The season has started at Adventure St Tropez with amazingly yummy weather, wall to wall sunshine all last week and this week too. Easyjet have a 10% sale on right now to Nice, so what are you waiting for…plenty of availability of weeks beginning 19/26th May and also some weeks in June have availability
See you soon, I am off for a quick sunbathe
Advice on Driving and Trailering a boat to France
With the likelihood of increased air fares from April onwards, driving to a French holiday destination looks even more attractive this year. Over the past ten years many of our guests here at Adventure St Tropez have driven to us and we have had many requests for advice when driving and trailering a boat toFrance.Golden rules are:-
If possible travel outside the busy holiday periods or travel any day other than a Saturday
Book ferry well in advance prices are always cheaper.
Check your insurance and breakdown cover (stand alone cover is available at a reasonable rate) and make sure you have the phone contact numbers with you and have cover for your trailer (if transporting one).
Carry a basic tool box and roadside breakdown set.
Generally driving in France is easy and hassle free given that the peages add up especially in a long trip you need to allow £100 in peage fees to travel from top to bottom of France. It is always a good idea to take Sat Nav not only for navigation but for noting the few speed cameras, however I would advise taking a road map as back up, not only for the fun of checking the route, but also as back-up in case a glitch (such as being routed up a closed mountain road) occurs….many a tale to tell about that one!
If trailering a boat make sure of the following
Cover the prop with an adequate prop cover
Coupler, hitch and hitch ball are of the same size
Coupler and safety chains are safely secured to hitch of tow vehicle
All fasteners are properly tightened
Boat is securely tied down to trailer (winch line is not a tie down)
Wheel lug nuts are properly tightened
Wheel bearings are properly adjusted and maintained
Load is within maximum load carrying capacity
Tyres are properly inflated
All trailer lighting is working properly
Trailer brakes are properly adjusted and working (if trailer is so equipped)
Check the rules for trailering are the same inFrance as theUK
Also a good idea to carry spare trailer tyres and bearings.
Once in France
you will need an ICC (International Certificate of Competence) to drive your
powerboat or a Personal Watercraft Competency Certificate for your jet-ski. The
waters in France are well monitored and it is very likely you will need to produce your license.
We offer both these Courses at Adventure St Tropez as a Registered RYA Training Centre in the South of France we are able to issue the licenses after successful completion of your course. You need to bring along a passport sized photo for the licenses.
If all this seems like too much hassle we provide a very special multi-watersports holiday for families, couples and singles. Most important to us is teaching you new skills and as instructors with over twenty years of experience in all the sports we teach we get great pleasure from seeing our guests succeed and gain confidence in their abilities. Groups are
small and the tuition is one to one in most cases, so success is assured.
Of course learning watersports is so much easier in the warm and relaxed atmosphere of the south of France, and the fun and glamorous atmosphere surrounding St Tropez is always uplifting. We make sure the groups have a great time both during the day and night. With our local knowledge we arrange evenings out so everyone gets to sample a taste of the ‘good life’ at a reasonable price.
What a wonderful way to spend your holiday, learning watersports in the warm waters of the med, meeting new friends, and having a ball in the evenings.
Adventure St Tropez www.adventure-sports.co.uk or www.activity-holiday.com
01736761838 or 07710219465 or inFrance 0033674747257
I know many of you guys from stranger shores plan a trip to Europe sometime and included in that would be working time. I guess that would be, wherever possible, somewhere warm and lively and glamorous. Fitting the bill perfectly for that is the Cote D’Azur, south of France; aptly named for the beautiful blue sparkling sea. This is the playground for the rich and famous; from Monaco down to St Tropez the waters are home to the most spectacularly opulent boats in the world, and hence they need plenty of crew to keep them going. So I thought you might like to know about the
new regulations relating to the ICC (International Certificate for Competence)
Powerboats. This quali is now available to non-Eu residents (so that includes
you Aussies, Kiwis and anyone else not resident in the EU) and is an automatic license obtained after doing your RYA Level 2 Powerboat qualification. This quali is the one that most super yachts like their crew to obtain, it means you are qualified to drive the tenders for such jobs as water-taxi for guests, accompanying water sports trips, getting to port to
collect croissants for the guest and myriad other boat ferrying jobs. The
course itself takes two days and covers all aspects of practical boat driving
plus most importantly coastal awareness, and seamanship.
At Adventure St Tropez …yes, good guess… based just 2
nautical miles from St Tropez and we offer this course at the amazing price of
395 Euros, which is about 200 Euros cheaper than anyone else, if you get a
small group of 3 then we offer discounts. The course is all in-house, so we are able to
issue the license at the end of the course. Later on if you need to be
qualified for night-passage we also offer the Advance Powerboat course.
We did have a few Kiwi guys come for the course last year,
and I think they were more than delighted to get a sneaky wakeboard session
thrown in at the end of the course.
You can check out more about the course on our website at www.adventure-sports.co.uk/rya and email me from there.
Jenny Cruse
Hi guys here is a link to a great on-line wakeboard magazine, edited by Luke Thomas (ex Adv St Trop wakeboard instructor) there are hints on keeping fit in the winter, how to master those tricky moves, and top wakeboarder profiles plus some awesome photos shoots. Check it out!
Why not treat your nearest and dearest wakeboard or boating enthusiast to a Wakeboarding weekend or Jetski/boating license in the sunny south of France.
Weekend courses include accommodation and start from £175. Jet ski and boat licenses start from £195 and can also include accommodation.
A great idea to keep your loved ones safe and happy on the water!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/Adventure.St.Tropez Hi all this is our new facebook page, if you click on the posts you can see the latest photos of guests who have enjoyed the sun and fun already this year.
We really are so lucky here in the south of France, we get the best weather and this time of year the Gulf is as quiet as can be. Why not come and join in the fun!
Easyjet have a sale on now for flights up to 13th July and we are offering 10% off holidays to all pevious customers in May and June. Plus 100 Euros off a Powerboat Course. Our new Osprey Vipermax is a top boat to drive and wakeboard behind. Early season is a great time to come, quieter waters and ideal conditions. Hope to see you soon!
Adventure Sports now has a new JetSki for the coming season. A new Yamaha VX, 4 stroke, 110 hp, three seater. More powerful and more reliable.
We look forward to working with the new machine, both in experience sessions for our holiday customers and the RYA PWC courses that we also run down here in sunny St.Tropez!
Jess Tucker and her friend Nicola were on a weeks holiday with us June 2007 and as we had to drop off Nickie and Kath at Nice airport and pick up our new Wakeboard Instructor Luke Thomas we decided to fit in a days white water rafting at the Gorge of Verdon and then go to the airport. If Jess was regretting looking like a drowned kitten tipped out and dumped by various grade 4 rapids in cold mountain water she hid it well. Smiles all round, and what a nice chap too, good looking, good tempered, good taste in boardies and a great line in tantrums, whirliebirds and inverts thrown every time we passed another boat..he loved the applause. Jess certainly approved as by day three I previewed some hand holding which they tried to hide….sweet. On Friday night several litres of Rose – midnight skinny dipping (nice move Jess) and hand holding was open….so sweet. Jess stayed a second week and the rest is history. Jess and Luke have been together ever since, and are now spending a year touring and working out in New Zealand. A lovely lovely couple, we send them all our best wishes. It was a match made at Adventure Sports (St Tropez) ………there will be more!
Nicky Wilkes our long time friend, fellow snowboarder, wakeboarder, Adventure Sports Instructor and Fitness Trainer is moving to Valencia. Many of her friends and fitness students had a great farewell night out in Falmouth on Saturday to say goodbye. Happily we will still see lots of her in St Tropez as she plans to come out next summer to help out when she can. Many of you will have met her and know that her enthusiasm and energy is a great motivator to us all. Best of luck in Valencia Nickie and look forward to seeing you next summer. She continues to offer personal training at www.personal-fitness-training.co.uk