Spirit of Discovery blog

After a well-deserved day at sea for our Guests, including a beautiful morning close coasting off the NW shores of Majorca we made a relatively civilised 0700 approach to Saint-Tropez. With no pilot to board we were anchored by 0720 and ready to run tenders from 0800. It is unusual to find any port these days that does not require you to take a pilot. The few places that are like this are always anchorage ports where we guest ashore by tender.

It was certainly a beautiful day in St-Tropez and with our modern tenders + an 800m run we very quickly got all our tours ashore. Many guests decided to stay on board for the morning as England were playing the New Zealand “All Blacks” in the Rugby World Cup Semi-Final, and we all know what a magnificent performance it was from the England team. I did take the opportunity to watch it myself along with a couple of colleagues and there was some serious vocal celebrations emanating from my cabin.

It was certainly busy in town as there was a 4 day end of season sale across the whole port and this included all the designer shops with top names from across the fashion. Apparently this 4 day event occurs every year at the end of October and people arrive from all over the globe to snap up these designer bargains.

We were in port for the evening not that many guests headed ashore for dinner, as why would you with such great food on board. The crew of course always love late sails or overnight stops so a number of them headed ashore in the evening.

Although the last tender was scheduled for 2200, everyone was back on board by 2145 so we took the opportunity to leave the anchorage early.

Captain Julian Burgess