Onboard and leaving Ajaccio for the continent.  Not a bad overnight trip.  I had quite a decent dinner, much better than the grub available on the ferry to Olbia.  My one complaint would be that it was impossible to get away from musack in lounge areas after dinner.  It mingled with and indeed mangled the Olympic's commentary on TV.  I could have withstood one but not both so retired relatively early.

It was lovely up on deck as we approached Marseille in the early morning.

Technically this was my second visit to Marseille but the first, fifty years ago, involved only getting off the boat, bundling family and luggage into and on top of an old 404 dockside taxi and heading for the station where we despatched the topside luggage to London and boarded a train for Paris. 

No dockside taxis now but what must have been a fifteen minute bus ride crammed in with my fellow foot passengers to a gate leading to the outside world.  A few streets away I found a patisserie where I had breakfast and whiled away some time.  I had lots of time to while away because I couldn't get into my accommodation till early afternoon.  So I whiled and whiled keeping as best I could to the shade for the temperature rose as the hours passed.

The "aparthotel" where I stayed could not have been more strategically placed.  It was practically inside the station beside which was the bus station and under which was the metro.  It was run by the same group who have one in Edinburgh and I suppose you could have prepared meals there to save on the expense of eating out.  No mean expense.  But while there were pots and pans and crockery etc and two electric rings, there was no food preparation surface or place to allow washed utensils to dry.  I limited myself to laying in breakfast materials.

I did the usual hop on hop off bus tour to get the lay of the land.  I hopped off only once, at the church on top of the hill, Notre Dame de la Garde.  It was still a bit of hike from the bus stop up flights of steps tastefully marked out (one couldn't really say decorated!) with the stations of the cross to the building.  There are beautiful views in all directions.  I even caught a glimpse of some sailing action.  That's what I was here for after all.  Get your magnifier out and have a look.  I'll give you a clue, it's windsurfing.

The place like the rest of Marseille was mobbed.  I decided not to join the queue of basilica entrants and contented myself with admiring the outside of the building while hunting for shade.

Hunting for shade was quite the theme of my week in Marseille.  Norman Foster had provided rather a jolly parasol in the heart of the city at the Vieux Port

It's a large rectangular canopy whose underside is highly polished metal so everything under it is reflected.  If memory serves the little crowd with a banner in this picture are rallying in support of freeing Paul Watson.

So after a few days of sightseeing and shade seeking I set off for my first day at the sailing competition.  Now I didn't expect to see any of the races except on a screen and my main criticism of the organisation is that they provided lamentably little shade in which one could stand, sit or lie away from the blazing sun to watch action on any of the screens that had been set up.  Oh had they borrowed Foster's canopy instead of a few paltry Coca-Cola parasols!  Not a practical suggestion but they could have erected the sort of tent-like structures we deployed at the Festival when Covid was rife.

Anyway here's a few pictures of boats

Crowd watching dinghies assembled on the beach

470s being towed out to race (they didn't)

ILCAs (Lasers that were) on the beach

Nacras getting ready to race (they didn't)

Kites hoping to race (they didn't)

The programme that wasn't

Sailing obviously depends on the wind and you can't blame the Olympic authorities if there is insufficient wind on any particular day.  I don't know about the earlier days but on the three days I was there the wind was not good.  It perked up a bit on the afternoon of my last day which I'll come to later.

In the picture of the provisional programme shown above there are 14 races scheduled only 2 of which took place and even then they had to shorten the course blah, blah.  To be ultra fair to the Olympics they are actually refunding the entry fee to spectators for that particular day.

In the way that runners are introduced to spectators as they stand ready to race the sailors were lined up in a beauty parade prior to racing.  Unlike runners though they don't immediately jump into their boats and race off.  In the case of the 470 crews I think it was the day before their medal race that the line up happened.

Since there was a lot of dead time activities like that helped relieve boredom but in a bizarre bit of scheduling which I defy anyone to explain they announced a time for the lineup of the female kitesurfers and stuck to it despite having to interrupt the big screen coverage and commentary of the 470s medal race to do so.  We had been waiting more than 24 hours for that race to take place.  It was I think three or perhaps four hours after the lineup that the kite race took place.  My flabber remains gasted to this day. 

But that race or rather races was/were excellent.  We had a bit of wind and in contrast to the dinghies the kite races involve a greater degree of jeopardy.  I won't explain the scoring systems here you can look them up if you like.  The important point is that in kite racing you have to win on the water.

When their final finally got going the French girl was one win in front but the English girl beat her.  That meant there had to be another race and in a super bit of manouevring at the windward mark the English girl got to the front, won the race and hence the gold medal.

My first attempts at photographing a medal ceremony gave me pictures like this one

so I went back to the big screen and here's GB's triumph

That was a very satisfying end to my three days sail watching and I'm really glad I went despite whatever shortcomings there might have been.  When I got off the plane in Edinburgh the following afternoon it was pleasantly warm and there was a good strong breeze. Just the conditions that would have made the racing in Marseille so much better.