It's a very well weather protected marina. Its position upriver eliminates any influence of the swell and provides good protection from the Atlantic winds.
To enter the river one must call the marina for their pilot boat, there are several sandbanks that are not correctly charted and the channel is lined with small fishing boats tied to underwater lines, therefore the pilot boat guidance is required for both arrival and departure. And should be done as close possible to higher tide to ensure enough depth.
Although the difference between height tide and low tide (even inside the marina) can be of around 2 meters, the impact is non-existent. We do have a funny moment related to that.
We arrived during high tide around lunchtime, so when low tide was at its maximum we had been busy having lunch and tidying up the boat after the two days sail. All of sudden both of us noticed that there wasn't any movement on the boat, no swinging, bobbing, nothing. We looked to the marina wall sides and saw the big difference between tides marked on the walls.
Our immediate thought was: Shoot! We're stuck on the silt!
We rushed to turn on the navigation instruments to check our depth sounder. It said 2 meters.
Puzzled we looked around, why was there no movement? We had never felt this before... that's when we realized how calm this marina is.
Wifi is not reliable, toilets have low water pressure and not very hot water.
Water and electricity included and available in each berth.
Most of the restaurants work on the basis of cash payment but the area is reasonably quiet despite the number of people that come to the marina coffees and restaurants to socialise.
No nightclubs in the proximity but there's drums session every night nearby (on the two weeks we were here there was).
Sale Medina is a 5-minute walk and is great for provisioning, veggies are super cheap, fruit is just cheap.
To cross to Rabat we chose to use the little blue boats, 0.45€ for two people single crossing.
Tram and taxis (only the white taxis can cross the bridge, not sure the price but they also work on the basis of stopping to get more people in, like taxi-pool) are also available but at a much higher price. We prefer to help the income of the locals more directly by using the little boats, plus is really nice to cross like that.
***In the spirit of sharing our dreams and experiences we have shared this blog post in the NOFOREIGNLAND.COM website sailors community.