LIFE: Part 2

Current Location: Puerto de Conil, Cadiz, Spain
Current Position: 36 17.6 N 006 7.92 W Click to view map.
Distance sailed since last post: 495 nautical miles. View the map of our voyage track here

It was four years ago that we sailed past Tarifa and Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean Sea. Today we sailed in the other direction, leaving La Linea at 10am to catch the tidal stream out into the Atlantic.

Two days ago we were sweltering in Motril, with air and water temperatures both at about 31 deg C. Yesterday the water temp was 19 deg in Gibraltar. Today it is 22 deg with a rather dark overcast sky. The water warming up to 23 deg.

And now we have tides to deal with! And so a new adventure starts.

Over the past 4 years we have visited all but one of the countries on the north coast of the Med from Spain to Turkey,  missing out only on Slovenia), and also called in at Malta and Tunisia.

There are two many highlights to cover in one post. So many beautiful places. So many ancient ruins, so many new friends. We climbed volcanoes, para-glided over ghost towns, swam through crystal clear turquoise waters, had gales and calms, and had a lot of fun. We were particularly happy to spend 4 months in Croatia where, despite what people had warned us, the people were very friendly and we had to pay for anchoring only three times. And we got to sail into Venice.

There have also, of course, been some challenges. The most current being our fridge that cannot seem to keep up with these warm temperatures we have been having. The most annoying being the totally useless internet connection throughout Spain – even when we pay good money for it.

And the most frustrating has been the fishing. Today just capped that bill: having just bought two new lures 3 days ago for the cost of 38 euros, today a Spanish yacht, passing much to close to us, motored right over them and took them away.

There are two things we are particularly proud of:

1) We almost never stayed in a marina. Of course for the winters we did, but during the sailing season I can think of only Almerimar (visiting Bob and Connie who were moored there) and a handful of free marinas in Greece. The rest of the time we watched the weather and found a place to put down the hook.

2) We did very little motoring. People say that ‘in the Med there is either no wind, or too much, and when there is, it is on the nose’. This year that seems to have been true, and we have done way too much motoring this year. But all the previous years we sailed pretty much everywhere. One year we filled up with fuel at the start of the season, and the next filling was in November at the end of the season.

We also had some of the family come to visit us, which has been fun – thought sometimes a bit tricky to organize where to meet them (avoiding marinas, remember)!

Curiously, last night we had dinner with Colin Thomas in Gibraltar. Why curious? Because it was Colin that first introduced Ceu to sailing when we chartered him and his boat in Antigua, 2009. Last time we saw him was in the Azores on our Atlantic crossing, 2011.

So we met with him on the way to the Med, and last night again on the way out of the Med. No doubt we will see him again in the Caribbean in a few months time.

And so it is on to new adventures:

First, meeting with family in Portugal, and putting some coppercoat on the bottom of the boat.

Then some ocean sailing: Madeira, Canaries and then Senegal and Gambia. We will spend a few weeks there, perhaps, and then head west to the Cape Verde islands, probably for Christmas.

From then we will sail across the Atlantic again, heading for Barbados.

So, if you are an experienced sailor and would like to build your sea miles and experience some ocean sailing you are welcome to join us for some of those legs! Especially if you are also an experienced fisherman!!!!

 

Current Location: Barcelona, Spain
Current Position: 41 22.92 N 002 11.85 E Click to view map.
Distance sailed since last post: 4 nautical miles. View the map of our voyage track here

I know…I know! We are back tracking a little bit here but we had so much fun in Barcelona and all through the coast of Spain that we have to share. Even though we did not feel so welcome on the first day arriving in Spain by an unfriendly Harbourmaster, things quickly improved, like they always do.

Beautiful Barcelona!

The big stop along the coast was, of course, Barcelona. The first night we anchored outside Badalona, but it was a bit far from Barcelona, so we moved a few miles down the coast and anchored just outside Porto Olimpico – and that is a whole story in itself that we will tell you shortly.

We visited many works of the architect Antoni Gaudi throughout the city(1852–1926). Many of these sites are classified as World Heritage by UNESCO. He contributed to the exceptional  and creative development of architecture and building technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  All his work has a very personal style  in the design of gardens, sculpture and all decorative arts, as well as architecture.

Antoni Gaudí was a son of a coppersmith and took to architecture at a young age. He attended school in Barcelona and became the most internationally prestigious figure in Spanish architecture and design. He was born  in 1852 and died in 1926 after being tragically hit by a trolley car.

In 1883 he devoted himself into building the famous Sagrada Familia.

Only one of the 4 towers was built at the time of his death. With so much money coming in ticket revenue everyday from the tourists that flock to this extraordinary attraction, his dream lives on…. and completion of this Beauty will be in 2026 to mark the 100 anniversary of his death. One must buy the ticket in advance and it has the time on it when to go in. It maybe same day or you may have to wait till next day, because only certain amount of people are allowed at a time and per day.

 

 

The interior of the Cathedral is very impressive. Very unique, amazing, hard to describe this exceptional work of art!

 

 

 

 

 

Park de Guell. Gaudi’s architecture in garden form.

 

After Hoping On and Hoping off at this beautiful Park de Guell, it had been sold out for the day. We bought the tickets to come back the following day and just took one of the many local buses to the destination.

It sure did not leave us disappointed! Situated at the top of the hill with the views of the city and the sea. Everything was so over the top wit Gaudi. His main source of inspiration was nature. This park was initially planned to be a residential garden city in English style. It was not a success and only one show home was built, where it houses now a Museum devoted to Antoni Gaudi. The park was named after Gaudi’s  great patron Count Eusebi Guell, whom he met in Paris in 1878. Guell  was so impressed with his showcase that he became his leader n the adventure on the Estate. It was finally donated to the city in 1923.

 

 

 

 

And the story goes….after visiting all these beautiful places, we enjoyed a very nice Chinese dinner at the marina just before getting to our dinghy. Well, we are always so happy that our dinghy/taxi is still there and available to take us home especially after a long day.

It was now about 10:30 pm. We get to the docks and, oops… it looked like we were parked in someone’s spot. A small fishing boat. Somehow (with much man power) they had hoisted our dinghy right up onto the dock.  After a walk along the dock we realized that there  was really not a foot of space available where we could drop our dinghy back into the water

Spotted an unlocked big rib about 30 feet away and we managed to carry/drag our heavy dinghy along. Now what? Untied the rib, jump along to the next door boat and tied it at the stern to get it out of our way. Ran back to drop our dinghy onto the water, and back on the neighbour boat and pick the rib again and tied it back to it’s berth. All of this in front of a dozen restaurants full of people. I was about to take a photo of this but Noel “let’s get out here” attitude, we managed to do this very quickly and very quiet. I don’t think our audience noticed much – at least no one arrested us, yet! What an adventure on a late night!

Next day we went back to visit more sites of Barcelona. More works of  Gaudi. La Pedrera, Casa Mila, an exquisite apartment building built between 1905 -1910

 

 

 

 

 

 

A stroll anywhere in the city never leaves you disappointed with the many parks and avenues with beautiful art for all tastes scatted everywhere

Loved the buildings throughout the city. Some of these photos I took from the Hop On Hop Off we took around the city one day.

 

La Rambla is a fun street full of surprises, from theats and museums, to old buildings and many vendors and eateries.

In La Rambla you can also visit the Museum above, where Marilyn is always ready to give you  a tour!

 Almost Arrested

During our stay in Barcelona we were anchored off the beach just outside Porto Olimpico . On our second day of visiting Barcelona, we came home to another adventure.

As we started to weight anchor to move somewhere else,  we were told to STOP. We were surrounded by 3 police boats (the other 2 didn’t speak any English, they were frightened by the Canadian Flag) we started to wonder what crime had we committed??? We had been at that anchor for the last 2 nights without any trouble. They told us to go in to the Marina, tie up, bring all documents and have a chat.  Apparently a new law (as of 2 weeks prior) dictated that you cannot anchor within 500 metres of an entrance of any harbour in Barcelona.

To make the story short, we then had to pay for a night in the Marina, go to the harbour master’s main office to discuss the matter. The trip to the Capitaneria office,  was another adventure itself. Best way to get there, would be a taxi. Gave driver address. 2 minutes later he turned the wrong direction. We pointed it out. We knew more or less where we were going..He looked and confirmed address and told us he did not know the area well enough to take us there because it is a very big ship terminal and very confusing. We waved another taxi, only to be told pretty much same thing. Ok…next! The third driver took us there. After asking many times for directions within the terminal, with ships leaving and arriving to and from all over the world, he made sure we made it to the door.

We got to the office and were attended by a nice friendly man. To my surprise in an international place like this he only spoke Spanish. I asked if he spoke English, he said ” No, but we would understand each other” because I had Portuguese passport. For many of you that “don’t know”, we speak Portuguese in Portugal, not Spanish.  He was very nice, and we did understand each other. At least enough to tell him  that we had been their 2 days and 2 nights and with much daily police rounds and they never said anything to us. We would have moved. He said that “police maybe did not know the new law” How are we supposed to know? He then said we had a really good argument and needed our story in writing, before any decisions were made. I had a good feeling after that! At first I was a bit nervous having to do all this in my Portinhol, with so much lost in translation. I could loose my case! LOL.

I told him how much we had enjoyed his city and would love to leave on a good note . He gave me same nice smile with a grin,(could only be about my Portinhol)

We came home and sent email. Along with a photo and coordinates of where we were anchored, safely away from entrances, beach and swimmers. At 7 pm we received  a letter stating we were free to go and no penalties.

We decided to stay another day, cause day was getting on and we got to spend another day in Barcelona. What a treat it that was…we got to visit the old town of Barceloneta built in the 18th century. Beautiful old neighbourhood and a most beautiful Cathedral. We also indulged in a a nice lunch buffet at a Lebanese restaurant  with a Bonus: great internet connection, for a change!

We said Adios to Barcelona, for a night passage. As we sailed by the big commercial port , there were at least 7 cruise ships inside.

Ibiza and South

We did a 24 hour passage to Ibiza. This time we headed straight to beautiful island of Formentera, just a few miles South.

Caribbean like sand and turquoise waters in the beach Espalmador, Formentera. Spending the night here sure is a plus: deserted evening and mornings. There is only a restaurant ashore. Just an amazing place

 

With the weather being in our favour, we found a few nice calm anchorages along the coast where we spent some nice evenings.

 

Nice anchorage here by the big rock in Calp, just before the big Resort Benadorm popular with the Brits and next is the the city of Alicante.

 

Our next stop is Alicante. Nice city with beautiful promenade. We were joined here by Noel’s sister Mitzi and husband David for 10 days.

 

We sailed over and explored this small island of Tabarca near Alicante, for a couple of days. We had one of the best snorkeling in the Med second to Ibiza.

A short sail took us to Torrevieja. There we took a couple of day trips inland

 

After Torrevieja our family headed back to England and we set off en route to Gibraltar and then Portugal.

It was hard to choose photos to share, there are so many. I hope you all enjoyed these.

It has been some updates since then. This was the catching up one in Barcelona.

Next blog post will by Noel on the bottom of the boat. Its gonna be good! Stay tuned.

Just a quick update though: We have finished that job and at this moment we are finally on the train to my hometown for a real holiday!

Current Location: Barcelona, Spain
Current Position: 41 26 N 002 14.58 E Click to view map.
Distance sailed since last post: 65 nautical miles. View the map of our voyage track here

We are now in Barcelona, Spain, about to depart for Ibiza.

We have been unable to beg, buy, borrow or steal a decent internet connection, so this is just a quick update to let you know where we are and why there are no photos!

Will update you when we can 🙂

Current Location: Roses, Spain
Current Position: 42 15.51 N 003 10.49 E Click to view map.
Distance sailed since last post: 164 nautical miles. View the map of our voyage track here

From St. Tropez it was time to head west and south, the goal being to get to Alicante, Spain by mid July.

First stop was the island of Porquerolles. Just south of Hyeres, this island has no cars, so everything, including the pizzas, are delivered by bicycle.

 

After a lively beat in fresh winds, we anchored just outside the harbour in 3m and went ashore for a walk through the luscious palms and vineyards.

Once again there was a beautiful sunset but, unfortunately, the night was a bit bouncy with an onshore wind. Should have gone to Hyeres instead. Oh well.

The next day we sailed around the corner to Sanary Sur Mer. This was a lovely little town. There was some sort of music festival going on, with dozens of different bands setting up on the promenade.

There was also a competition or exhibition of old restored fishing boats, some dating back over 100 years.

We were anchored just outside the town. But as night drew on, remember, it is dark until well past 10pm, the bands were still playing and the wind and waves turned onshore.

We decided that it was too much noise and too much bouncing, so at midnight we motored in the dark 4 miles around the corner to Bandol, where we were able to tuck behind a rock and get a nice calm night.

Bandol was also pretty, but not nearly as nice as Sanary. So we did our shopping and sailed onwards to the Calanque, where we anchored deep in one of the fjords called Calaque de Solimiou, which gave us good protection from the SW waves.

The next day was windy and wavy. We took a short trip to Cassis and went ashore. It was a bit of a challenge getting ashore in the waves. To bumpy for launching the dinghy, so we took the kayak and had a very skillful landing on the beach amongst the tourists.

Another pretty and classy French town.

There we had a HUGE meal of mussels and roasted vegetable salad. Delicious but we were oh so full!

The wind and waves were still from the SW, so we went back to the Calanque and anchored in the nearer one, Margiou, for another peaceful night. No big motorboats passing us every few minutes here!

From here the tricky thing was getting across the Golf de Lyons. This gulf is notorious for gales that suddenly do 180 deg turns on you. But we had been watching the weather for a window (despite our internet woes) and figured the next day was as good as it was going to get. It meant motoring all night in a flat calm, but that is better than motoring into the teeth of a gale, as happened to our friends Purrrfect when they did the same crossing two years before.

We did get 4 hours sailing, and with the bright quarter moon, and shortest night of the year, it was a beautiful night for crossing.

And that put us in Collioure, just a handful of miles from the Spanish border. This charming little town is famous for all the artists that have lived and painted there.

There is a nice little harbour for fishing boats, and a small bay with mooring balls for which they charge 35 euro a night! And for that you get no services!

We decided to anchor in the next bay to the south which was free, and also better protected with less waves, so we had a nice calm night.

I really don’t understand why people always want to go on mooring balls or in marinas!

Since the next day was also a calm, we took a walk into Port Vendres and met an English guy who was exhibiting and selling his paintings and photos. They were good. But there is an awful lot of competition in this area!

The following day was forecast to be a nice northerly wind. Perfect for sailing downwind 35 miles to Spain with our spinnaker up. Finally we get to do some real sailing!

But what a shock!

One thing we noticed was how classy and stylish all the French towns have been. Yes, some of them are very touristy, but even then they had class. No shops full of tacky Chinese T-shirts and flip flops.

As soon as we turned into Roses bay in Spain we knew we were in a different country. Lined up on the shore were ghastly apartment blocks. All along the beach front were tourist shops aimed at lager-swilling English and German youths.

This, clearly, is a place you come to when you are just looking for a cheap seaside holiday. Jet skis, parasailing, jetboats, tourist party-catamarans, it was all there.

We were anchored in the bay just outside the harbour. We tried to take the dinghy to the harbour wall, which looked like an obvious place to take it, but some guy on a scooter said we couldn’t tie up there – it was the beach or the rock breakwater. If we went into the harbour that would require payment.  Welcome to Spain!

So we went to the breakwater and managed to tie and lock up there.

We then tried to get an internet connection in a cafe. Yes, they had a wifi connection, but goodness it was slow. How can that be? We were the only ones in the cafe using it. So does that mean the cafe is paying for broadband connection and that is all they get????  The other cafes said they couldn’t get a connection at all!

So far, not impressed with Spain! But we did have a peaceful night.

We then set off southwards towards Barcelona. Unfortunately it was yet another motoring day. No wind, until it filled in on the nose. Along the way there were HEAPS of motorboats, small ones, not like France! But hardly any sailing boats. I guess, unlike the French, the Spanish don’t sail.

Actually, we hadn’t seen a Spanish-flagged boat in at least three years until we crossed the border yesterday.

At least the coastline improved. Some nice little coves and beaches (all full with sun-bathers – well it was Sunday) and only a few apartment blocks so far.

So far we have traveled through eight Mediterranean countries, and in every single one of them we have had problems with buying internet services.

I don’t mind paying for the service. But when I do, I expect it to work. So why is it that every single time there is a problem? In Spain we spent EIGHT HOURS on the phone to Vodafone customer support trying to get it sorted out.

In Italy we could only buy a 5 Gb / 1 month SIM and dongle. When it was used up before the month was finished (again, where did all the data go?) we could not recharge it. We had to buy another SIM and another dongle!

In Croatia we had to buy an ‘airbox’ type thing too. But at least we were there for 4 months. But after buying it, it never got activated. So we had to wait until the weeken was over before making a special trip back to Dubrovnik where it took 2 hours to get it sorted out.

In Turkey we were sold a dongle which they guy never activated properly, so all our credit was used up in 2 days. “Too bad!”. So we had to buy another one – and again got ripped off. But three times is a charm and eventually we got one that gave us what they promised.

In France last week we waited in line for a hour in the Orange shop (SFR had the same busyness). Eventually they told us they were out of SIM cards and we would have to go to a different store. We did. There we waited about 10 minutes before giving up.

In Marseille we found another Orange store, and waited another hour to get served. Apparently they no longer sell or support the USB dongles, so we had to buy a wifi “airbox” which was supposed to come bundled with 2 Gb of data. After 500Mb it said it was finished.

In St. Raphael we found another Orange store. After a half hour wait we were finally seen, and they promptly told us we had used up our allocation on Skype video. This made no sense to us and, in any case, where were the other 1500Mb we were promised.

After TWO HOURS bugging them, they finally got an answer from their head office. Apparently we had been given a 500 Mb SIM instead of the 2 Gb. Finally they gave us a new SIM card wich has 5 GB on it.

And so it goes on.

Why is it so complicated? Why can’t we buy as much bandwidth as we want? Why is the customer service so poor?  And even then, once it is all working, why is the internet connection often so poor?

As I said, I don’t mind paying for it, but at least give us what we pay for, without all the hassle.

UPDATE

2 days later we were preparing for our crossing of the Golf du Lyon. This is tricky, as the wind can be blowing force 7 to 8 from the north one minute and then an hour later it is blowing the same strength from the south, each time kicking up short steep waves. Not nice. And the forecast keeps changing too.

So we were watching the weather every day and finally spotted what looked like a weather window. Calms instead of strong winds, but that is better than gales on the nose.

Then, the night before we intended to set out, our internet connection (supposed to be 5Gb) informed us that we had run out (after 3Gb) and would we like to top up?  I was soooo mad. We didn’t do it.

In the morning the weather looked like it was doing what the forecast said, so we set off. An hour later, somehow, we had our internet connection back again!  We got the weather, did the crossing, and are now in Collioure. And still have internet! So what was all that about, wanting us to recharge our credit???

Well, let’s hope it last a couple more days, by which time we will be in Spain and have to start the whole process all over again.

Current Location: St. Tropez, France
Current Position: 43 16.26 N 006 37.78 E Click to view map.
Distance sailed since last post: 3 nautical miles. View the map of our voyage track here

Last night we were anchored with illustrious neighbours. In fact, we were by far the smallest yacht in the anchorage, the others all being 80 ft (or bigger) motor yachts.

Where were we? Just outside St. Tropez harbour, and all these boats are the ones that couldn’t find space inside the harbour.

It turns out that St. Tropez is actually quite pleasant. It is certainly upmarket, with some impressive art stores and designer boutiques. The restaurants are elegant. Every now and then a helicopter arrives to deliver another visitor who is quickly whisked away in a shiny black van with tinted windows.

 

 

 

And it is blissfully short of tacky tourist souvenir stores. So we liked it.

But we liked Port Grimaud even more. This is a small town and port at the end of the St. Tropez bay that was designed and built in the 1960’s.

It is like a mini-Venice, but with St. Tropez style buildings. Lots of canals that intersect and are crossed by cute bridges.

The houses are right up against the water, with small front gardens filled with well-kept foliage and so many flowers. In front of each house or building is a mooring place, usually filled with a huge yacht. In fact, many of the motor and sailing yachts parked in front of the houses are bigger than the houses.

There are also some pleasant restaurants, creperies and ice cream parlours. Everything is done with some style and class.

Yes, it is totally artificial, being designed by an architect just 50 years ago. But even so, it is delightful.

St. Raphael and Frejus on the other hand are real towns. Yes there are the tourist stores – again done with style and class – but they are also real towns with real stores for ordinary people.

Current Location: Pampelonne Beach, France
Current Position: 43 13.36 N 006 40.25 E Click to view map.
Distance sailed since last post: 60 nautical miles. View the map of our voyage track here

We made it to Sanremo in time to meet up with my old sailing buddy from university, Alastair McMichael. With him was his wife Judy, and their friends from England, Lance and Elie.

On the Saturday we motored in a calm to Menton, thus entering France! Ah, the land of stinky cheeses! Love it! The next day we had a fantastic sail to Monaco, and sailed into and out of the Hercule Harbour just to look at the boats and say we had done it.

Got some nice photos of Escapade, and hope soon to have some good photos of Life Part 2 from Ali.

We had fun sailing along in Monaco with Escapade

 

Once they went back to Sanremo, we carried on to Villefrance, where we anchored and took a train back in to Monaco.

 

The Casino is one of the most spectacular buildings I have seen. Just incredible.

Just an incredible building, sure worth the 10 euros! We had to go in before the gambling started because Ceu did not have ID with her, you must go before 1 pm, it is quiet and one does not need ID.

Pictures cannot show much…. above is one of the bars!

So much beauty all over. From Chandeliers to art of every kind

We also walked around the town a bit, but nothing to compare with the casino. The town is very nice with many gardens and parks very well manicured.

 

We walked to the old town, did not visit the Palace inside though. Visited the beautiful Cathedral and the tombs of Princess Grace and Prince Reinier inside.

Did not see as many fancy cars as I expected.

We then took the train to Nice to try to buy internet. Waited a full hour in the Orange shop only to be told they had sold out of SIM cards.

Finally we got back to the boat.

From there we then took some quick sails to get to Marseille by the next weekend in order to welcome Ceu’s sister, Lucia, and her family on board.

We anchored for a day in Antibes. Again the harbour was full of super yachts.

 

Of course this is the home of Picasso. We enjoyed a visit to Picasso museum. The streets of this medieval town was lined not only with many chandlers to service the mega yachts, but lots of art, shopping and restaurants. We really enjoyed our stop here.

 

 

Marseille above and bellow, a nice city with a huge harbour and lined with many beautiful buildings.

 

Getting the family on board was a challenge! Just as they arrived by car, the heavens opened up with a thunderstorm, and the wind shifted 180 deg to an onshore fresh breeze, piling up a vicious little chop as it did so.

So, we had to pile 5 small suitcases and then 4 people on board the little dinghy and motor through the pouring rain and big waves to get them on board Life Part 2.

Needless to say, everyone was SOAKED.

And the boat was bouncing up and down like crazy. Not the best introduction to life on board!

We had prepared a nice cheese fondue. Unfortunately Ceu and I were the only ones eating it, everyone else being decidedly green in colour. Sorry they missed out! Instead, they had some soup and tea.

 

Fortunately, as I predicted to them, the waves and the rain all settled down in less than a couple of hours and they were able to get a settled and peaceful night’s sleep. We woke up to a wonderful sunny morning, nice breakfast and headed up the coast for some sight seeing of the calanques, steep white cliffs where we all enjoyed a nice walk, some kayaking , snorkeling and swim.

 

After that, we had surprisingly good weather! Despite forecasts of more rain, we actually had sunshine and some nice little breezes.  This enabled us to do a bit of sailing, a bit of motoring, and a fair bit of swimming and sunbathing in the beautiful area of Marseille. Ahh and Eat! Lucia showed up with many French cheeses and wine. One night we finished off  with a nice bottle of Italian Limoncello…..that was fun!!

 

Despite the first-day challenges, everyone had a good time! We really enjoyed the time together.

We are now on our way back to St. Tropez to visit the bits we missed on they way West. Cannes (not impressed) and Antibes (loved it) we already did get to see prior to Marseille:

Overall Cannes was not really that impressive. Nothing spectacular! Nice very small area of old town, narrow streets, lined with chic restaurants. As you go further away from the old town, the main street is lined with very expensive hotels and some nice beaches.

Views from our anchorage. We anchored just in front of the beaches and dinghy into the harbour.

After that, we will then head west again, aiming to get down to the bottom right corner of Spain by mid-July for when Mitzi and co. arrive.

A lot of long sailing days these days!

Current Location: Sanremo, Italy
Current Position: 43 48.91 N 007 47.13 E Click to view map.
Distance sailed since last post: 209 nautical miles. View the map of our voyage track here

May 28th – June 5th: Santa Marinella to Sanremo

Once Josh had gone, it was a mad dash north to meet with Alastair in Sanremo. Still the winds were flat calm, so it was a case of motoring 30+ miles every day, though sometimes in the afternoon the sea breeze would kick in and let us sail – if it wasn’t right on the nose. But we did catch 3 tiny fish one day, so that made a nice supper, and another small one today.

On the way we visited:

Monte Argentario. Nice anchorage 42 22.9N 011 11.0E sand.

Isola Giglio. We just sailed past it to see where the cruise ship Concordia had gone aground. The ship is now in Genoa for dismantling, so we saw only a few cranes etc that were still on site cleaning up.

Cala di Mola, Elba 42 45.6N 10 23.5E. Beautiful anchorage. Very scenic and good holding.

From there we took a bus to Porto Ferraio which used to be an iron ore mining town, but is now a tourist destination.

Elba is a very pleasant wooded island. We visited Napoleon’s country residence (not worth the bus fare and 5 euro entry) and then headed back to the boat. The problem was that the buses take a siesta. No buses between 14.30 and 18.30 so you either have a very brief visit or a very long one. Neither Napoleon’s house, nor Porto Ferraio seemed worth a long visit so we went home.

Nice beaches and bays around the island, so would be worth a longer visit.

Pisa. One advantage of these calm days is that one can anchor off the beach, which we did at Pisa.

Now Pisa WAS worth visiting! The tower is just incredible. It seems to be in excellent condition, yet is leaning over at an impossible angle. No apparent cracks or stress fractures. Just leaning over. Maybe it is because of all the tourists holding it up each day.

The Duomo is also an impressive building. Ceu paid for admission, but says it was no more spectacular than many other basilicas we have seen.

Le Grazie at La Spezia and Cingue Terre.
We arrived here to find yachts everywhere! Busier than the Solent on a sunny summer afternoon. What the heck?

It turns out that June 2nd is Republic Day – THE Italian national holiday. And with a lovely sunny weekend, everyone decided to go boating.

The anchorage in Le Grazie is very well protected. From there one takes a bus (every half hour) to LaSpezia, and from there a train, every hour, to the five towns of Cinque Terre. Except that being holiday there where extra trains laid on!

This was a day of travel screw ups!  At le Grazie we got on the wrong bus – going to Portovenere instead of La Spezie. When we got there Ceu asked the drive when he was going to La Spezie. Thinking he said three minutes past nine we got off the busy and walked around the town. At 3 minutes TO nine the bus passed us and refused to stop. So we had half an hour to visit the charming town.

When we made it to La Spezia train station we again missed the train. Caught one half an hour later and arrived at Monterossa, farthest north of the Cinque Terre, and the most touristy. And, remember, this was national holiday!

We intended to walk the coastal paths between the towns, though we knew that one of them was closed.  It turns out that the ONLY one that was open was Monterossa to Vernazza. It was a pleasant walk, but busy and not as spectacular as the one above Positano. It was supposedly a 2 hour hike, but took us one hour ten minutes with all the pedestrians slowing us down.

The path from Vernazza to Corniglia we knew to be closed so we took a train. Except the train didn’t stop at Corniglia, so we ended up in Riomaggiore. No matter. Visited there instead.

 

From there we tried to walk the “Via d’Amore”, but that too was closed, so we took the train to Corniglia, succesfully this time. From there we tried to walk to Manorola, but that path was also closed. So, back to the train station.

Finally we got to Manorola and had a good visit.

The Cinque Terre are interesting. Again one wonders why on earth people try to live in such difficult terrain. The coves are tiny, so not exactly good for fishermen. The terrain is mountainous, so every thing has to be terrace for agriculture. There was no access between the villages except by sea.

But it did result in some spectacular building achievements!

The following day we also motored around by sea so as to get the sea views. Unfortunately th early morning sun did not permit any good photos from the sea. When we left in the morning there were only 3 boats at anchor! A far cry from the night before. I guess the holiday was over.

Still calm, so we motored the next 30 miles to Santa Marghuerita where we anchored just inside the harbour. Wow, what a beautiful town! Described in our pilot guide as ‘upmarket’ and it certainly is.  The buildings are all painted on the outside.

The Basilica was one of the most ornate we have seen anywhere. The yachts are big. Yet there is also a big fishing fleet to keep it all ‘down to Earth’ as it were. Unfortunately the chandler here is a dinghy chandler. We are still trying to find some nylon docking lines. It seems that Italians never use nylon. Can’t find it anywhere. Only polyester which doesn’t have the same give in it.

Yesterday we motored, again, across the bay to Finale Ligure, where we anchored outside the harbour for a final night before going to Sanremo.

It has been a mad dash – but fun. But the dash isn’t finished yet, as we are next due to meet up with Ceu’s sister Lucie near Marseille in just a week!  Maybe then we will be able to catch our breath and slow down a bit.

Current Location: Santa Marinella, Italy
Current Position: 42 2.12 N 011 52.35 E Click to view map.
Distance sailed since last post: 84 nautical miles. View the map of our voyage track here

The obvious thing to do is to find a marina as close as possible to Rome so that you can leave your boat there. It turns out that ‘obvious’ is not always ‘best’.

In the area of Fiumicino, which is where the Leonardo da Vinci airport is, there are two waterways that flow east to west: the Fiumicino canal to the north, and the Fiume Tevere  (Tiber river) just south of that. Between them is an area called Isola Sacre.

The airport is north of the canal. On the canal are several boatyards, but there are bridges that have to open to let your through. They open but twice a day, and not every day, so that is not exactly convenient.

On the river there  are also several boatyards and marinas, and south of the river mouth is the Porto di Roma.  We phoned several of these places to try to find a place for us. Most of them didn’t even answer. Eventually Porto Romano, the first marina on the north bank of the river, offered us a place for 51 euro. We figured this would be a good place to access both the airport to pick up Josh, and to get to Rome.

Wrong.

Isola Sacre has NO transport options. So it is an expensive taxi ride anywhere – for example 25 euros to go 7 km to the airport.

Port di Roma (just south of the mouth of the river) is a little better. At least there you can get a bus to take you to the train to take you to Rome, where you then take the Metro to get to the Vatican.  Even to visit Ostia Antica requires a bus ride from there, as does the airport, which is even farther away. BTW, Ostia Antica is not visible from the water, either the sea or the river.

Since we were in Porto Romano (on the river north bank) we did take a taxi to visit Ostia – only to find that it is shut on Mondays which, apparently, neither the front desk at the marina nor the taxi driver knew.

Moral of the story: don’t try to visit Rome from any of the marinas around Fiumicino.

Instead go to Santa Marinella, about 24 nm to the north.  Having realised how impractical Fiumicino is, having picked up Josh, and after our abortive attempt to visit Ostia Antica, we decided to sail north the very next day.

Santa Marinella is a small town just South East of Civitavecchia. There is a small harbour and there is a sandy anchorage just outside the harbour.  Unfortunately when we arrived late afternoon we didn’t find the sand. Instead we found a very rocky bottom, and were not happy with leaving the boat there, so we went into the Marina while we went to Rome. We had two nights inside and then on the last night we went outside the marina and this time did find the sand for a very peaceful night.

Just 3 minutes from the harbour is a small town with shopping, and just another 2 minutes away is a train station with trains every half hour to Rome. One train taking between 30 minutes and an hour (depending on how many stops it makes) and you are at San Pietro with a ten minute walk to the Vatican. Much easier!

Rome is Rome. What can one say?  Here are some photos:

 

 

The Vatican is packed. Always. If you want to visit the museum you either line up for at least 2 hours, or buy a skip-the-line ticket. We took the official Vatican tour which was 2 hours long and in our view was plenty long enough. Frankly, I was surprised that the museum was mostly art and statues, I was expecting much more of the ‘treasures’ of the Vatican. The Sistene chapel was excellent, as to be expected.

We did not visit the Basilica as the line up for that – in the pouring rain – was also 2 hours! No chance. We have seen plenty of spectacular basilicas already, so we gave it a miss.

However, we did see the Pope! From about 300 meters away. He was pretty tiny. But he was doing some kind of mass or service in St. Peter’s square which was also packed. Yes, that’s him on the stage. He is the one dressed in white.

 

The trick to visiting the Colisseum: Don’t join the huge line up at the entrance. Instead, walk around the corner and find the entrance to the Palatino (Palatine hill). There is almost no queue there, and it is the same ticket! You can then visit both those plus the Forum.

Unlike the amphitheater in El Djem, Tunisia there were no seats left here, so it was harder to imagine the crowds roaring for the gladiators. Both are impressive. This was a lot more crowded!

We had two days in Rome and that was enough. Saw lots of monuments, statues, churches, piazzas and so on.

Onwards and northwards…

Current Location: Isola Ponza, Italy
Current Position: 40 54.15 N 012 57.79 E Click to view map.
Distance sailed since last post: 81 nautical miles. View the map of our voyage track here

Wow, what a crazy couple of weeks it has been! We have been rushing up the West coast of Italy. Normally we wouldn’t do that, but there are reasons…

So, here is the potted version of all the places we have visited – and some of the silly weather we have been having (and we will get to the celebrity in a minute – see if you recognise her).

Monday May 11, 2015 – Thursday May 14: Amalfi Coast & Capri

From Salerno we sailed around to Amalfi and anchored in 10m just outside the little harbour.

We took a bus up to Ravello up in the mountains above Amalfi. Lovely little town without too much of a touristy feel.

From there we did a hike all the way down to Positano, with beautiful views all the way. But lots of steps which, even though they were down, seem to have been bad news for Ceu’s back.

Both Amalfi and Positano were very busy with cruise ship tourists. The little town Ravello was really much nicer.

Then we tried to visit Capri. We motored around the famous Faraglioni rocks, but it was pretty rough with waves from the south, so not really anywhere to anchor.

So we then sailed a lovely beam reach across to Sorrento, just 7 nautical miles away. And along the way caught ourselves another tuna. Nice.

Thursday May 14 – Saturday May 16: Capri & Burnout Visit

Our friend Roger, who singlehandedly sails the 10m catamaran “Burnout” finally joined us in Sorrento.

We decided to have another go at visiting Capri. We set off in a flat calm. By the time we reached the North West corner of Capri, where the Blue Grotto is, it was blowing 30kts and was, again, pretty rough. Certainly too rough to go into the cave.

So now what? The wind was forecast to stay strong, but to change 180 deg through the day and night. Which means waves from all directions. So where to anchor?

Roger and I pored over our charts trying to find a sheltered bay – but all the good ones seemed to be Marine Parks with anchoring restrictions, and we could not get any good reliable information on what those restrictions were.

Now, the key to being a good captain is to be calm and decisive. Well we were certainly calm. And we were VERY decisive. So decisive, in fact, during the course of our sail we made FOUR different decisions about where to anchor!

We started off heading back to Sorrento. Then the wind picked up more, and we went to Ischia. That looked very unpleasant, so we headed for Porto Di Baia – but the book said the bottom was foul.

Finally Roger spotted the harbour at Nisida, and that proved to be perfect! We anchored in about 6m on mud at  40 48.1N 014 10.1E and had a peaceful night, though the scenery was a bit industrial, and those westerly swells did creep in for half the night before settling down. A good game of Rummykub was played, and lots of wine drunk.

Sadly, early next morning Roger had to head back to Salerno to fly to Germany for a couple of weeks. Hopefully he will catch up with us later. Meanwhile we decided that three times is a charm, and we would go visit Capri again.

This time we made it, with another fast beam reach.

We did get ashore and found a supermarket. While we anchored at Capri a celebrity came to visit…

Well, as they say… if you can’t join them, beat them!

But once again the wind and waves were building up, so we decided to cut our losses and find a different place to visit.

Another fast sail with 28kts and two reefs took us to Naples (Napoli). We anchored at 40 49.7N 014 14.4E just west of the castle. Good holding and turned out to be nice and flat water. And we even got in a swim.

Napoli is, of course, the home of pizza, which dates back at least 200 years. The most famous pizzeria is “Da Michele” – featured in “Eat Pray Love” book and movie, and voted best pizza in all of Italy. Go there and you have to take a numbered ticket and wait your turn, rather like buying deli in a supermarket. And endure all the visiting tourists gawking at you trying to eat your pizza in peace. They do only one flavour – Margherita.

Instead, and quite by accident, we ended up going to “Brandi” which as been in business since 1780 and was the inventor of the Margherita pizza. They were commissioned to make pizza for Queen Margherita and delivered to her three different flavours. She liked the tomato/cheese one best and, henceforth, it has been knows as the Margherita.

Unfortunately “Brandi” only made third place in the national competition for best pizza, so we had to slum a bit. But at least no tourists gawking at us, and no taking a ticket to wait our turn.

Now, just to be clear: a Margerita pizza in Napoli is regulated by law. Only certain approved ingredients are permitted.

And, remember, this is Italian pizza, not American pizza. That means lots of dough which is thin, but not crust – it is much more soft and chewy than the ‘thin crust’ pizza in North America.

Tasted good – but I still prefer ones with a lot more ingredients on top!

Naples itself is pretty grubby. LOTS of graffiti everywhere. Lots of beggars everywhere – though that seems to be the norm in Italy.

One place that was interesting, though, was an underground Roman town. Similar to Pompeii, it had been buried under a mud slide, and so is quite intact. Very interesting.

From Naples we went back to Nisida harbour for a beautiful sunset and a very peaceful night.

and sunrise the next day:

Tuesday May 19 – May 24: Ischia to Rome

By now the crazy winds had settled, a high had parked itself over the Tyrrhenian Sea, and it has been calm ever since. So almost all our travel since then has been motoring. A shame, as we have had a lot of miles to cover.  Reason? An old university friend and sailing partner, Alastair McMichael, stumbled across our blog while researching Sardinia. It turns out that he now lives in Australia, has a yacht parked in Sanremo, and is coming out on June 5th! So we are dashing north to meet up with him for the first time in over 30 years!!!

Bur first, next destination was Rome where Josh was due to visit us. Along the way we visited Ischia, Ponza and Anzio, anchoring outside each.

We loved Ponza, which had a number of dug-out caves to visit.

On the way to Ponza our fridge died. A quick bit of diagnostics and it turned out that the Danfoss controller module had died and needed replacement. Where the heck are we going to find one of them?

England, of course. A quick internet order, next day delivery to Josh, and he brought it out with him to Rome. We were fridgeless for only about 4 days!