Anchorage

Plage de L'Estaque

Shelter: N, NE, E, NW
Seabed: sand, algae
Anchoring: Allowed

Open anchorage off L'Estaque beach in the northern suburbs of Marseille, on the Côte Bleue side of the Rade.

Beach
Seagrass

Guide

Approach and anchoring

Approach from the south into the northern Rade de Marseille. Sand and weed bottom, holding variable on the posidonia patches. Sheltered from N, NE, E and NW. Fully exposed to SW swell and the mistral backlash that funnels across the bay. Stay clear of the commercial traffic line into the Grand Port Maritime.

Practical

Day anchorage only in settled weather. Corbières harbour lies 0.4 nm to the NE and L'Estaque harbour 1.1 nm to the E for shelter if wind turns. Train station L'Estaque on the Marseille-Miramas line 400 m inland.

Ashore

Village seafront with tapenade and panisse stalls along Plage de Corbières. The GR 2013 coastal footpath climbs north toward the Niolon creeks. Marker plaques on the quayside note the spots where Cézanne, Braque and Derain painted the bay between 1870 and 1908.

History

L'Estaque was a fishing village annexed by Marseille in 1850. Paul Cézanne stayed here during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and returned repeatedly until 1885. Braque and Derain painted their first Fauvist and proto-Cubist canvases from the same viewpoints in 1906 to 1908.