Marseille in September: the gorgeous, warm and lovely home of Cousteau and diving itself.
We arrived to the crack of thunder, in a tropical downpour with the locals making dark mutterings about les rosbif having brought ze weather with them. Ah well, we’re Clidivers, we go diving in far worse. It’ll be fine. We loaded our kit up into Laurent’s lovely hardboat, Phenix, and headed off across the sea to Frioul island, just a few miles from Marsille. It was lumpy. There was horizontal rain. We got wet.
We checked into the Centre Leo Lagrand, a highly civilised French version of the Mountbatten Centre (unlimited red and rose on tap, 4 course dinner, friendly welcoming staff etc.) to be told that we were the first English divers ever to visit them. To them, we are “Groupe de Jeff”, and they laid on a table heaving with cheese laid for our arrival. What more could we ask for?
John recovers from another bout of epic chundering.
