YACHT a treat!
Piers Morgan and his sons discover their ideal holiday – roving the French Riviera on a gleaming 75ft cruiser
SATURDAY, AUGUST 20
‘MONEY can’t buy you happiness,’ s,’ observed rock star David Lee Roth, h, ‘but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.’
I’ve been on many fancy boats in my time and Roth’s premise is entirely correct: even without ever owning one, the experience has always made me feel very happy.
So when my three sons – Spencer, 23, Stanley, 19, and Bertie, 15 – suggested a ‘lads holiday’ on the ocean waves, I Googled ‘Charter yachts, French Riviera’ faster than Usain Bolt runs 100m and seduces women.
Our chosen vessel was Oasis, a gleaming white 75ft Sunseeker Manhattan, which can sleep up to eight guests and boasts four en suite cabins (all equipped with highquality linen, towels, Molton Brown shampoo etc).
I sourced it through Sunseeker Charters in Poole, which runs a very efficient pre-boarding online system in which you provide a comprehensive wish-list of food, drink and even water-sport preferences.
We requested everything from Yorkshire Gold tea, Weetabix and Puligny Montrachet wine, to live fishing bait and a set of free weights. All of it was waiting for us when we boarded in Antibes after our BA flight to nearby Nice.
Our crew is Captain Darren Drew, a calm, jocular and experienced yacht master who bears a comforting resemblance to Sir Ben Ainslie; his wife Rachel, the Angela Hart- nett of the seas, who was to provide us with dazzlingly good and varied feasts for breakfast and lunch; and a delightful stewardess, Roseanna.
We cruised down to Monaco and then headed to Quai des Artistes, a charming port-side restaurant, where we dined outside on delicious sea bass. The perfect start to what I already suspect is going to be a pretty perfect holiday.
SUNDAY
HAD a great night’s sleep. Boats, it transpires, are remarkably stable and comfortable when berthed in port. It’s only when you’re anchored out in the ocean without stabilisers that things can get a little rocky and rolly, as I discovered this afternoon. Much to my sons’ amusement, a few large swells swept through and enveloped me with nausea.
The cure came in the form of two Sea-Bands, knitted elasticated bands which apply pressure to your wrists, Chinese acupuncture-style, via plastic studs. It sounds a bit bonkers, but it works.
We spent the day and night in Villefranche, deservedly reputed to be one of the world’s five most beautiful bays, and surprisingly uncrowded. ‘Lots of people cancelled trips after the Nice terror attack,’ explained Captain Drew.
Dinner was at Trastevere, one of a number of chic bistros on the waterfront. In a defiant gastronomic two fingers to IS, which despises such Western largesse, I devoured l’escargot, rib eye steak, a splendid cheese plate, several very large glasses of fine claret, and a giant tumbler of whiskey.
‘Dad, are you hooned?’ asked Spencer suspiciously as I swayed erratically on the walk home. ‘What doth that mean?’ I slurred. ‘Ah, so you are.’ ‘Sea sickness,’ I fibbed.
MONDAY
SPENT an idyllic day swimming, snorkelling and paddle-boarding in the gorgeously unspoiled bay of Anse des Fosses, adjacent to Cap Ferrat. The only jarring note, literally, was our onboard music.
Suffice to say, my own tastes do not readily collide with those of my sons. Hence a relentless battle for the yacht’s airwaves between Sinatra and Kanye West, Ella Fitzgerald and Bastille. One I usually lost. Today there seemed to be an especially ghastly cacophony of screeching rats pounding from the stereo system. ‘What is this garbage?’ I growled. ‘It’s a Top 40 lucky dip,’ said Spencer.
‘Are we just very unlucky then?’ I replied.
Late in the afternoon we sailed up to Antibes and dined at the Nacional restaurant in the heart of the old town. ‘Tell me what to have,’ I said to the waitress.
‘Pork fillet stuffed with foie gras and oyster mushrooms,’ she replied, firmly. I liked her certainty and took her advice.
It was one of the best dishes I’ve tasted in my entire life. The boys went for a variety of steaks and all gave similarly ecstatic reviews.
TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY
HEADED three hours north to Ile de Porquerolles, one of three tiny and very beautiful islands which form the Iles d’Hyeres off the coast of Toulon.
The boys fished off the side of the boat as I read Boris Johnson’s entertaining biography of Winston Churchill. After two hours, I examined their ‘catch’ bucket, which contained three minnows and a jellyfish. ‘What’s this? The bait?’ I asked. ‘No, it’s what we’ve caught,’ they replied in unison, a few seconds elapsing before realising I already knew this. I jumped in for a swim. ‘Time for the harpoon,’ Spencer instructed Captain Drew. ‘There’s a whale in the water.’
Both nights we dined heartily well in the small main village square around which all Pourquerolles nightlife action happens.
I barely heard an English accent. This is a well-kept French secret and definitely worth a visit.
THURSDAY
TO ST TROPEZ, a place I love so much I even selected my wife Celia purely because she bears a resemblance to its most famous resident,
Brigitte Bardot. We parked outside La Plage des Graniers bay, from where Celia and our daughter Elise – staying at a friend’s villa in the town – joined us via the Oasis tender.
There must be more joyful spectacles than a wide-eyed, squealing four-year-old marauding around a luxury yacht for the first time, but I haven’t seen one.
We dined at Les Graniers beach restaurant – a favourite of Joan Collins – on a delicious tapas-style menu of sardines, freshly caught dorade, and tandoori chicken skewers.
Then we walked down to the Old Port to sit in Le Senequier, an eyewateringly expensive cafe directly opposite all the biggest, flashiest super-yachts. It’s worth the €25 mohitos to soak in the full hilarious glory of the planet’s most ludicrous people-watching experience.
The boys went clubbing at a place called VIP Room until 6am. Their verdict? ‘Sick.’ Ironically, that is exactly how they looked on their return.
FRIDAY
RACHEL excelled even by own high standards with a lunch of gigantic prawns, steak and particularly delicious corn-on-the-cob (‘The secret is to cook it in boiling water with a cup of milk,’ she confided).
We then cruised to St Raphael and rapidly wished we hadn’t.
It’s a seaside resort just a few miles down from St Tropez but, in terms of style, it’s more Benidorm than Bardot; all neon lights, fast food joints and hordes of tanktopped tourists. Not my cup of tea.
We wasted an infuriating hour trudging around looking for somewhere even vaguely nice to eat before my patience and mood deteriorated and I stomped back to the boat. My sons arrived 20 minutes later with a Happy Meal from McDonald’s. ‘Here you go, father,’ said Stanley. ‘There’s a free toy inside to replace the ones you threw out of your pram earlier.’
Talking of toys, the boat’s owner is a tech junkie like me (he even installed a full underwater LED system with 70 colour patterns) so there is excellent wi-fi and high-speed 4G internet, and a full Sky TV package which ensured we didn’t miss out on our shared loves of Arsenal football, England cricket and Will Ferrell movies. Oasis also houses wakeboards, mono-skis, water-skis, paddle-boards and a towable Airstream inflatable which turned Captain Drew into a demonic monster, earning him a new nickname from Stanley: ‘Captain Savage.’
SATURDAY
ESCAPED back to St Tropez and recovered with a long lunch on Pampelonne Beach at Le Club 55, a fabulously decadent outdoor eaterie beloved of Ferrari-driving playboys and A-list celebrities.
Bill Gates, Bono and Elton John were all there this week.
Unfortunately, today’s stardust came in the form of Lord Sugar, growling at the very next table.
Even he, though, couldn’t mar a magical experience.
We gorged on crab, lobster and mussels, washed down with lashings of Minuty Rosé as a live jazz band performed. It’s the place where I’d have my last meal if I had four hours left to live.
Tonight, we sipped beer at Cafe des Arts in the Place des Lices and watched old Frenchmen play ferocious boules. Around 9pm, four heavily armed soldiers suddenly marched through the square. I fear life in this wonderful country will never be quite the same again.
SUNDAY
TO CANNES, where we strolled in glorious sunshine along the famous Croisette, dived into a few shops for the compulsory Provence purchase of pastel-coloured linen shirts, and dined with our crew at a unpretentious local restaurant called La Brouette de Grand Mere – Grandmother’s wheelbarrow – which serves simple rustic food, superbly cooked. Highly recommended.
MONDAY
BACK to Antibes for our final day. It’s a great place to shop, lunch or hit the beach.
I loved the freedom of a yacht holiday; you can basically go where the hell you like, fuel permitting, at the pace you like.
You also need very little clothing – we lived the whole time in swimming trunks, shorts, T-shirts and sandals. To do all this up and down
the French Riviera, my favourite part of the world, felt like Utopia.
It’s not cheap, but a ten-day charter like ours is about in line with the cost of a fortnight at a five-star all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean. The boys loved every second too and are already keen to do it again next year.
‘The bad news is that the owner is selling this boat,’ said Captain Drew forlornly, as we reluctantly bid farewell. Then he smirked: ‘The good news is he’s bought a new one also called Oasis – it’s 20ft bigger, with stabilisers and a jet-ski!’
Magnifique!