I have not posted or written up this blog for a couple of days because
we have no internet access, so I don’t know when this will be read.
On Thursday night we had a tolerably comfortable night at anchor. The wind dropped and the swell got
better, so we slept well. The
swell got up a bit in the morning, but it wasn’t too bad.
But disaster struck as we decided to leave. Richard sent me up forward to take up the anchor, but when I
put my foot on the button to raise the anchor nothing happened. At first I just assumed that one of us
had kicked the switch off. So I
went below to put it on only to find it was already on. When I went back to the anchor, still
nothing happened. More worryingly,
when I put my foot on the down button it worked. So, we had to take the anchor up by hand. I started, but could not continue. So I went to steer, while Richard
pulled it up. I am certain that
there is a way of winding it up on the windlass like a winch, but we couldn’t
work out how to do that or for that matter where the correct winch handle for
the windlass was. But Richard did
a great job and got it up. It is a
bit of a task to feed the chain back into the windlass to go to the locker, but
I did that bit. We now must find
someone to fix it because on this coast most of the stops are anchorages, not
marinas and we can’t be doing with pulling that thing up each time.
The wind as usual is very light in the morning. But we really don’t have far to go, so
we sail all the way. We are doing
less than 4 knots so we put the fishing line out, but catch nothing. After we get past the headland we are
on a dead run. Richard poles out
the genoa, and we are going fairly well bearing in mind we have so little wind.
As usual just as we approach mid-day the wind starts to pick up. It eventually gets to 8-9 knots and we
are doing nearly 5 knots, which isn’t bad. We are approaching Calvi, our destination. The pilot book calls it the most
beautiful place in the Med. It is
very dramatic. There is a huge
citadel and old town just on the side of the harbour as we go in. The bay is large and surrounded by mountains,
some of which are over 2500 metres and still have a bit of snow on them. We are given a place in the harbour
with no problem.
We rush to the harbour office to check in and to get details of an
electrician who can look at our windlass.
They give us a number.
Richard rings it, but the man says it is impossible for him to come
today. Richard doesn’t try to see
when he can come and instead goes back to the harbour office to get another
name. But when he returns he says
there is no one else. I look up
the place in the Bloc Marine, which has advertisements for mechanics and
repairs. There is an ad for Calvi,
but it is for the same man whose number we have been given. So Richard rings him back and asks when
he can come and he says he is unavailable for a month! This is not good. I then note that there is at least one
chandlery here in port and they have helped us find craftsmen in the past. In fact we find three chandleries. The first one we go into makes a couple
of calls and finds someone to come out tomorrow morning. So we are feeling a bit better about it
all.
We then have a bite of lunch and walk around. We decide rather late that we should go and see the
citadel. We were told earlier that
the way to do it is to get a sound guide from the tourist office. It is 4:00pm when we get there and at
first they say it is too late because they close at 6:00 and the tour takes 2
hours. We persuade them we will do
it quickly and we start out. We
have one machine with two earphone sockets and earphones and the idea is we
will both listen at once. We make
the steep climb up to the citadel entrance only to find that only one of the
earphone sockets works! This is a
nuisance. But we do get around and
listen to most of the commentary by keeping swapping over. It is all very old and impressive. Also they claim that Christopher
Columbus was born here. Now the
Genovese claim he was from Genova, but then Calvi was part of Genova at the
time, so it is possible. What the
guide doesn’t mention is that Nelson came here, looked at the Citadel and
decided that it was impregnable so he landed some cannon and attacked it from
the land side and bopped it.
We get back to the tourist office in good time before they close. We complain bitterly about the duff
machine, but they do nothing for us except offer to let us have another one
tomorrow morning, which is no good at all. They are not permitted to give refunds. We are less than impressed by the
attitude here. The harbour is much
the same. It is fairly expensive,
but the facilities are useless.
Having paid 53 Euros for berthing we don’t expect to have to pay 2.50 euro
for each shower on top. And the
shower and toilet block closes at 7:30 each day and for three hours over lunchtime. Not good.
As I have said, we have had no good internet access. So before dinner we
go to a local bar that has internet access. The problem is their system will only allow one device to be
on the network. We connect my iPad,
and that gets all our e-mails, but does not allow me to post this blog. When we go back to the boat we try our
internet machine only to find that we have run out of credit and because they
do not warn you in advance, we cannot top up on the internet, because we have
no access or credit!
We eat dinner on the boat.
I make a chicken tangine. I
have done this recipe before at home, but it is more complicated on the boat
particularly as I have to grate one and a half onions. Real crying time that. But dinner works out fine. We then go ashore and Richard gets an
ice cream by way of desert. So to
bed. There is a loud bar blasting
music out, but we are so tired we fall asleep immediately.
This morning we have to get up really early to clear the forward cabin
so the electrician can reach the wiring for the windlass. The saloon is full of junk from the
lockers and the rest. We shall
have to try to organise it better.
The electrician does turn up and takes ages to try and work out what is
wrong. At one stage he thinks that
all he can do is make one button work and suggests reversing the switches, so
that the anchor comes up on electricity, but must be put down manually. That is OK for a short fix, but we
really want the windlass to work normally, so in the end he replaces the relay
and both buttons, which when we see them clearly have very corroded
contacts. But at least we now have
a working windlass, albeit at a cost!
We have another small crisis.
As I am making breakfast I find that the gas cylinder has run out. That is not a surprise. We have been out 5 weeks, so we would
expect to run out of gas. The big surprise
is that we do not have a full spare.
All trip Richard has been telling me we have a spare, so despite having
had several opportunities to get a new full cylinder, we have not done so,
thinking we would use up the one we have and then connect the other new one. But guess what. Yes, we have no full cylinder. The other one is also empty. If this happened anywhere else we would
have been in real trouble. It is
pure luck that we ran out in a harbour with three chandleries selling gas!
So with gas sorted and windlass working we do our shopping. We go to a large supermarket just at
the edge of town and get all we need.
We even buy sushi for lunch.
Only problem is we have no chopsticks on board. I never needed them before. I’m not rushing to get any. We manage with finger and forks.
Our only failure is that we cannot find an Orange shop to top up our
internet device. We find an SFR
shop and they tell us that the Orange shop is in Ile Rousse. So that is no good. It looks like we
will be without internet for a few days.
It is a beautiful day, so we head off to the beach. The town has a spectacular beach. Not very wide, but with very fine white
sand and it goes on for about 5 miles.
It is very shallow and really is perfect for children. We are too wacked to take all our gear,
so instead we hire very comfortable sun beds and an umbrella and have a lovely
afternoon. Meet a couple from New
York, which was a bit amusing.
With reluctance we return to the boat at 5:30. We shower on board and put the front cabin back
together. We have now made it much
neater, so that is an advantage to our having to clear it out.
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