in a hire car from Barcelona along a toll road. There's no train station in SCM (nearest one is a 30euro taxi ride away). There are summer flights twice a week to Castellon but it's still an hour's drive from there.
There are no decent restaurants in the town. In the winter you'll be hard pushed to find anywhere to eat out.
The water in the lagoon is so polluted you won't want to swim in it.
The fouling (linked to the agricultural pollution) is so bad you need to lift and scrub whenever you want to go anywhere.
No decent cruising locally.
Very few people in the town speak English.
Quite a high crime rate on the marina.
There's a nice pool but the locals use and abuse it so it's packed in the season.
The town either has a 'Spanish charm' or is a 'bit of a dump' depending on your point of view. Mine erred towards the latter.

Like I said, we land tonight in Alicante at 9:30 and by 10:30 we'll have dropped our bags at the boat and be half way through our first bucket of beers at the Coyote bar. We'll recover tomorrow with some sunbathing, anchored off the beach.
Everyone's different.
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Whilst I recognise some of the issues that you refer to, most of them haven't been too troublesome for us. Easy access to an airport and being closer too Ibiza is attractive though. Which marina do you stay is and what would it cost for a 34ft boat (officially 10m)?
 
Deleted User said:
Btw unlike the UK, I do not believe that there is any leeway on speeding in France. 1kph over the limit and youre done.
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Mike, I don't believe this is quite correct, I have read somewhere that there is a statutory 5% margin - so on an unrestricted autoroute in dry weather where the limit is 130kph, the prosecution threshold is a hard 136.5kph. I have to say, when I do those big positioning rides on the GSA, I sit at 133kph all day long on the satnav speedo - my own view is that speeding on the autoroute is probably your best way of getting caught. In the past I've certainly seen plenty of speed traps on the first 50m down the A26 from Calais. Imho the best way to get there quicker is to stop less, rather than run at a higher top speed.
 
Deleted User said:
Just out of interest do the French autoroutes give you any discount on their tolls for being an EV? Its damned expensive these days to drive from the top to the bottom of France on autoroutes. And are chargers readily available on the whole of the autoroute system?
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Not that I am aware of. And I have a tag for both France and Spain
 
jimmy_the_builder said:
Mike, I don't believe this is quite correct, I have read somewhere that there is a statutory 5% margin - so on an unrestricted autoroute in dry weather where the limit is 130kph, the prosecution threshold is a hard 136.5kph. I have to say, when I do those big positioning rides on the GSA, I sit at 133kph all day long on the satnav speedo - my own view is that speeding on the autoroute is probably your best way of getting caught. In the past I've certainly seen plenty of speed traps on the first 50m down the A26 from Calais. Imho the best way to get there quicker is to stop less, rather than run at a higher top speed.
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If you check the link I provided a couple of posts earlier you will find the tolerances, after selecting France ofc rather than Spain as linked. If you cannot be bothered:

TOLERANCE: 5 km/h under 100 km/h, 5% over 100 km/h.
 
petem said:
Whilst I recognise some of the issues that you refer to, most of them haven't been too troublesome for us. Easy access to an airport and being closer too Ibiza is attractive though. Which marina do you stay is and what would it cost for a 34ft boat (officially 10m)?
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Alicante marina, probably about 5k if they have space, which is not too likely.
 
jimmy_the_builder said:
Mike, I don't believe this is quite correct, I have read somewhere that there is a statutory 5% margin - so on an unrestricted autoroute in dry weather where the limit is 130kph, the prosecution threshold is a hard 136.5kph. I have to say, when I do those big positioning rides on the GSA, I sit at 133kph all day long on the satnav speedo - my own view is that speeding on the autoroute is probably your best way of getting caught. In the past I've certainly seen plenty of speed traps on the first 50m down the A26 from Calais. Imho the best way to get there quicker is to stop less, rather than run at a higher top speed.
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I thought you might be the forumite who would know the real situation!
 
Deleted User said:
Mmm, fuel saving alone wouldnt drag me out of my ICE car but tolls + fuel might have done;)
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Yeah but Mike you and I both know that you're arguing a completely hypothetical point - you never ever drive down through France anyway. It's as much as you can manage to have your boat guy ride your motorbike back up through the Alps on your behalf ... :D:D:D
 
AllanG said:
Please can you explain how this works with the French tolls...many thanks!
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I suspect FF means free to the end user ie him, rather than absolutely free per se. Academic point because I think he probably owns the company in question. Happy to be corrected on both counts though! (Cue a rush of applications for a company fuel card....)
 
Does anyone here keep their boat in Altea? Truro Ex Pat has given me some great info but I'm interested to know what if would be like keeping a 34 footer at CN Altea. In particular...

What's the local cruising area like?
What are the services like (engines, guardianage, etc)?
What's the transfer like from Alicante airport (looks like an €85 taxi)? Are the hire car companies OK?
How cheaply can you get flights (happy to avoid the school hols)?
How easy is it to get a berth?
 
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