The Med - ogaryo wants to berth there next year

rafiki_ said:
With a busy job, how often can you realistically get to the Med?
When you have had a long week, do you really want the faff of an airport?
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100% agreed.
That's why I got rid of a busy job and long working weeks... :cool:
 
Gary,

JFM makes a fairly compelling argument ;) * but more importantly, hopefully Jez and I will be there so we can all be 'boat friends' (said in an Inbetweeners voice). What more incentive can you possibly need!

Pete

* just watch out for him trying to lure you to Antibes - he's already tried that one on with me :)
 
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Rick our view was simply to get to the med, and sticking with MDL seemed a natural progression. Whether we stay at SCM for a year or 5 remains to be seen.

You have the luxury of being "time rich", so if you have decided to move you could "do a Hurricane" and sail from Torquay to the Med and work your way around the Med coast / islands ?

To check out marinas / areas, I was checking car hire this morning, and 7 days from BCN in late October was €8.35 which is ridiculous, but would give you an option to do a road trip north and south.

We liked the look of the Italian marina, but the haulier wouldnt go near Italy, and the marina themselves apologised when I pointed this out, after we got a quote, and they said most uk boats launch at Antibes and sail down from there, so too much faffing for us...

I'll let you know when we are down next and we can have a chat if you are around.
 
Thanks Andy. Hope to speak again soon. The plans to move to warmer waters have become much firmer since we last spoke. We loved the Dartmouth regatta last week but kept on getting rained on which spoilt things a bit and since the. We have been talking much more seriously about a move. Hope you've been able to spend some time on the boat in SCM. R
 
Mmmmm.just found a possible constraint for SCM. Does anyone know what days airlines fly to / from Reus from Birmingham or Luton? It's looking like Thursdays only and I am hoping I am wrong as that would be a big constraint that would probably discount this marina
 
oGaryo said:
Mmmmm.just found a possible constraint for SCM. Does anyone know what days airlines fly to / from Reus from Birmingham or Luton? It's looking like Thursdays only and I am hoping I am wrong as that would be a big constraint that would probably discount this marina
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Yes, SCM isn't as well placed for flights as some other locations.
Reus is served bt Ryanair from Stanstead all year and others in the summer - there have been regular flights from Bristol for example.
Check Ryanair website for the other UK airports.
It is very variable.
We fly from Bristol - some years they have been flying through out the year.

There is a new airport coming "on line" this month at Castellion which is closer to SCM than Reus.
Ryanair is the first operator to be using the new airport.

But you probably need to make your decision based on using Barcelona (El Prat) which is a little under 2 hours from SCM.
Barcelona is a hub which has loads of options to virtually all UK airports all the time.

As Andy says, off season car hire is very cheap
A couple of years ago, we decided to fly to Gerona (another airport option - about 2.5 hours from SCM - the other side of Barcelona)
I hired a car for 26 euros for 10 days - there were extras which took the total hire for 10 days to about 70 euros (inc fuel).
 
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Ok, not sure if its my frame of mind currently but all this talk of Med being the center of boating doesn't do it for me personally.

Both SWMBO and I work full time and have 25 days holiday as year + bank holidays. I have to work my holidays around others in the office who feel as they have children they have a god given right to take holiday priority over everyone else. This means we usually take our holidays in February and October / November.

Boating for me is all about spending time on the water and relaxing. Yes, it would be lovely it the weather was perfect but im used to the fact that never happens in this country. Some seasons are better than others, this season has been bad, last season (when we didnt have a boat) was good...

I would also add that if i had to guess, you med boys are spending more on your med boating in terms of berthing, insurance, travel etc etc than some of our boats entire value. its all relative to disposable income and time.

Deleted User mentioned in a previous thread he thought pure cost (without depreciation) being around £30K per year and i am sure others will be the same or higher. lets remove fuel which is of course all relative (aside from the fact that it seems to be more expensive per L than here) the financial and time cost of having the boat in the med would for us be too much to even consider.

It would be different if we could have 3 / 4 day weekends but its simply not possible for us so long weekends would be out.

I can see the attraction of the Med, just look at the pictures and videos that have been shown here. it actually makes me green to think i cant do that but its not a factor of just moving the boat to the med, its everything else cost and time related that i also cant afford.
 
Z1ppy,

I sympathise with your view, which is not too dissimilar from mine. I know the Med pretty well - we have a house in the Med, but unfortunately in a part of the Med that is not great for boating. I have also experienced great, sometimes magical boating in Croatia, Greece and Turkey by chartering.

What I recognise is that I enjoy boating that gets away from the crowds and that is why I chose to charter in Croatia, Greece and Turkey, but none of these places is practical with a family and work. I also recognise that I and my family only enjoy good weather, which doesn't fit very well with UK boat ownership. My own solution was to downsize to a small MF645 and only go out if the weather is nice. With the low running costs, I don't feel any guilt or obligation to go out with an iffy forecast. This has really made boating much more enjoyable in the UK. This year has been challenging, but there still has been some fantastic days as well.

This is one of my favourite anchor moments this year, the water was warm and I was one my own there - perfect!

IMG_2268 small.jpg
 
CLOUD9 said:
So where do you start? I take the point that it is easy to over complicate matters, but if you are unfamiliar with the Mediterranean cruising options there are so many questions. Most fundamentally, where do you put the boat? Those of you out there have made your decisions based on your own preferences of course and must have weighed up the pros and cons of the locations.
How many did you visit before making a decision?
Did you end up where you are through recommendation?
Is there an obvious short-list?
Are some more popular with the Brits than others?
Did you get it right first time or make the move and subsequently find somewhere that suited you better as a home port? There must be lots to think about before taking the plunge.... or am I just worrying too much and should just put a pin in the chart and get the hell on with it??
The obvious questions on our personal shopping list include:
Reasonable travel time, but we dont need to do the mad rush back after a weekend. We intend to stay on board for at least a week or two at a time, possibly more. (Not sure we can quite manage the two flight Hurricane way though!)
As long a season as possible. I dont know how much climate varies around the med. Is this a big factor when choosing the location, or marginal?
Interesting cruising ground with both short hops and longer excursions.
Friendly / sociable marina atmos. Clubhouse? Close to town/shops/restaurants/nightlife... (but nothing too gruesome!)
Sensible costs. Do costs differ massively around the Med or from country to country or within a small range?
I only got as far as Mallorca when looking to buy the boat last year. I thought it was lovely. Liked the idea of Palma and the other smaller ports we visited, but have nothing to compare them with elsewhere in the Med. (except Torquay if geography is poor and we count the English Riviera!).
Im sure all you med cruisers will be wondering what the hell I'm worrying about. And I really do take the point that there are zero threads discussing bringing the boat back to the UK..
One last question... I get stuff through from MDL wanting to talk about Marina Di Stabia. Is anyone there or considering it?
Hope thats not too many silly questions all in one go...
R
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Rick

The best location depends on your own preferences of course, but the most popular with UK boaters are the South of France, the Balearics, or the Spanish mainland coast. I haven't cruised the Spanish mainland coast by boat, but did take a road trip when we first decided to move to the med and the cruising options looked more limited. Others can comment better though.

We just spent a month in the Balearics and went all round each of the islands, with the intention of leaving the boat there for a year, but decided to return to Antibes instead, so obviously I feel the South of France has more to offer, but this is a personal view of course, and others will have different priorities and prefer the Balearics. None the less I'll explain our reasons and you can decide how important they are to you.

The main attraction of the Balearics was the huge number of bays (calas) which looked like you could tuck in away from any wind and swell, but in reality we couldn't get into most of them because they were either too small, or full of sailing boats, or both. As a result most of our anchoring was in larger more open bays similar to those in France. During the month we were there it seemed more consistently windy than SoF, in particular the sea breezes seemed to get to F4/5 in the afternoons as opposed to F1-3 in SoF. This is perfectly safe of course, but it's just not as nice for swimming and general water play when the boat is yawing in the wind and there's a reasonable chop on the water. The SoF probably has stronger winds occasionally, as the mistral blows every couple of weeks for 2-3 days, but in between times we normally have days on end of perfectly calm weather. We also found quite a lot more litter in the water, especially inlet blocking poly bags, and the resorts were generally more bucket and spade. That's not to say we didn't go to lots of lovely places, we really liked Palma old town, Mahon, Andraitx, Soller, Pollensa, Ibiza Town, and expecially Ciutadella, and we found some beautiful anchorages particularly on the north coasts of each of the idslands. Cala de Calobra on the N Coast of Mallorca is the most stunning anchorage we've yet seen I think.

We found some great steakhouses, but didn't fair so well on the seafood and tapas front, and I've never really got on with Spanish wine, especially whites/roses. The food and wine in France is, needless to say, excellent most of the time.

Based in Antibes, we have loads of beautiful local anchorages, very settled weather in the summer, and for longer holidays the options of going to Corsica, Sardinia, Italian Riviera, Tuscany, or the other way to the Porquerolles and the Calanques.

The downside of the South of France, and the Cote d'Azur in particular, is the availability of annual berths. It's not impossible to find one, but it takes work and you may be moved around quite regularly. The only real way round this is to buy a berth, but that's obviously a capital outlay. SoF may also have a slightly shorter season, and it really does help to have some pigeon French, whereas in the Balearics it seems you can get by easily without knowing any Spanish. I also find many of the local contractors (regardless of their nationality) to be unreliable, and frankly some of them are downright dishonest. Most of us import contractors from the UK for bigger jobs.

The other options, becoming more popular all the time, are Croatia and Greece. The cruising looks great, but I don't have personal experience so I'll leave it to others to comment on them.

let me know if you want any more specific info
 
Berth buying is probably more correctly berth leasing and the time left on many of hte leases in the SofF varies greatly. For example in Beaulieu Sur Mer they run out in Dec 18, but St Jean Cap Ferrat (1nm away) its Dec 2021. So if you only wanted a couple of years as a trial you could buuy in one of the shorter lease remaining locations and then make you mind up. This way you would get berth, get it quickly and not be tied for too long.

Getting on a wait list for an anuual berth is easy - the time it then takes ot get a berth is variable. We applied at both Beaulieu and Villefrance 5 years ago. We got offered our berth in Dec 13 with 2 weeks to make our mind up. A couple of months ago I got an email form Villefrance saying I was now in the top 10 for the waitlist at Villefrance.

Also we have never been moved from our berth. If we go away for more than 48 hours we have to notify the port, but on return it has been free.

All this should be read in the context that we own a 10m sailing boat.

Here is a link to annual berth prices where we are as a guide. To buy a lease its roughly annual rent x number of years remaining. http://www.portdebeaulieu.com/wp-content/themes/portdebeaulieu/PDF/tarifs-2015.pdf
 
I am in Beaulieu for two weeks from Saturday. I will pm you if a see a berth for sale in any of the brokers windows. Sunseeker usually have a good selection.
 
CLOUD9 said:
Thanks for the info. Buying a lease for a short period is definitely a good option if I can find something for 18m. Looks like I need to get out there and start looking.
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You can also look at 15x5 berths in some marinas, as they tend to focus more on beam than length. Mine is on a 15x5 in Port Vauban, Antibes for instance.

I think mcandersons annual rent x no. of years is a bit optimistic, there's usually some premium on berth sales because it's the only way to get security of tenure, plus you also have to pay an annual service charge of 3-4,000 euro.
 
z1ppy said:
Ok, not sure if its my frame of mind currently but all this talk of Med being the center of boating doesn't do it for me personally.

Both SWMBO and I work full time and have 25 days holiday as year + bank holidays. I have to work my holidays around others in the office who feel as they have children they have a god given right to take holiday priority over everyone else. This means we usually take our holidays in February and October / November.

Boating for me is all about spending time on the water and relaxing. Yes, it would be lovely it the weather was perfect but im used to the fact that never happens in this country. Some seasons are better than others, this season has been bad, last season (when we didnt have a boat) was good...

I would also add that if i had to guess, you med boys are spending more on your med boating in terms of berthing, insurance, travel etc etc than some of our boats entire value. its all relative to disposable income and time.

Deleted User mentioned in a previous thread he thought pure cost (without depreciation) being around £30K per year and i am sure others will be the same or higher. lets remove fuel which is of course all relative (aside from the fact that it seems to be more expensive per L than here) the financial and time cost of having the boat in the med would for us be too much to even consider.

It would be different if we could have 3 / 4 day weekends but its simply not possible for us so long weekends would be out.

I can see the attraction of the Med, just look at the pictures and videos that have been shown here. it actually makes me green to think i cant do that but its not a factor of just moving the boat to the med, its everything else cost and time related that i also cant afford.
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Just to respond to your point about relative costs, iirc jfm paid 84p a litre for white diesel here a few weeks ago. Certainly you'll pay more for smaller volumes but £1 a litre is about right at the moment. Here in in SoF one curious side-effect is that because there are so many nice spots to anchor so close together, compared to when I was at Brighton I actually use less fuel, because the absolute distances are shorter.

My berthing cost here in Antibes is about the same as it would be if I was in Premier Swanwick on the Hamble. Insurance is the same. Travel obv depends on your own personal circs, but my ground transportation costs in the UK are negligible because I use a motorcycle (so airport parking is free); all my flights down here this season, without exception, have been points flights which cost £35 return - so maybe £500 tops for the season. My indulgent cost is ground transportation in France - it costs me about £1k pa to keep my scooter down here. There are *much* cheaper ways of covering the 7m from the airport to Antibes, right down to the €1 bus, if you're so inclined.

So for me, although it costs a bit more cf the UK, you get a lot more out of it. Fwiw my swmbo also has a 'proper' job (I don't) so is constrained by annual leave etc, and she still makes it down here fairly frequently.
 
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