{"id":352,"date":"2014-09-05T18:41:37","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T16:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/?p=352"},"modified":"2018-09-06T18:37:33","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T17:37:33","slug":"thur-4th-september-saintes-maries-de-la-mer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/thur-4th-september-saintes-maries-de-la-mer\/","title":{"rendered":"Thur 4th September – Saintes Maries de la Mer"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a funny thing: at first, I didn\u2019t really like it here in Saintes Maries de la Mer. It can be seen to be a God-awful, smelly, mosquito-infested town at the end of the universe \u2013 all of which is pretty accurate. But there\u2019s something about it that grows on you. Firstly, there\u2019s the fact that it\u2019s much warmer \u2013 nay hotter \u2013 here: we went from 16 degrees in Chamrousse to 30 degrees here. Very pleasant indeed. On more remote parts of the beach, clothes are merely optional.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the beach: I used to think that Sotavento beach in Fuerteventura was big. At some 17km long (their tourist information claims 22km but they\u2019re lying), it was the biggest, most wonderful beach I\u2019ve ever seen. Still is. Fabulous white\/golden sand the whole way. But it\u2019s very windy, too \u2013 it\u2019s a place I used to do a lot of windsurfing, and the Sotavento sand \u2013 like all the sand on Fuerteventura \u2013 is very fine. Anything more than a gentle breeze (Force 4 Beaufort) means the sand starts to blow. Frequently, it was blowing force 6, and the sand was streaming across the beach, reaching places where you didn\u2019t know you had places. For soaking-up the sun, it was useless: two minutes after coating yourself in sun-goo and lying down on the towel you\u2019d spent so long nailing into place, you were a sticky sandman. I used to spend endless hours in the evenings trying to dig sand out from my earholes. But we loved it there because it was so wild and so undeveloped.<\/p>\n

The beach here stretches some 32km from Saintes Maries de la Mer on le Petit Rhone to Plage de Pi\u00e9manson, world\u2019s end, at the Eastern end, up against le Grand Rhone. Much of it is fairly inaccessible as there are no roads behind the beach, so it\u2019s only busy close to where traffic can reach. Much of it also falls within a nature reserve, so you\u2019re not supposed to leave the dyke (useable by walkers and cyclists) that runs inland of 14km of the beach to access the beach, except at certain allowed points. And then, it\u2019s another 5km of cycling (on very flat paths\/dykes, it has to be said) from the main dyke to the beach.<\/p>\n

Like Fuerte, the sand here is very fine. Like Fuerte, the wind here can blow pretty hard. It did exactly that for the first two days we were here whilst staying in the campsite. Just like in Fuerte, we were digging sand out of places it didn\u2019t ought to go, and the van has taken on a very gritty feel to it. Every surface is coated in sand and dust. It doesn\u2019t matter how much housekeeping we do, just opening a window brings in more dust (and mozzies).<\/p>\n

The famous Mistral wind blows all the way down the Rhone valley from the mountains, exiting land over the Camargue. It\u2019s a cold, Northerly wind and is usually very strong, and very predictable in strength and frequency of occurrence.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a particular branch of windsurfing that\u2019s all about speed, and breaking world speed records. It demands vey specialized equipment, a lot of patience (for when the predictable winds fail to blow), and very, very specialized locations. In order for a speed to be ratified as a record, it must be measured over a (minimum) 500m course in the presence of official observers. The course must be wave-free. Waves slow down windsurf boards so locations without waves must be chosen for speed record attempts. Sotavento is used every year despite being coastal: The course is set within 2 metres of the beach so the offshore wind has no chance of creating waves in that space. Of course, the ocean-generated waves still come in towards the shore so it\u2019s far from ideal, and the whole circus is more of a publicity\/financial affair. Ideally, the course should be set at 120 degrees to the wind: that\u2019s the angle that most craft can attain the maximum speeds. Sotavento beach is pretty close to that 120 degrees, purely by chance.<\/p>\n

Back in the 1990\u2019s, some famous windsurfer noticed the reliable winds here in the Camargue and decided it would be a good place to build a purpose-built speed course. Permission was duly obtained, and a 1km long ditch, 20 m wide, 120 degrees off the typical Mistral wind direction, was built on the beach just to the East of Saintes Maries de la Mer (the \u201cCanal\u201d). Every year, the windsurfing speed tour would come here and \u2013 most years \u2013 records were broken; the last ones here being in 2005.<\/p>\n

Things come and go. The cost of upkeep of the canal at Sts Maries was high, the wind failed to blow for a few successive years, and other, better locations were found (in Namibia). The \u201ccanal vitesse du surf\u201d has not been used for many years now, but it\u2019s still here. Forlorn, slowly filling-in with sand and salt, it\u2019s now the province of gulls, little egrets, herons, fish, dog walkers and mosquitoes. I really wouldn\u2019t want to let any part of my body come into contact with the water remaining in there. But it\u2019s a piece of windsurfing history, and I walked the length of it just for pleasure of being there. If you\u2019re interested, you can still see it on Google Earth. It shows quite clearly as a dark, straight line, between the dyke and the sea, about 3km to the East of the town. Apparently, it does fill up with water when Autumnal storms coincide with spring tides.<\/p>\n

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The speed canal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Camargue is all marsh. They (the French) like to call them \u201c\u00e9tangs\u201d. Alistair Mclean once wrote a book (one of his very early novels) called \u201cCaravan to Vaccar\u00e8s\u201d. Well, Vaccar\u00e8s is the biggest \u00e9tang in the Camargue. But actually it\u2019s all marsh. In the summer, most of these \u00e9tangs dry out, leaving a crusty layer of shimmering salt. And mud. Lots of slimy, smelly mud. And innumerable flamingos. But besides this, we see herons, little egrets, oystercatchers, curlews and more varieties of gulls than I knew existed.<\/p>\n

I may have mentioned the beaches? Today, we cycled 14km along the dyke to the Phare de la Gochelle (Phare = Lighthouse). We then took another dyke S to the beach. There were a dozen or so cars or camper vans parked adjacent to the beach. As the sand near the top of the beach was very dry and had a salty crust on it (obviously no tides have been up here for many months), it made for easy cycling. Less than 1km along, and the whole beach was ours. One couple about 300m to one side of us and that was it. And it wasn\u2019t windy, and the sand wasn\u2019t blowing. It wasn\u2019t too hot (26 degrees, apparently) and there wasn\u2019t a cloud to sully the sky.<\/p>\n

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Busy beaches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You may have heard of the Camargue horses? I don\u2019t know the history, but the Camargue is very tied-up with horses through its history. White horses, they are. Many of them roam freely over the marshy land. Many more of them are available to rent by the hour.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, we were on a not-quite-so-remote-piece-of-beach-as-we-were-on-today. At around 6pm, some five or six horses were brought along the beach at a fair old gallop by their riders (all young girls), who decided to them take them into the sea right beside us. They were clearly used to the sea, and had a rare old time pawing at it, cantering through it, galloping along the beach beside it for the sake of one of the girls recording it on her iPad, and generally getting thoroughly wet. Great to watch such accomplished riders on such fearless horses.<\/p>\n

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Not galloping down the streets, but far easier on their hooves, I would think.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Sea horses?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I really think I like this place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a funny thing: at first, I didn\u2019t really like it here in Saintes Maries de la Mer. It can be seen to be a God-awful, smelly, mosquito-infested town at the end of the universe \u2013 all of which is pretty accurate. But there\u2019s something about it that grows on you. Firstly, there\u2019s the fact … Continue reading “Thur 4th September – Saintes Maries de la Mer”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[9,20,18],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-european-tour","tag-france","tag-horses","tag-saintes-marie-de-la-mer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1407,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/1407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}