Question for the med based boys

Ah hang on a minute David. If this is a competition about "black and blue" days, ie ability to get to a ski resort within an hour* of your Med boat, please can I enter Antibes? Picture taken in Port Vauban Antibes yesterday

* = by car. The superyacht boys and girls do it in 15 mins by chopper straight from the helideck
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Isola 2000 which is only about few hours by road from Nice, has fantastic skiing, but a horrid grotty ski resort but it is very cheap and great for the youth.
My two sons went up on a motorbike last year to go skiing, interesting on the way down with all the ice and snow on the road. the locals were incredulous, the first bike they had ever seen on the ski resort.
 
OK - Sant Carles Reporting

We are here right now
Yesterday was a fantastic day = wall to wall sunshine - I see that you still have that awful weather at home.
Yes, it was a rough crossing over Biscay on Tuesday but it is almost like summer here at the moment.

Today, we got the bikes out and cycled (in shorts and tee shirts) down to Alcanar (a local port) for one of those long lunches that lasts all day.

Tomorrow, we will get round to doing some work and fitting the Jetski (that we have brought down here) to JW's bathing platform.
I will post some pics later.

We are planning to go off snow skiing next week - so Sant Carles seems to be the place for everything.

Anyone want a 15m berth for £4500 per year - we have some friends that have one available.
That price includes taxes and all the electricity you can use - they even have an on-site storage shed available for a small extra charge.
Try and get that in the UK!!!
And, right now, you can enjoy all this sunshine.
Beat that
 
jfm said:
Ah hang on a minute David. If this is a competition about "black and blue" days, ie ability to get to a ski resort within an hour* of your Med boat, please can I enter Antibes? Picture taken in Port Vauban Antibes yesterday

* = by car. The superyacht boys and girls do it in 15 mins by chopper straight from the helideck

antibessnow.jpg
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45mins down here from home to the ski resort! (by car and reasonably legally!)
400mt from home to boat
400mt from home to office

ah, and no airplanes to faff about :p

What do I win?

cheers

V.

PS. I know, a few more months in the boatyard :D
 
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jfm said:
Cricket that's amazing. Anyone with 40 footer in Solent could do a year in the med and pay the trucking fees for the cost of solent berth and elec. No brainer!
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I am paying more than that for a 36 foot boat in dry stack in Saxon Wharf .!!!
 
Hurricane said:
OK - Sant Carles Reporting
We are here right now....
Yesterday was a fantastic day = wall to wall sunshine - I see that you still have that awful weather at home.
Yes, it was a rough crossing over Biscay on Tuesday but it is almost like summer here at the moment.
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Really glad you've all arrived OK Mike - I thought they might cancel the crossing....!

I know the berth that you're referring to, for a 15m berth that's excellent value and its in a very good location in the marina - easy to get in and out of! It's a real steal for someone who's interested in moving their boat to the sun/Med...!
 
Hurricane said:
Anyone want a 15m berth for £4500 per year - we have some friends that have one available.
That price includes taxes and all the electricity you can use - they even have an on-site storage shed available for a small extra charge.
Try and get that in the UK!!!
And, right now, you can enjoy all this sunshine.
Beat that
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Wow, I pay two thirds of that as an annual service charge on a 15m berth in Antibes, having bought the berth outright!
 
Hurricane said:
OK - Sant Carles Reporting


Anyone want a 15m berth for £4500 per year - we have some friends that have one available.
That price includes taxes and all the electricity you can use - they even have an on-site storage shed available for a small extra charge.
Click to expand...

How does that work then? I thought it was MDL you had to pay to berth there. Do they own it outright and are renting it?
 
Some of the berths were sold by MDL to UK and/or Spanish residents, there is I believe a time limit just like other marinas.

If the berth owners wants to, they can in turn rent them out under Contract to others as is the case with the berth Mike referred to, I believe the berth owner has just sold his boat. Quite normal and above board.

There is a marina/MDL annual service charge levied which can be included within or excluded from, the sub-let rental agreement.
 
lanerboy said:
ok I know there is all the banter regards uk boating versus med boating

I just wondered what boating conditions are really like this time of year in the med, has anyone been over in the last couple of weeks, I know I can look the temperatures up on tinternet etc etc but its not like getting it from the horses mouth

is it tee shirt weather down there is the sea calm have you been out on your boats etc etc, just good HONEST answers please :)

what is it really like down there compared to the uk at this time of year
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Ref. the op question, since the new year it's been raining most of the time here in the SoF, near Cannes.
In january two or three sunny days a week, the rest of the time overcast or raining.
So far in February hardly any sunny days, constant rain and drizzle, ,maybe one sunny day a week...........:ambivalence:

Conclusion...Some years you can eat Christmas lunch outside, but not very often.You need to Go further south to get dependable weather.
 
PEJ said:
How does that work then? I thought it was MDL you had to pay to berth there. Do they own it outright and are renting it?
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Yep - kind of what John says

Like us, our friends bought a long term lease - 30 years.
In fact, that is the same length of lease that Sant Carles Marina bought from the Spanish government.
We, and the marina like to see this as a kind of partnership and thats the spirit that we have with them.
Sant Carles Marina is a registered Spanish company and MDL own about 65% of it.
The rest is owned by a Spanish consortium/organisation that also own other marinas along that part of the Spanish coast.
This arrangement works well because they get to call upon all the experience of the established marinas.

Those people who "bought" their berth (30 year lease) can either use it for themselves or rent it out - or even sell it.
Either way, as a 30 year leaseholder, you have to pay a service charge.
Currently the service charge for a 15m berth is about 1700 GBP per year.
In the case of Sant Carles, the service charge includes unlimited electricity, water and WiFi and all the relevant Spanish taxes.
This means that anyone who owns an empty berth is keen to let it out in order to cover the service charges.

Our friends are keen to let their berth out to cover these service charges and a have a contribution to the capital depreciation of their initial outlay.
So, thats how they are able to offer a 15m berth for a total cost of 4500 GBP including all the charges.
The marina always insists on charging the service charge to the primary lease holder unless the primary lease holder sells it to another primary lease holder.
However, as long as the marina are officially informed of the actual user and have the relevant details of the actual boat on that particular berth, they are happy that the primary lease holder can sublet to someone else.

At some stage in our lives, SWMBO and I will be wanting to sell our long term lease for our 20m berth and our onshore storage shed.

Hope that helps to explain - now you can see just how cheap it is to keep a boat at Sant Carles
 
Thanks John and Hurricane,

That is very interesting. Mainly because it is less than half of what I pay at OV. £5k could go a long way towards paying for flights.
 
PEJ said:
£5k could go a long way towards paying for flights.
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I appreciate it's an imprecise comparison, but £5k would buy 20 advance-purchase returns for two of us from Gatwick to Nice based on the actual prices I've been paying for the past couple of years. If you managed to buy all your flights at the lowest possible BA fare (£39 pp each way) you could get even more. If by some chance you managed to buy all your flights at the lowest possible EJ fare (£60 pp return) then it's even more than that.

Or putting it another way, for say four long trips pa, and maybe eight short trips - you're well ahead. Numbers are somewhat different if you have kids to consider as well of course...
 
Buying the lease is a fairly typical way to keep a boat on a mooring in spain. We bought the lease for our 7m mooring 8 years ago and it runs until 2023 ( I think). I guess it only works if you know you'll be keeping your boat in one location for a long'ish time.

We pay about £950 per year in service/maintenance charges for that.
 
PEJ said:
Thanks John and Hurricane,

That is very interesting. Mainly because it is less than half of what I pay at OV. £5k could go a long way towards paying for flights.
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It's not often appreciated that for many years rises in berthing rates in the UK hotspots like the Solent have outstripped the Med. Its really only in the most popular locations like SoF, some marinas in the Balearics and Italy that berthing rates are significantly higher than the UK. For example I paid €9000 (Euros) pa last year for a 17m berth in the best marina in Croatia and the facilities there are far better than any UK marina
What is generally more expensive than the UK though is overnight mooring but thats a discretionary purchase. You usually have the option to anchor overnight somewhere close
 
Deleted User said:
......For example I paid €9000 (Euros) pa last year for a 17m berth in the best marina in Croatia and the facilities there are far better than any UK marina.....
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Dalmatian coast does sound very enticing, what marina are you in Mike? Prompts a few questions: I expect flights/transfers from UK may be more expensive/difficult. Have you ever taken the boat up to Venice? Are you allowed to take the boat into the lagoon? If so, I expect its expensive to overnight there....
 
John100156 said:
Dalmatian coast does sound very enticing, what marina are you in Mike? Prompts a few questions: I expect flights/transfers from UK may be more expensive/difficult. Have you ever taken the boat up to Venice? Are you allowed to take the boat into the lagoon? If so, I expect its expensive to overnight there....
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For Venice see the article in current issue of MBY (the one with Delta80 on front cover). Yes you can take your boat right in and park at Cipriani :)
 
jfm said:
For Venice see the article in current issue of MBY (the one with Delta80 on front cover). Yes you can take your boat right in and park at Cipriani :)
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What a hotel..... Its been a few years since SWMBO and me last visited Venice, I have some nice large Brandy glasses, regularly used, bought on Murano. We also found it quite amusing that coffee was more expensive in the square when the band was playing, well it is Italy. I recall a really lovely evening, there was a string quintet playing four seasons in one of the old churches converted into a concert hall, we had not planned to go, but did and it was excellent. Dare not mention this thread to SWMBO, getting too close to 14-Feb, 38 years this year, frightening - she'll need to wait till the 40th.....
 
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