Video of Our Club by Francois Gautier
Below is a video created by Francois Gautier a long-time member of our CIPA (our diving club). I think it’s pretty freakin’ awesome, mostly because I am in it. 
Look for the guy in the wetsuit, and you’ll find me . Anyways, I’d like to give a special thanks to Francois for posting this. To everyone else, I recommend stopping over at his site: OceanColors
CIPA En Hiver by Francois Gautier
Port-Cros
Gorgeous and colorful Girelles can be seen at Port-Cros
We spent the last weekend in Port-Cros, which is about 2 hours west of Nice by car. Port-Cros is an Island that features a National Park off the coat near Hyères and Toulon. It is unique in that it features a 600 meter protected maritime zone around the island. The fish and aquatic life are remarkably preserved here, making for excellent snorkeling and diving.
The water was warm (at least in July), even though the lady at the port ticket office in Hyères warned us that the water was terribly cold off shore. You have to take a boat from Hyères to the island (get to the docks early if you want a good seat on the boat!), which takes about an hour. Tickets can be had for about 25 Euros per person.
Once you reach the island, you will have to do some hiking, unless you want to rent a boat. If you have your boating license you can rent, a 25 cc engine boat for something like 140-150 Euros for a half day. If you have no license, you can rent a 6cc boat for about the same. There is also a guy there that has a clear-bottomed boat that runs tours around the bay for around 15 Euros.
Port Cros had several different varieties of Jellyfish when we were there.
We hoofed it to the closest beach, which is called “Plage de la Palud”. It takes about 40 minutes to hike to the spot. If you move real fast (at almost a run), it’s doable in a little over 20. There is some climbing involved, but if you are used to hiking, it is not too bad. The highest altitude is 194 meters on the entire island, or around 600 feet. Decent shoes are recommended, since the path is a bit rough in places, but I did it in flip flops. There are 2 other accessible beaches on the island, but we didn’t make those, since they are quite a bit farther out.
Once at Plage de la Palud, you can find a protected, roped-off area, free from boat traffic to snorkel in. This area is really the jewel of the surrounding area, as there are lots of fish and critters to see. Interestingly, there is a Marine Discovery Hike through the area that has underwater signs with listings and pictures of different fish and plants to help you identify what you are seeing. I found this extremely helpful. Also note that at the port in Port-Cros, you can get waterproofed cards that will guide you through the Marine Discovery Hike.
The last boat back to Hyères leaves at 5:30 pm, so don’t miss it! If you miss it, you have to take a water taxi, which you’ll have to shell out more than 200 Euros for! We made sure we were back an hour early, and we enjoyed a couple drinks and some ice cream at the shops and cafes at the port, which was excellent to cool down and rehydrate at the end of the long day in the sun.
Dorade Royale photographed in Port-Royale
If you go, be sure to bring a good supply of suntan lotion, as there is not much shade, and a beach umbrella would help too. We rigged up a little lean-to using towels and sticks, and that helped a lot.
Oh, and an extra tip, since Hyères lies on what they call in french the “Presqu‘île de Giens“, which is basically a peninsula with a broad land mass connected by a very thin strip of land, be sure to plan for extra time when leaving. Traffic backs up pretty quick (5000 cars go through on busy days) around leaving time, and you might be in for a wait, especially during the high season. One good tip we got that saved us a lot of time was that there are two roads that traverse the narrow strip in and out. The westernmost road is less traveled, and therefore gets less backed up. It was still backed up for us, but the other way looked to be FAR worse.
That’s it, if you get a chance to go, I highly recommend it.
