Les Calanques - by boat

9th October

By mid-morning we were at the harbour queueing to buy tickets to for the boat trip to Les Calanque. We had decided to go for the 45 minute, €16, three Calanque trip on the basis that once you've seen three drop dead gorgeous turquoise inlets, then by the next two, you might be suffering from Calanque fatigue and calculating how many noisettes you could have consumed in one of the quayside cafés for the extra €8 euros expended to get a full Calanque experience. (The answer, by the way, to the noisette mental arithmetic puzzle is .....four).

In the event these cogitations proved fruitless; only the three inlet trip was available because 'la mer est tres agité. The full significance of this helpful notice only became obvious a little while later.

Number 7, our tickets said. When we reached berth 7 the open topped tourist launch was already boarding. We hopped on, along with a bunch of other couples of varying age, size and nationality. As we chugged through the harbour there was much snapping away of cameras, smart-phones, camcorders and iPads, for the striped cafe awnings, the ochre coloured houses and gleaming white yachts, the small  fishing boats with painted prows all looked alluringly photogenic in the clear blue  Mediterranean light. An air of expectation and excitement was growing, some good natured banter and joking developed amongst the French couples, though quite what they were saying was lost on me. 

snapping the harbour side cafes from the boat

clinging-on for dear life as 'Odysseus' pops his head out of the hatch

Such joviality stopped the moment we passed the pier head. Immediately we hit a short but severe swell and the boat bucked up and down like a rodeo stallion. Every time we hit a particularly big wave or wallowed momentarily in a trough the passengers on the open deck were doused with spray; up went a shout of 'oh la la, or bravo!  From time to time a crew members head would pop out of a hatch above the wheelhouse, peer ahead, then glance back at the passengers doughtily clinging to their seats. I could not decide if he was staring ahead trying to figure out the currents in a sea that was boiling like broth, or if glancing back he was simply amazed to note that no one so far had been catapulted overboard by the bucking action of the boat.

calmer waters in the Calanque plus Pete's camcording digits

The adventurers return

Once we reached the shelter of the Calanque then the sea became calmer, and people reverted to tourist mode. Yes, the white limestone cliffs and deep blue sea is spectacular and the pine clad narrow inlet justly famous as a must see site. However, for us, the natural beauty of the Calanques will remain forever associated with a white knuckle ride of a boat trip over la mer tres agité beneath the towering cliffs of Cap Canaille.