Golfe du Lyon. Call me Ishmael.

Or, on second thought, don't. It's a terrible name, sure to get one included on some terrorism watch list. It's misspelled, no one ever uses it, it belongs neither to the protagonist nor the antagonist, but somehow this line is one of the most famous opening lines in English. I guess American literature needed a stuffy, reflexive, verbose writer to feel like it had come of age and made a dent in modernism, and Melville fit the bill. I had to allude to it, as the passage across the Gulf of Lyon ended up being very reminiscent of Moby Dick.

The original plan, of course, was not to cut across the entire Gulf, but to first head up the coast to Cap d'Agde. Cap d'Agde is apparently the world's number one nudist resort, with 30,000 residents all geared to serve tourists frolicking in the buff. I kind of wanted to go into a supermarket totally naked. I also wanted to order a burger at McDonalds naked. I had read that this is normal for Cap d'Agde, so it seemed like something I should try. I did have misgivings about the kind of pervy people who might frequent a nudist resort, and the idea of potentially catching herpes while trying to eat a burger kind of tainted the whole vision. A strong northerly tramontana weather pattern that made it really difficult to head north, combined with the incredibly boring river mouths that dot the landscape around the north of the Gulf of Lyon made me decide to skip Cap d'Agde.

The original plan also included Marseilles (jewel of the French South), Sete (a very nautical town and Guizmo's birthplace), and Toulon (the second biggest naval base in France, following Brest on the Atlantic coast). But the big cities demand their own pace and mindset, which clashes with the sailing mindset one develops in the Med. Stepping onto a noisy street, getting honked at by cars, and trying to navigate a subway system seemed at odds with the current lifestyle. So the decision was to cut across the entire Gulf in one fell swoop, and head to Port Porquerolles on the Hyeres archipelago.

The passage, of 136 nautical miles, the longest I've ever attempted, turned out to be generally uneventful, spanning the wind range from Force 5 (umbrella inside out) down to Force 0 (nothing!) and back up to Force 4 (nice breeze) or so.

Leaving Roses was somehow sad. Spain had been an awesome host for so long -- people were exceedingly nice and the food was incredibly good. While French food is going to be differently nice, I have misgivings about how welcoming the French will be. Will they be as nice? Can anyone be as nice as the various Spanish friends have been to me, especially my minitransat mentors who helped me prepare the boat?

About 1 minute out of Roses, the remains of the tramontana storm hit at Force 5 or so. Started out with double reefs just to keep everything under control and not expend too much energy on the first few moments of the journey. The confused wind eddies made it really difficult, once again, to pass the fishpen constructed in the worst possible spot. Once clear of the fishpen and the cape though, Cadaques (town of Dali) was once again visible. 

Shook one reef out, then another, as I found some courage. Tried to put up the heavy-weather spinnaker, but I must have folded the sail badly into its bag, as it came out looking like a tangled hourglass straight out of the bag. Usually, I need to screw something else up to get it into this shape, but this time, the screwup was pre-made. Had to put it back down and put up the gennaker instead. The gennaker is something like a big jib -- it's carried halfway up the spinnaker pole, and behaves kind of like a spinnaker, but the forces it develops are much more like the tiny jib than the spinnakers. With the gennaker up, Guizmo started coasting at a steady 8-9 knots, with occasional jumps up to the 10+ range! 

To put that into perspective, keep in mind that almost every sailboat is limited in its maximum speed by its length. Remember Archimedes' eureka moment: every boat must displace an amount of liquid equal to its weight. For Guizmo, this is 1.5 tons, while the bigger cruising sailboats displace about 4-8 tons. That's a lot of water, and all that water has to go somewhere, that is, it has to get out of the way for the boat to make forward progress. Since it takes time for the water to get out of the way, every boat ends up creating a "bow wave", a wave under the front of the boat that the boat rides up on. The fast the boat goes, the bigger the bow wave gets, and you can see the bows of boats visibly rise as they pick up speed. At some point, the entire forward force of the boat is spent on climbing its own wave, and the boat cannot go any faster. This is the maximum possible speed of the boat. It's governed by the equation 1.34 * SQRT(length in feet), which comes out to 6.3 knots for Guizmo -- God himself could not drive Guizmo past this speed, if he were to remain confined by physics. But Guizmo is no ordinary boat: minis are so light they can avoid this whole situation by starting to plane, that is, skip on the surface of the water. The boat no longer displaces as much water as its own weight. Archimedes eureka discovery stops applying, and instead, the boat starts to behave much more like a skipping stone than a boat. This allows minis to go much much faster than boats that are  four times their size.

The remains of the tramontana storm coupled with the gennaker put Guizmo into this planing range. Interestingly, the boat feels much more stable at high speeds. Waves no longer affect it as much, and it simply follows its own path across the tops of waves. I had to pay a bit of attention to not getting slapped by a big wave and losing speed, as it puts us out of planing back into displacement mode, and I had to pay some attention to not burying the spinnaker pole in between two wave crests and getting it covered with water, but the process was really simple. And it feels great to go at these speeds.

I was at the bow, adjusting the spinnaker pole, when, suddenly, two dolphins came up right under my feet. Then the whole pod appeared and no less than six of them started riding under the bow. They seemed to be rotating positions within the pod, as they would ride the bow, dive down, and let others take their place. Some of the more curious ones would jump off the waves to get a good look at Guizmo. 

My first reaction was to start making clicky noises, to show them that I had watched many episodes of Flipper as a kid and understood how they communicated. I suspect this is the equivalent of aliens landing in Trafalgar Square, thinking they understand us because they've seen the Jersey Shore and going "aaaaa aaaaaaaa  aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah." It's not clear that the dolphins heard me, but if they did, they were not amused, though one of them turned sideways and started eyeing me, then turned upside down and started riding belly up. After 5 minutes or so, the whole pod disappeared as suddenly as it appeared.

The first night out at sea was excellent. The wind kept up until 11pm. It was a moonless night, but the whole milky way was out, and there were almost no other ships. It was like being in a planetarium, except traveling at very high speeds, and with a constant sound of running water (actually, at planing speeds, the water noise dies down as well since there is almost no froth behind the boat). 

The next day was mostly windless, and going was very slow. It's impossible not to be supremely bored. The boat is designed to go, I'm itching to go fast, but the wind needs to exceed 3 knots for the sailing to be fun. As it was, the winds weres hovering around 2 knots or so, so it was a very slow slog.

And suddenly, there was a very different kind of dorsal fin on the water. Shorter, more bent back than a dolphin's, the fins seemed to be attached to animals around 4-6 meters in length. There were small dolphins playing around the core group, but the fellows in the middle, I think, were whales. I had never seen a whale in the Mediterranean before and did not know they even existed here. For a moment, I thought I was mistaking multiple individuals as if they were a single animal, but they were clearly giant, barrel-shaped animals, with some smaller dolphins surfacing around them. According to this guide to whales in the Mediterranean, they're likely to be Pilot whales. Or maybe Cuvier's beaked whales, but it was difficult to see their faces and sailing towards them seemed like it'd be annoying, so I kept my course. When the whales blew out, there was a giant puff of air and water. It was impossible to not think "thar she blows."

The rest of the day was a tired slog, followed by another night with the stars. I had noticed that all sailors, even world-class sailors like Brad Van Liew, have a haggard look to them, even in the press photo shoots. It turns out that that look comes to you easily after two nights at sea.

Up, mostly, for two cold nights in a row. I can still pull consecutive all-nighters.

The third day started with a strong wind that got stronger. Another pod of dolphins kept us company for a while. I first saw some hills in the distance (and shouted "land-ho!"), then could smell earth and vineyards.

There was a lot of very official sounding French chatter on Channel 16, along with heavy military chopper traffic. Apparently, the French navy conducts rocket testing on the far side of the easternmost Isle d'Hyeres called Isle du Levant, and announces its operations on Channel 16. Did not see any rockets as Porquerolles is on the north side, and on a different island in the archipelago, but did get to see a chopper transfer something to a military vessel. It was a very 007 moment.

Sailed by a gorgeous boat on the way in.

Port Porquerolles, with the boat affectionately known as "Sir Humphrey's Boat" and the infamous castle
(Pic taken on a different, sunnier day)

Pulled into the anchorage in Port Porquerolles under rain. Paid a measly 18 euro for a berth, but needed a comfortable place to sleep, so splurged on a hotel in the old town, and slept for the afternoon.

It rained all the way into port