BOAT-COMPARATOR Guide
Renting a boat in Six-Fours and Saint-Mandrier: Toulon Bay's quieter capes
Cap Sicié, the Saint-Mandrier peninsula, the Embiez islands off Le Brusc: a calmer alternative to Toulon Bay's packed summer anchorages.
Between Toulon and Bandol, two peninsulas close off the bay without ever drawing as many boats as their better-known neighbours. Six-Fours-les-Plages and Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer offer two very different faces of the Var coastline, just a few miles apart.
Cap Sicié, the headland that catches the wind
This rocky promontory separating Toulon Bay from the bay of La Ciotat is known for its exposure — it's one of the busiest wind- and kitesurf spots on the Var coast whenever the breeze picks up. By boat, it's best rounded in calm weather, saving a closer look at the headland for a day without chop.
Le Brusc, gateway to the Embiez islands
The small harbour of Le Brusc, in Six-Fours, is the shortest departure point for the nearby Embiez islands, historically owned by the Ricard family and home to the Paul Ricard Oceanographic Institute — a crossing of just a few minutes to a sheltered anchorage.
Saint-Mandrier, the peninsula that closes the inner bay
A former French naval aviation base, the Saint-Mandrier peninsula closes off Toulon's "petite rade" on its southern side and offers, on its inner face, anchorages noticeably more sheltered than the open bay — a good fallback when the mistral picks up.
Why pick a less crowded anchorage
Steering a trip towards these quieter anchorages isn't just about personal peace and quiet. A 2022 study published in Ocean & Coastal Management, which built a tourism carrying capacity index for Mediterranean islands (case study: Naxos, Greece), notes that tourist pressure concentrated on a small number of highly popular sites degrades their ecological condition faster than if it were spread across several comparable anchorages (see the study on Google Scholar) — one more reason to choose Six-Fours or Saint-Mandrier over an already crowded anchorage.
Comparing boats
Boat-Comparator shows the boats actually available in Six-Fours-les-Plages and Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer for your dates. To place these two capes within the rest of the bay, our guide to boat rental in Toulon rounds out the itinerary nicely.
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