A Pointu Photo Story

Time to go back in the Water.

Regular readers of this blog will already be familiar with my series of short interviews with the Pointu owners at the Port l’Abri de l’Olivette.

I spent quite a lot of time at Olivette this spring taking photos of the people preparing their Pointus for the water. It quickly became my new favourite place to be. The people in the port here are so friendly and welcoming that I found myself returning to take pictures pretty much every weekend throughout May and June.

May and June is a busy time at Olivette. It’s the only time you will see pretty much all of the boat owners down here at the same time. The first few weekends are spent preparing the Pointus for the water. After that everyone in the port gets together to heave the boats back into the sea. This is quite a big task as the boats aren’t light and the beach is steep and rugged. It looked quite dangerous to me, which it probably is, but they appeared to know what they were doing. It’s definitely something worth watching if you are in Cap d’Antibes in late spring. They still use the same method of rolling the boats on logs which people have used for hundreds of years. To witness it is like being transported back in time.

After the exertion of heaving these heavy boats back into the water everyone gathers around the Ports only picnic table for food and a glass or two of Ricard. What a thoroughly civilised way to spend the weekends!

Journées du Patrimoine

Unfortunately I have been so busy these last few months with photo shoots and holidays that I have only just found the time to post these pictures. ironic as it’s only a few weeks until all the boats come out again! At least the photo story does coincide with this weekends Journées du Patrimoine taking place all over France. As part of this annual event you can come to Port l’Abri de l’Olivette to meet some of the regular faces at the port and even better take a little trip in one of the Pointus, weather permitting of course.

Trips take place on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th of September from 14h – 17h and last from 15-20 minutes. I missed it last year as I was photographing something else but I will definitely be there this weekend.

See you there!

For a full programme of all the events click here