Monday 9 June 2014 - Cargese

We had an excellent night on our mooring.  I think it was the quietest and calmest night we have had since we started.  It was a shame to leave such a lovely place, but we must get a move on.   At the moment the weather is perfect for this area, but the forecasts we have seen suggest that the wind will build up by the end of the week, so we want to be somewhere with proper berths and shelter by then.

We first go around the next headland to Porto.  This is also part of the Nature Reserve and World Heritage site.  The scenery remains spectacular.  We try to go into the harbour in Porto, inside a river, where the pilot book suggests it can be possible to moor for the night.  But there is no one there to direct us to any mooring and it looks like all the moorings are used by the commercial boats that take tourists up and down these waters.  So we decide to go out and anchor for a bit, to have a swim.  We are very confused about the buoyage.  There is a line of yellow buoys along the shore, which usually means that no one should anchor inside them.  However, there are three boats anchored there and it is convenient, so we join them.  But it doesn’t take long for the local water police to come up to us and tell us we must move.  They are quite polite about it and we just have to move forward about 50 yards, so it is not a big deal - particularly as the windlass is working!

We have a lovely swim.  The sea here has got up to 23 degrees centigrade, so it is quite pleasant.  Then off we go.  We have decided to go into a port tonight called Cargese.  It seems to be a small port, but in an appropriate place with suitable berths.  We get here at about 3:30pm.  I call the port up on the radio and for the first time find they speak no English, so I massacre some French, but make it clear what we want and we are directed into a berth.  The odd thing is that is this port it is required to moor bows in, not stern first.  This is apparently because there are cement ledges next to the quay and boats going in stern first get damaged on them.  But the real problem this mooring method creates is how I am going to get off the boat.  I have never managed to climb over the front before.

When we look at it, it seems possible to get off.  The design of the front of our boat is not conducive to climbing off the bows.  There is a tiny gap and that is filled up with the anchor.  Many of the other boats have a little step on the bows, but we don’t.  However, the good thing is that the quay wall is quite high so the bow just comes up to it and there is no climb up or big jump down.  With effort we both manage to get on and off.  I have less trouble getting on than Richard because my small feet can find footholds around the anchor which he can’t use. 

So we have a walk around the harbour.  We are not going into the town which is way up the hill, as we don’t need anything from there. 

Dinner on the boat.  We are trying to keep away from biting insects, but not with great success.  We must now start to plan where to be for Richard’s birthday in two days.

Sunday 8 June 2014 - Girolata

We went to sleep so early yesterday that we had to get up fairly early.  Richard filled the water tank while I went into town to get croissants and bread for breakfast and lunch.  We got off fairly early, but are unhappy with the lack of weather forecast.  When we ask in the harbour office they say the screen and print off are the most recent forecast, but they are both from yesterday, so we don’t believe them.  Having no internet to look up the weather is getting to be a pain.

We are setting off to the Gulf of Porto, which is a nature reserve and a UNESCO world heritage site.  We are uncertain where we will go.  The pilot book is not very complimentary about the various ports and anchorages saying that they are very overcrowded and subject to terrible swells that make them at best uncomfortable and at worst dangerous.  But the weather forecast we have seen is very benign and as we progress that proves to be the case.  There is absolutely no wind in the morning and no swell, with a glassy sea.

Of course in these conditions we are motoring again.  The landscape is very dramatic.  High cliffs all coming down straight into the sea.  As we approach the Scandola Nature Reserve we come to huge red rocks which are even more dramatic. But best of all as we go into the bay we finally see a dolphin!  It is all on its own, but it does do one pass under our boat.

Richard has identified a place for us to anchor for lunch, Girolata.  However it is getting quite late when we get there.  At first I can’t believe we can anchor.  Only half a mile off the coast the depth is still over 80 metres.  For those not initiated into the art of anchoring, let me explain.  To safely anchor you need the anchor and chain to extend at least three times the depth of the sea where you want to stop.  If you are using rope instead of chain, you need even more.  This is because if your anchor chain is vertical to your boat, the anchor can break loose and you will not be secure.  We carry 60 metres of anchor chain, plus 30 metres of rope.  This means that we can anchor in no more than 30 metres depth and even that is not certain.  The ideal is to anchor in 10-15 metres.  So that is why I had doubts we would find water shallow enough to anchor.

But the book was right, the depth reduced dramatically and we found 12 metres in which to put down the anchor.  After our repairs the anchor windlass is working fine.  We have a pleasant lunch using up cold meats and old cheeses in the fridge.  I really like this place.  It is incredibly beautiful with the steep cliffs and red rocks.  There is a little village with really nothing more than a couple of modest restaurants, a bed and breakfast and a camp site.  There are beaches and it is really hot enough to go swimming.  Richard had it in mind to carry on from here to the little town of Porto, but I would like to stay.

The pilot book seems to say that except in the most settled conditions anchoring for the night can be dangerous.  We are in very settled conditions, but as a precaution we decide to move into the harbour where there are fore and aft moorings to rent.  So the harbour rib comes out and directs us to a mooring and attaches our lines, making life much easier.  So we are well settled.

For the first time we blow up the dinghy and row ashore to pay for the night and see the place.  I am still very pleased with it.  The only problem is that the beach is very rocky and uncomfortable under foot.  I am boiling and have changed into a bathing suit determined to swim.  I thought I might swim from the beach back to the boat.  However there are signs warning boat owners not to swim through the boats (presumably for fear of meeting a moving boat and getting in the way of a propeller).  So instead Richard rows us out to another little beach not far from where we anchored initially.  But that too is rocky.  But now I am determined to swim so rocks or not I go in.  It is heavenly.  All the heat of the day is washed off.  After a nice swim we get back in the dinghy and row to the boat.

I make a steak dinner while Richard tries out his new little crane to lower the outboard motor on the dinghy.  It takes him some time to work it out, but does succeed.  He even gets the outboard to work, which is something of a miracle as it has not been serviced or used for nearly a year and still has old petrol in it.  We now really feel like we are on holiday.

We have now finished dinner in the cockpit.  It is finally cooling down.  So perhaps soon we will go below.

Saturday 7 June 2014 - Calvi

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.

Have a nice dinner in town and buy some local cheese and fig jam, at great expense.  Hope it will make a good meal for tomorrow.

Wednesday 4 June 2014 - Saint Florent - Corsica

Didn’t post yesterday, because was just too tired.  We got up early but stayed in port long enough to buy some bread for lunch.  Then we headed out to sea to go to Corsica.  The sky was bright and clear, but it was not particularly warm.  There was virtually no wind and what little there was, was too close to sail.  So it was a long motor job.

By lunch time the wind had increased a little and as we had turned south it was behind us.  So we turned the engine off for lunch and had a proper meal in the cockpit under sail.  We are eating up the last of the Italian cheese and French pate.

Then back on engine and we get into Saint Florent on Cosrica at about 4:00pm.  It is a large, but pleasant port in the middle of a sweet seaside town.  We are on an outer pontoon, but it is quite comfortable.  We go up to the harbour office to book in and pay for two nights.  It is expensive (46 Euro), but not as bad as we had been warned about.  The main problem is that the showers and toilets are only open when the harbour office is open, which is for 3 hours in the morning and until only 5:30 at night.  Plus they want €2.50 for a shower, so we shall wash on board.

We have a little look around town.  There are lots of shops selling specialist Corsican items and several food stores plus a supermarket.  The supermarket sells ice, so we buy some and find fresh milk.

Back on the boat we settle down to a civilised afternoon and evening.  We make Pimms with our ice and eat some nice nibbles before having a dinner of pasta and fresh pesto.  Then we go back into the town and Richard finds himself a coffee ice cream for desert.

Today we are really on holiday.  We sleep fairly late and then go to the supermarket to stock up on some essentials.  It is now about 11:00am and we decide to spend the rest of the day on the beach.  The local beach is about a 15 minute walk away.  So we get all our stuff, including chairs, parasol and the like and make our way there.  We are surprised to find that on the other side of the town there is an enormous harbour for small boats.  There must be several hundred there.

The beach is quite wild.  There is nothing there except one small restaurant away from the sea front, and then dunes.  It is a sandy beach, but the water edge is full of weed and bits off the trees.  We set up our pitch and then sit out.  We take a walk down the beach and find the Michelin Rosette restaurant where we have booked for dinner.  It looks very pretty.  We note they have a pontoon where, if we had anchored in the bay we could have brought our dinghy.  Well, never mind, we shall just have to walk there tonight.

We were going to go back to the boat for lunch, but we are too lazy to drag all the gear back and forth, so we go to the little restaurant for a light lunch.  It is a funny place and we are the only customers.  The owner had rescued a bird (a kind of gull I think) that has fallen out of its nest.  It keeps screeching at its mother who keeps swooping over the place.  The owner says this is the fourth bird he has rescued.  He keeps them until they can fly and lets them go back to the wild.  In the meantime they get very tame and walk on his arm and affectionately peck at his face!

After several hours in the sun, back to the boat and then to a local café for a drink and to use their internet.  Then shower on board and off to the restaurant.  Because I am in nice shoes we choose to walk along the road and not the beach.  Big mistake.  It is twice as long and unpleasant without pavements much of the way.   Dinner is very nice.  We have the tasting menu and the matching wines.  We have a lovely time with the wine waiter telling us all about the wines.  The ones he has chosen more or less circumnavigate the island.  At the end he writes the details down for us and we will try to find them in our travels.  There was an incredibly light pink and a desert wine which we quite liked.

We ask for a taxi to take us back, but instead one of the waiters drives us back.  Very kind.  Now just a coffee on board and to bed.  We set off down the island tomorrow.

Monday 2 June 2014 - Capraia

Up really early with a view to leaving as soon as we can.  The weather is very nice.  All blue sky.  The forecast is for absolutely no wind, so it looks like it will be a motoring day.  At least we had a reasonable sailing day yesterday.

As expected we motored all day.  The sea was like glass. It all reminded me of the day we crossed the Irish Sea, except we did not see any dolphins.  That is a disappointment because we understand that these waters are supposed to be a reserve for dolphins and whales.

We get to the Island of Capraia.  It is in the same group as Elba, but it is small.  We had the impression from the pilot book that the harbour took only a limited number of boats, and was rather basic.  So we are surprised to find a very organised place with room for at least 50 boats and electricity and water.  When we get here it is fairly empty, but we are surprised how many boats come in during the afternoon.

The island only has one town, which is on the hill above the harbour.  We walk up.  There isn’t much to see, but it is cute.  There is an old castle, but it is only open in the mornings. 

So back to the boat for the afternoon.  We want to leave very early tomorrow because we have 43 miles to do to get to a port on Corsica.  We do have one problem though.  We can’t really make much of a lunch without bread and the only shop that sells it doesn’t open until 8:30am.  So we shall see how we get on.

Sunday 1 June 2014 - Marina Cale di Medici

We will move on and see how far we get.  The weather is lovely.  It is warm and sunny.  We set off at about 10am.  We are not sure where we are headed.  The original plan was to go to Livorno.  It is just a 4 hour sail away, but we would like to get further because we are now about 1-2 days behind our schedule, which means we will have less time in Corsica. 

As we set out the winds are light and Richard decides we should make better progress than we can by sail, so we are motoring again.  After about an hour the wind gets up a bit and I suggest that maybe we could sail, and so we put up the sails.  Not long after I note that the wind has been fairly consistent at 8 knots on the beam and I am wondering why Richard isn’t suggesting putting up the cruising chute.  It takes him about another hour to come to the same conclusion.  So after a year of no use our pretty sail goes up.  It makes a difference right away and we are now going very nicely at nearly 5 knots.

It is lunchtime and we are sailing so nicely in a flat sea that we have a proper lunch at the table under way.  I even make some Italian garlic bread to go with our cold meats.

After lunch we get to Livorno.  It does not look very attractive.  It is terribly industrial.  Also we are sailing along so well it seems a shame to stop.  So we carry on.  Richard has identified a place further down on the coast and so we make our way to Marina Cale di Medici.  We are really going well.  The wind has got up to 11-13 knots and at times we were doing over 7knots through the water.  But it is now time to take down the chute and go into harbour.  The book says this is another high charging harbour, but we need to stop, so what the hell.

We are directed into a space and helped to moor.  It is another one of those modern marinas with very high walls to moor to. So it will be another effort of climbing up the plank when it is at a very steep angle.  But we do get off and are pleasantly surprised to find that the mooring fee is not that bad.  We have a little walk around.  There is no town.  What there is, is a big development around the marina with shops and restaurants.  Then there is a path that goes to a number of small beaches with other cafes, ice cream parlours and bars.  We walk around these, but cannot find a coffee ice cream for Richard.

As we moored an English couple came to see us, Keith and Sue.  They are taking their boat to Trieste, near where they have a house.  They were keen to say hello, but they too have noted that there are nearly no English boats around this part of Italy.

We have dinner on board and then brave the plank again to go ashore had have showers.  On the way back from the shower we see Keith and Sue on their boat, a Gib Sea 33, called  Champagne II.  They invite us aboard for a drink and it is really nice to have some company for a change.

Tomorrow we go off to the Tuscan islands on the way to Corsica, weather permitting.

Saturday 31 May 2014 - Viareggio

Well, we must have had a worse night on the boat, but I can’t remember one.  The boat rocked and bucked back and forth all night and in the morning it was even worse.  Not only that but the weather has turned nasty.  It is very dark and cloudy and it clearly has been raining.  Not only that but on looking outside we find that one of our lines snapped in the night!  It was the one acting as a spring on the port side of the boat.  It was an old warp, but useful and we will find ourselves at a loss without it.

We want to wait to see the boatman who helped us get in yesterday.  Richard is convinced we have to pay him for the night’s mooring.  He finally comes, and confirms there is nothing to pay and he refused to take a tip for his help. 

By now the weather is worse.  It is pouring with rain.  I am still worried about the anchor being fouled.  So I am anxious not to go until there is someone about who can help us if there is any problem.  The rain finally abates a bit, so we decide to set off.  Next problem is that another of the lines has been destroyed.  It nearly wore through on our own cleat.  So now we need two new lines.  Not exactly a free night after we take that expenditure into account!

We do get away without problem.  The anchor was well set, but came up without mishap.  And in the drizzle we set out.  We are both wearing our new light rainwear.  So we shall see how that works. 

The sea is bumpy, but I had to take a pill just to cope with our mooring, so I am fine.  The rain comes and goes. At first there is no wind, and what little there is is on the nose.  So we are motoring.  We go past the other 4 villages that make up the cinque terre.  They all look very cute.  After a while the wind improves and goes up to 8 knots so we try to sail.  But it is slow going and we go back to motor.  We change our plans several times.  We were just going to go to the next port, Lerici, in the Gulf of Spezia. That was only ten miles away.  But we decide that even in this rotten weather we can go further than that. We therefore travel on to Viareggio.  We know nothing about the place, but it is a convenient stop, thirty five miles from our last port.  And we are now in Tuscany!

As we approach Viareggio, the weather improves wonderfully.  It is now sunny and quite warm. The marina is very welcoming and has all necessary facilities.  The harbour master is delightful.  He explains to us that we don’t need a pass key to the pontoon, because the locks are broken and we can just enter by pushing a button on the inside of the lock.  He just shrugs and says “you are in Italy”.

The marina is on the start of a canal which goes up into the town.  We have a walk around the town and it is really nice.  It is the weekend, so there are lots of people around and the town has a real buzz.  There are elegant shops and lots of stall selling anything from the usual junk to very interesting food stuffs.  We never really had any lunch.  All we managed was a cuppa soup under way.  So at one stall we buy a Mozzarella in Carrozza.  Something I always wanted to try.  It is a breaded and deep fried sandwich with Mozzarella cheese.  Very nice too.

We have looked in the Michelin guide and find that this town has 2 one rosette restaurants.  But they both look very pricy and probably would be booked up on a Saturday night.  So we decide instead to try to go  a lesser ranked restaurant on the top floor of an hotel with a lovely view over the sea.  We book a table and then continue to look around the town.  We find a supermarket to stock up on a few more things to have lunches and dinners on board, because we are not sure where we will be in the next few days.  We may be just at anchor in remote places.

Back to the boat with barely enough time to change and go out again.  Dinner is much better than I expected.  The food is really interesting.  My desert is described as bread, wine and sugar, and is that, but in the most interesting way.  I would love to have had the recipe.  Back to the boat, where I just conk out.  Too much weather, food and booze I guess.