Tempting as our berth was, we did move on. We left late as we are not going far. The weather forecast is for a scorcher,
so it would be nice to be somewhere we can swim. We decide to go to Portoferraio, which is where Napoleon was
exiled to. However, we have
decided not to go into the town marina, but instead to anchor in the
harbour. Richard says that the
anchorage is only half a mile from the town and we can take the dinghy in to
look around.
We set off in bright sunshine and little wind, but we put the mainsail
up just in case. Soon the wind
picks up and for a change it seems to be in the right direction. As we are only going a few miles, we
are in no hurry, so we actually sail all the way. As we pass the last headland, we lose the wind or it swirls
around and goes on the nose, but Richard perseveres and as we come in to the
anchorage it is blowing 14 knots on the beam and we are screaming along at 7
knots! Richard leaves taking the
sails down to the last minute which makes me rather nervous. The problem with this port is that it
has ferries coming in and out constantly and “they make way for no one”. The port seems to have room for between
5 and 7 of them and they seem to come and go every quarter or an hour or so.
But without mishap, (and waiting for two ferries to cross) we anchor up
and have lunch. The really hot
weather does not seem to have materialised and I am really not hot enough to
swim. In fact, of the dozen or so
boats here and the two beaches we can see, none have any swimmers. Instead we decide to take the dinghy
into the town as suggested.
Well, that was an adventure.
Half a mile doesn’t sound much, but it is over a fairly open body of
water which was quite choppy and goes right across the ferry dock with all
their movements. Headlines like
“elderly English couple mowed down by ferry in Italy” started to come to
mind! But we did make it to the
town safely. We really couldn’t
see anywhere to put the dinghy, but finally found the end of a pontoon with
small boats, which seemed OK (and which the harbour officials later said was
fine).
So we looked around the town.
It is very pretty with coloured houses going up from the harbour to a
high citadel and other monumental buildings. We climbed almost to the top and went to see the house where
Napoleon lived during his exile.
We even got in for free on account of being so elderly!
After a good look around the town we get back to our dinghy and find it
is fine and joined by another two!
The trip back is worse that than coming over. It takes us over half an hour and we have to dodge one
ferry. It is also very splashy
because of the chop on the sea.
This means we can’t go very fast.
I am really relieved when we get back to the boat safely.
We have a BBQ on board - lamb kebabs. We are now settling in for the night. It seems quite comfortable. We had toyed with the idea of going to tie
up in the town tomorrow. We even
made enquiries as the harbour office.
They could take us and it would cost 81 Euros! However, we think we have done justice to the town, so we
will move on to another port on the south of the island. We need somewhere sheltered to stay
because high winds are forecast for Friday.
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