We drove pretty much straight to Hyeres the next day as there was an Olympic class international sailing regatta happening that John want to have a look at.

He loved it and met up with lots of people that he knew. They were predominantly young competitors. We met up with the Goerge twins Ula and Lotta. Beautiful girls. They are sailing for the German national team in the 49er FX class. They are the sisters of Hannah who came and stayed with us and the Makims last year.

It was really interesting talking to the girls. They just travel constantly around europe in the summer attending regattas. In winter they have two weeks on and two weeks off at Palma, Majorca training. They are hoping to go to Rio in August, but they are definitely going in November. They were leaving Hyeres and heading to Lake Garda, northern Italy for their next regatta. I think that they live off the smell of an oily rag. They have had an Audi car as Audi sponsors the German national team, however they have to buy their own boats and all of their equipment. That really surprised me. They are sponsored but not heavily. Fingers crossed that they make it for Rio. Good luck girls!

We spent two nights parked up under a tree. John spent his days at the regatta and I sorted the van and managed to get to a hairdresser.

As we left Hyeres late on the Saturday (26) afternoon we came across this huge beach. It was blowing a gale and there must have been somewhere near 1000 windsurfers and kite surfers. I have never seen anything like it in my life. There were as many on the shore as there were in the air.

We headed off trying to find an aire but couldn’t manage to find one. In this area the Casino supermarkets have dumping facilities and fresh water in their petrol stations but you have to pay 3 euro … not a problem, but once again our credit cards won’t work. Luckily we found a lovely French motor homer who let us use his credit card.

In the end we went back to the sailing club in Hyeres and parked in a carpark that had a barrier going into it but not out of it. So of course we just went in the out! All good until we were woken by a policeman at 10 am the next morning. He wasn’t too worried but asked us to move on.