Tag Archives: Ocean

Aug11

A boat tour of Les Calanques

Posted on by
Standard

Thursday, 11-July-2024



Cassis is, in no uncertain terms, a tourist town. It is also, however, a seaside town… in equally firm terms.

With that in mind, we took a sea-tour of Les Calanques, the French version of Fjords.


It started out early on a Thursday – as a general rule, I’ve avoided getting up early on this adventure… but the opportunity to do the big tour (all nine Calanques over nearly 3hrs) was far too awesome to pass up. Adding to the challenge, though, was the fact that we hadn’t been able to get tickets the previous day, and so the morning found us having a light snack and then quickly heading into town to queue up in line to pick up the tickets.

We weren’t alone in line, but thankfully it went quickly. A quick conversation in broken French and confused English, then a short walk to the boat, and then… we were casting off the lines, and setting off into the Park!



Sort of like hiking, there’s not too much for me to describe here… I mean, we ooohh’d and aahh’d, the captain made announcements in French, and we looked at our English translations. We saw gorgeous sea cliffs, amazing harbors and beaches, passed and were passed by countless other cool looking boats.

It was a glorious few hours, no doubt, made thankfully quite enjoyable by the anti-nausea medications that I’d taken earlier. We had some small snacks and drinks that we’d brought along, but for the most part just focused on the scenery. It was simply lovely, and I 100% recommend it for anyone who finds themselves in Cassis or Marseille.



Of kind of interesting note, there were a few cool posters up about and around the boat we were on… including two old photos of Cassis Harbor, and one very interesting one discussing an underwater cave that was discovered to house 27,000 year old paintings!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosquer_Cave

Aug7

A walk in Cassis – up to the Chateau de Cassis, and out to Plage Du Corton

Posted on by
Standard

Monday, 08-July-2024


The plan for our time in Cassis was fairly open – Nothing firm, but the general theme was targeted at relaxing for the first day, visiting some spots further inland, and spending quite a bit of time relaxing by the water.

To kick it all off, we relaxed in Cassis, and took a short walk around town to get a sense of the various options we had available to us… starting with a walk up to the castle overlooking the town, and then wandering onward as we saw fit.


It didn’t quite go as planned – it turns out, the Castle in town is actually a private hotel. And, in true French fashion, was far too cool to allow tourists to wander the august halls of that high class institution. We found this out, of course, after hiking up the hill to the top where we encountered a solidly emplaced gate and a sign mentioning that it’s a hotel… a truly saddening lack of informational placards, in my personal opinion.

So we continued onward. It was a beautiful day, in a beautiful city, with absolutely no reason to stress of worry… only beautiful water and clear skies to enjoy.

We found ourselves at the Plage Du Corton. Beautifully clear water, lapping waves, and an expanse of beach goers. A small snack shack that we availed ourselves of, and an excellent chance to recharge before our adventure back to the blessed air conditioning of the apartment.

Jun5

Stathur Harbor

Posted on by
Standard
Stathur Harbor

Thursday, 16-May-2024


After taking a walk down the nature trail, I headed out onto the road again, to explore the little corner of the WestFjords that I’d brought myself to. There wasn’t much, truth be told – a few farms, some cliffs and waterfalls, and a small harbor at the very end of the road.

Well, that makes exploration quite easy, doesn’t it? A single road, with an interesting thing at the end… Yeah, okay. I can work with this!

I drove, making mental note of all the interesting places that I’d aim to stop by on my way back. I checked out a few as a drove, but mainly just headed straight in for the harbor.
(Ed Note: Many of these small views got bundled into Ben’s “van life” post from earlier, since they were fairly minor stops)

Once I got to the harbor, I found a sea of glass awaiting me.

It’d been raining and windy earlier in the day, but by the time I made my way out to the dock the weather was calm. Still, it was almost like the whole world was in stasis, holding its breath for something yet to come.

The sun was hidden behind the clouds – not quite enough to make it impossible to tell where the ocean ended and the sky began, but close enough that it took a moment to find that differentiating line.

The water was crystal clear, and I could see the massive kelp forests just below the surface… not knowing how far down they must go, since my view got quickly muddied by the entangled strands of kelp. It was beautiful, and a little bit scary, and I wish that I had been better able to capture the depth and clarity of the water around the docks.

Instead of the ocean depth, I was gifted these amazing photos of the dock itself. Similar to the pallet that I saw at Grettislaug, I’m exceptionally proud of how these came out. Enjoy!