Once round the top of the spit, the water entrances to the small town of Port St Louis de Rhone lie ahead. Slightly to the north, a white tower marks the entrance of the canal to the Vieux Bassin in the town, and the Navy Service yard, specialising in land storage for yachts.
The entrance to Port Napoleon is about half a mile south, and is indicated by a string of red and green buoys, bearing on 243�. The almanac chartlet only shows two pairs. Much to our relief, the entire channel is marked with close pairs of lit buoys. It would be nerve racking without. Even for us, used to the flat lands and shallow brown water of the English East coast, found people wading next to us a bit disconcerting. We think they are cockling.
In the channel, we never went below 6m and this depth persists right through the marina.
The channel takes a sharp right and passes the cockling sheds. There are lots of people fishing, including one woman in a bikini and fetching blue scarf, thigh deep in the muddy water.
The normal visitors pontoon is G, the last one in the marina. All the pontoons have fingers, which are long but narrow and bouncy. Electricity and water on every berth. Tie up, and walk up to the capitanerie for the friendly, multi-lingual staff to check you in.