The gloom of La Ciotat
17 June 2015 | La Ciotat
JMP
Now, don't get me wrong, La Ciotat has much to recommend it. The anchorage provides good holding in sand and decent shelter from the Mistral which is the curse of this particular corner of the French Republic. Rod Heikel, the author of the pilot book for these parts, will have us believe that the good citizens of this town have made the important contribution to European culture of inventing the game of Pétanque which acts as some sort of social glue for the, mostly, senior gentlemen of Provence who are trying to escape an obligation to put up some new shelves in the kitchen or, worse still, the assembly of a flat-packed monstrosity from that well-known Scandinavian retailer.
All of that should bring cheer to the passing yachting but the skipper is always afflicted by some sense of despondency on arriving here. He feels he should have paid better attention whilst at school or, at least, worked rather harder than he did in the years following what passed for an education in those long off days.
The cause of this gloom is the presence in La Ciotat of the Monaco Marine refit centre for super yachts. There's dozens ( really) of boats in for fettling here none of which are under 50 metres and many of which are twice or even three times that size. It just alters your idea of the scale of things.
That said, however, the good ship XII Bar Blues is well stocked with fluids designed to promote cheerfulness and said fluids have been put to good use as an antidote. After all, I bet you can't get the staff these days !