Well we made it back from Norway yesterday. All went to plan.
In the end we hired a car so we can re-provision easily. The only problem is that the weather is
rubbish. We left Oslo in the sun
and it was warm. We arrive in Nice
and it is only 16 degrees and it is raining. Also the wind forecast is dreadful. They are talking about 7’s and 8’s and
worse than that it will be on the nose.
So it may be that we will have to stay here in St Laurent for another
day, dull though that will be.
As the day on Monday goes on the wind builds and builds. It is blowing a 6 steadily in the
marina and the boat is moving all over the place. But when we got up this morning, the sun was poking through
and the wind seemed to have gone.
The posted weather forecast is still poor. They are now only predicting 5-6, which would be fine if it
wasn’t on the nose. But we decide
to go anyway. Richard returns the
car to the airport. He hit lucky
with parking. He could not make
any of the machines take cards or cash for the 20 Euro parking, so they just
let him out without paying.
Although the wind is on the nose to go straight to our destination,
Menton, we have to tack out anyway to dump the tank. So we are having quite a good sail. It is a beat, but we are going smoothly
and making nearly 7 knots. The sea
is a bit lumpy. The high winds
have churned it up, but as I said, it isn’t bad sailing. It starts out at a 4, but is steadily
builds. So we take in a couple of
reefs to be on the safe side.
Richard would like us to stop for the night on anchor in Villefranche. It is supposed to be beautiful and
would be protected from the wind out of the east, sitting behind Cap Ferrat. We start to go in, but I am anxious to
make it to Menton, so we carry on.
This could have been a mistake.
We decided to stop sailing because if we have to take all the way to
Menton we won’t get there until very late. So we take the genoa in and motor straight into the wind and
the waves. Now it is so rocky that
I can’t take it. It only takes
about 30 minutes for me to start to feel funny. I take a pill and when that doesn’t help much I retreat
below. But even there I feel
rotten. I manage not to be sick,
but it is a very close thing. It
is those short waves here in the Med that get to me.
It is a terrible shame about the wind. It is a lovely sailing wind to Menton, being 4-5, but as I
said straight on the nose and into a very short lumpy sea that makes the boat
corkscrew all the way.
I want to get up to help Richard into port, but the sea doesn’t seem to
flatten out. Suddenly I see a huge
concrete wall outside the window and realise that despite the rocking we must
be nearly in port. So I rush up on
deck and find we are approaching the harbour entrance, but it is still too rocky
to take the mainsail fully in or set the fenders. I take over from Richard doing the deck work when we
actually are in the harbour in flat water. Then we tie alongside to the fuel pontoon to get berthing
instructions. It is now very nice
out. Sunny and the wind has dropped
here in the harbour. We are
allocated a nice berth, with the shower block just at the end of our pontoon.
We have paid for only one night, but we will probably stay a second
night. The wind is expected to be
a 6 on the nose again tomorrow and I can’t face that. We got in so late and so tired that we have barely seen the
town and for a change we are in a place, here on the south coast of France,
where we have never been before.
Finally, a colleague of mine who has a flat here got in touch. We are having breakfast with her in the
morning here on the boat, and shall probably stay. But we shall see what the weather brings.
One more problem. Next stop
is Italy and Richard has only just realised that we have to have an Italian
translation of our insurance policy ready for inspection at any time, or the
boat will be detained until we get one.
He has e-mailed the insurance company and they have e-mailed the
translation to us, but we want to get it printed before we enter Italian
waters. Another good reason for
not leaving until Thursday.
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