Here's the situation:
-
Buying 12m
monohull in Mallorca in the next couple months
- Moving
family to the
boat by May/June
- US citizens, but will have a long-stay French visa when we arrive
France
- plan is to
liveaboard in south of
France region for as long as we like it, 2-3 years
- Wife, daughter (15)
Favorite destinations based on our
research:
- Antibes
- Ville-Franche and nearby
- Menton
Questions:
- how common is it to run into other cruiser families with
kids, and do they have a method of finding each other?
- is there a good cruising
boat guide that we should obtain? I purchased the
Bloc Marine 2018
- how hard is it to get into the
marinas for a 1-2 month stay? Is it something we can reasonably expect to arrange with a 1-2 month planning?
The
marinas on the top of our list are:
Public Port Menton Garavan
Old Port Of Menton
Port De Beaulieu-sur-Mer
Port de Villefranche Darse
Port Vauban Antibes
Port de Golfe-Juan
Any
advice on what we're doing? We love
history, outdoor restaurants, culture and clear, warm
water. We did 3 years in the
Bahamas on a
Leopard 40 and loved it, but that was a very different experience and want more culture on this trip (our
blog). The idea of getting off the boat and walking through old towns, grabbing groceries and hitting the odd cafe would be a nice balance - if we can avoid
noise and keep nature nearby. Which is why we like some of those
ports above.
We'll
winter in the marinas, and we have a reverse-cycle
heater - which is hopefully good enough. My wife is worried about mosquitos, not sure how real that issue is in the marinas South of France. We weren't bothered by them in
Bahamas because of the winds and we anchored all the time.
thanks,
ken