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Improving California’s Cruising Infrastructure

Maybe it’s time for the government to upgrade California’s crumbling cruising infrastructure with something like the Iles du Frioul. So close and so many anchorages. A 750-berth marina, too! 

Marseille Tourism
©2017Latitude 38 Media, LLC

There’s always a lot of talk about stimulating the US economy by improving the "crumbling infrastructure." We remember when Obama did this with the America Recovery Act, or whatever it was called. Promising "not one cent would be wasted," the first "shovel-ready" project attacked in our area was repaving a road that had been paved just a few months before. Shocking, isn’t it, that the national debt doubled in just eight years?

Not that we have higher expectations for the current administration, as President Trump has proposed the Great Wall of Mexico. That’s about an unintelligent and ineffective an idea as repaving a freshly paved road.

No, we think there needs to be a meaningful improvement to our infrastructure, and we could start with the creation of more cruiser friendly islands off the coast of California. Something like what Marseille, the second largest city in France, has with the Frioul Archipelago. The islands are so convenient and have countless nooks and crannies where you can drop the hook.

The four islands of the archipelago are Pomegues, the largest although only two miles long; slightly smaller Ratonneau, Îlot Tiboulen, and If, famous for being the home of the Chateau d’If in which the Count of Monte Cristo was imprisoned in Alexandre Dumas’ great novel.

Although the islands look as barren as those in the Sea of Cortez, they get a good review from the Wanderer’s friends Simon and Kelly Jones and their nine-year-old son Jasper aboard the Fisher 28 cat Catkin.

"We’re currently enjoying the fabulous cruising community, and the wonderful landscapes and seascapes, of the Iles de Frioul just off Marseille, which is just three miles from Marseilles and has a number of fine anchorages and a 750-berth marina. It’s is a hidden gem worthy of an extended visit."

The Wanderer met the Jones family at the Arsenal Marina in Paris last year and learned that Simon, a Brit, lived in San Rafael in 1977 and was one of the first readers of Latitude 38. He’d spend his winters sailing on great yachts in the Caribbean. After surviving the tragic Fastnet Storm of 1979 aboard the great Fife 72 Latifa, he went to meditate in India, met a gal, and soon found himself in Australia.

As the decades passed, Simon never lost his love for the sea. Which is why he and his wife Kelly take six months a year off from selling ‘gourmet popsicles’ at events around Adelaide to be on their cat in Europe with their son. They bought a Fisher 28 sailing cat in Strasbourg sight unseen from some Aussie friends last year, made it down to Paris, and more recently to the South of France. And now they’re on their way to Sicily.

But enough about the Joneses. If you were going to put some islands like the Iles de Frioul off the coast of California, where would you put them? Or maybe it would be a better idea to move the Channel Islands 50% closer to the mainland coast of California, and reorient them so they would all have many more good anchorages? We’ll forward your best proposals to the Department of the Interior, for what we expect will be immediate approval. 

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In what we’re calling the Main Event of this year’s Transpac, Phaedo3 and Maserati crossed the starting line yesterday and are sprinting for Honolulu — and possibly into Transpac history.
It’s that time of year when hundreds of West Coast sailors are having to make decisions — some of them quite expensive — about how to outfit their boats for Mexico and perhaps the South Pacific and beyond.