Pirate beaches, marinas and wreckers.

02/05/2006 Porto Vecchio Corsica via Rondinara
After four days in Madallena, where we had sat out bad weather, in which the only boats going out were sailing schools or charter boats, and a boat full of older gentlemen, who after a late night and a decidedly liquid lunch, had left without paying, and whom after being chased down the pontoon by the ormeggiatori, pointed at another boat saying they would pay the bill. We helped Eve and Gunner sail Topea across to Palau, they were already trying to decide when to return to Sweden and where to leave the boat. Our stop here had seemed like a holiday but it was time to get moving again, we were heading towards Rome to sort out Phoebe’s passport, we had decided that rather than do a crossing of 130 miles, it would be nice to head north up the east coast of Corsica, across to Elba and Giglio and then back down to Rome, it would involve shorter hops and then we should be in Rome within the next 10 days. We cast off at 08:45, and the children were deck crew, helping to bring in the fenders and warps. We motored back out past Razzoli with the children doing face painting in the cockpit we raised the main and the jib and stopped the engine at 10:20. By 10:40 we were back motorsailing. 11:40 we sailed past the opening of the Golfe De Sant Amanza, another beautiful place to stop. At 12:30 we entered into Rondinara, a circular anchorage accessed through a narrow opening, we dropped the hook into 5 meters of clear water and watched it bury itself into the sand, we were the only boat there, and apart from 5 people on the shore it was our own little piece of paradise . The anchorage was perfectly sheltered apart from winds from the west which reportedly would send in an uncomfortable, if not dangerous swell, the wind that night was forecast to be westerly, we would not be able to stay the night, but we could have a pleasant afternoon. We then took Bob to the beach and hauled him out onto the white sands, if it had had palm trees it could have been a Bounty Bar advert. During the course of the afternoon four other boats anchored up, including one who had inadvertently put petrol into his diesel tank, and after we gave him some diesel from our jerry cans, then had to pump out his diesel tank by hand in order to replace the fuel. At 15:00 Sara went forward and raised the anchor by hand, much to the admiring glances of a boatload of middle-aged German men.
Porto Vecchio is approached down a channel in valley. As we approached the entrance there was a ferry coming out slowly, so I maintained course and speed, until after we had crossed to the other side of the entrance, when I then turned to go down the channel, the ferry then gave a blast on his horn, this lead to a discussion on skippering and pilotage, which nearly lead us to discover just how narrow the channel is. The entrance to the marina is fringed with rocks, which the wind and waves have carved into interesting shapes; we found a dog and a walrus.
Before leaving Madallena I had sent emails to all the Port Saint Louis boats saying we were heading to Elba, and hoped to be there on Friday, and inviting them all to supper. This would have worked out fine however the wind got up for the next four days, and we sat on the pontoon watching boats coming in with wide eyed crews, who then struggled to get their mooring lines on to the jetty, why boats insist on trying to go stern to in windy conditions, when it would be easier and more controlled to go in forward, I just can not figure out. A lot of gelcoat got left on the pontoon, and at least one person got his knee strained, while trying to help another boat moor up.
The area around the marina is full of waterside restaurants, bars and boutiques, clearly geared up for the cruise boat and charter market, while we were there, a large sailing cruise liner the Windstar called in, we tried to go onboard to have a look round, but were refused entry on the grounds of immigration, it was an American liner with lots of USA citizens on board. We would however be welcome to go aboard if we caught up with them in Greece, and gave them 24hours notice so that they could sort it out with the local authorities. Having been not too impressed with the commercialism of the marina, I found the walk up the hill into the old walled town of Porto Vecchio definitely worth the effort. While still commercial it had the feel of a real town, with lovely views across the valley and the harbour to the mountains on the other side. We found a supermarket that did delivery to your home, although in our case it involved dropping me the shopping and the kids at the road side, leaving me with the problem of either leaving the shopping and the kids, or sending the kids to fetch Sara. After a quick safety talk about not running and staying in the middle of the pontoon, Phoebe fetched Sara. The Capitainerie was not very helpful, and when the dryer did not work in the laundry on their premises, they told me to contact the owner and offered no other help. After three days we decided it was time to leave, and tried to pay for the previous three days, the office stepped up to the mark and exceeded itself, despite me going in to the office and speaking to them everyday since we arrived, they thought I had only just arrived, and was trying to prepay for the next three days, we finally straightened it up, but the weather was now not looking good, so we decided to stay for another day, which I did not bother going to the office to pay for, if they couldn’t be bothered to know who was there it did not seem my position to upset their tranquility.

06/05/2006 Solenzara Corsica
Phoebe filled in the log as we set off at 10:00, our days seem to start later and later. At 11:00 we were back at the entrance of the Golfe de Vecchio, the gearbox was slipping again, but we had a southerly wind for a change, although it was accompanied by large short swells, we set the jib and headed north along the coast at 3.6 knots. By 12:00 we had managed 7 miles since setting off. A rather dull day broken up by sightings of dolphins, and what I believe was the waterspouts of whales, but I did not actually see the whales, but I am claiming them as whales. At 13:54 the engine was on as we were racing to get into port before black clouds that were now all around us decided to drop their burden. 13:56 we didn’t and were caught by a deluge of thankfully warm rain, which continued until 15:05, five minutes after we had finished tying up in Solenzara in front of the Capitainerie, to a half finished pontoon, with a pile driver on the other side. Needless to say no one came to help with our lines or to indicate where a free berth might be. The entrance is a bit tricky in onshore winds due to the swells it causes in the shallow water, and there is not much wiggle room if it goes wrong. It was not a nice stop, but it did have a lovely beach with a stream running down from the mountains, it reminded me a lot of the coast near Wilderness in South Africa. The children, the only people, to stay dry in the downpour proceeded to rectify that as quickly as possible while I talked to Andrew on the phone and told him how beautiful Corsica was.

07/05/2006 Taverna Corsica
Once more I can’t be bothered to pay for no service, we leave at 08:30 with not a breath of wind, but an uncomfortable swell left over from the day before. Today’s trip was long and boring broken up briefly by the sight of dolphins, which came while I was cooking, Phoebe keeps missing them, as she is either down below or looking in the wrong direction when they jump. Sara tells the children that the dolphins have come cause they can smell my cooking. 16:00 we are tied up, after a bit of manoeuvring and rejection of potential berths due to obstructions, restricted access and general g don’t want to try getting in there from me, there is a small chandler open but not much else, the main town is half way up the mountain, a bit far to get to today. We are now late for our supper date in Elba, if anyone has got there, we haven’t been able to find any internet access to tell people we have been delayed, but this is sailing. We all go for a walk up a valley which is green and verdant, the soil still slowly giving back the moisture from the day before, the smell of wet musty earth is mixed with the scent of wild garlic, whose purple headed flowers are crowding the sides of the road. We stop to examine tadpoles and water skimmers caught in a culvert. The whole valley reminds us a lot of visits to David’s house near Monmouth. On the way back to the boat we divert to identify a tree with gnarled bark, and discover it is a cork tree, the children get to touch and feel the tree, then I break off little piece of bark for the kids to dig their nails into and bend while we walk back to the boat. Back at the marina we find the German boat that had had the fuel problems at Rondinara; we were both off to Elba the next morning.

08/05/2006 Porto Ferrario Elba Island
It is a long passage of 50 miles today to Porto Ferrario on Elba. I am up early to get an idea of the weather. The sea is glassy calm, there is a bit of morning haze, which the sun is already beginning to burn off, so with an updated weather forecast from the vhf we drop our lines and slip out of the marina at 07:00. An hour and a half later Sara spots two dolphins heading straight towards us which are jumping completely out of the water, Phoebe misses them again. While enjoying a breakfast of scrambled eggs and lardons Sara notices a number of things on the sea, which she can’t identify, they are hundreds of little jellyfish, the ones with small sails which they raise to catch the breeze, which has started. 09:50 all sails set still motor sailing, the German boat which left just after us is in sight, and beginning to overhaul us, I can’t let another boat beat me with this fine beam wind, it is not a race, but oh yes it is. 12:00 Elba is clear in sight, I always find a sense of relief when we sight land after being out of sight, even on short passages, that we have been heading in the right direction, We have a GPS, a chart, a chart plotter and a compass, but until I see the landfall there is always some element of doubt in my mind. Sara helms while Phoebe and Nick go forward with me to raise the Italian courtesy flag. We are now doing between 5.5 and 6 knots under sail alone, Dreamcatcher was sailing beautifully, albeit a bit noisy down below with the rush of water past the hull, Sara informs me that I have a stupid grin on my face, and yes I did I was thoroughly enjoying myself, it is a lovely feeling when you have a beautiful sailing yacht under your command, and she is doing what she was built for, leaning slightly to a wind, and eating the miles comfortably, while not bouncing her crew about, these moments have been to few on this trip so far as we need a fair amount of wind to get her 10 tons moving. Phoebe has been looking forward to getting to Italy, the land of pizza, pasta and ice-cream, so when I see mainland Italy beyond Elba, I point it out and say “There’s Italy.”
Phoebe, with a voice that combines notes of excitement, incredulity and scepticism replies “Really?” and looks to her mother for confirmation that it is in fact Italy itself and not an Italian island. When Sara confirms it, a huge grin splits her face and her eyes light up with excitement.
The western end of Elba is dominated by Mont Capanne, a huge mass that is bound to affect the wind, do I head further off shore and extend the distance, or is the wind funneled down the mountain to give better wind closer to shore, I can see local boats sailing in close under the lee, so head inshore, as we hit the lee, the wind is turned off like a switch has been pulled, 6.0 knots to 0 knots, we were on a starboard beam reach, and coming directly towards me is another boat also on starboard tack, with the sails slating, it is time for the engine once more. An hour and a half later I am down below plotting our position when Sara calls down to ask what to do, I go up, the wind has come rushing back and there is a boat under engine a long way off on our starboard side heading towards us, the answer is simple, the main and mizzen our still up, so get the jib out, kill the engine and lets sail away, 5 minutes later we are back at 6.5knots under sail, and I am grinning again. I hold my sails as long as Sara lets me as I start looking for any other boat under sail to race. Some of the other boats coming our way are having a bit of a rough time bouncing and being heeled over by the wind, Dreamcatcher is tracking nice and straight, with a modest amount of heel, although I am easing the main occasionally. We drop sail at the entrance to the natural harbour, as it is getting busy with sailing boats and ferries, and Sara is down below with the kids more than she is in the cockpit. The free harbour of Porto Ferrario is empty, an ormeggiatori guides us to a berth, and tells me the charges, and I now know why the harbour was empty E50-00 for a night in MAY! There was water and electricity, the showers and toilets were public facilities somewhere in the town, which you had to pay extra to use, we felt that we were being taken advantage off, when I spoke to the office about the charges, I was informed that the town had decided to start charging this year.
Some more boats came in some doing a sponsored able-disabled sail, and then a tall ship came in, Sara can’t complain about me shouting to her on the foredeck, this guy used a pa system.
The next two days were spent walking round Porto Ferrario, which after the hype in Rod Heikells Italian waters pilot we found disappointing, although it did have a good supermarket, which we stocked up from. Eventually we found what we had been looking for ever since arriving in Italy a gelateria which served big bowls of ice-cream, Nicks eyes nearly popped, first when he saw it, and secondly after he had eaten it all. Phoebe and Nick enjoyed an evening sat on Bob on the foredeck-watching people passing by.
Here we meet Richard and Judy along with Bingo their dog on board Flirty, who had sailed from Poole. When we found out the cost we talked about anchoring in the natural harbour but Sara was a bit apprehensive as there was strong wind forecast, we decided to try the other yards, after a longish walk we found Esom’s yard. The yard itself had some magnificent boats being overhauled and repaired, from large cruisers to some even larger out and out racers, with keels so deep that even with 4 foot or so dropped into a sump in the yard, they still towered over me, and I was unable to reach up to touch their bottoms. The charge for the night was about E23-00 and included free showers in ablution blocks, the downside if it could be considered such was that the yard gates were closed and locked at night, which meant if you were planning a night out in Porto Ferrario you had to do a short dinghy ride into town. We decided to move Dreamcatcher, but by the time we had stopped at the supermarket, walked our purchases home and stopped to try get belts for the autohelm, it was late the kids needed feeding and we were tired, so we ended up spending one more night in the Medician harbour.

10/05/2006 Cavo Elba Island
The day started slowly with apparent lack of motivation to get going, possibly because we felt this leg of the voyage was something we were having to do in order to sort out Phoebe’s passport, or because we had been traveling for too long without any real time to stop and catch up on ourselves, or maybe because Elba which was meant to be so nice had proved a disappointment after some of the lovely places we had been, but had left a bit too quickly or possibly because we were missing the company of friends we had met, but by 12:00 we were ready to fuel up and go, only to discover the fuel pontoon, which was run by a local filling station, who sent a man down when requested by the harbour master, was shut until 15:00. Eventually, at 15:45, we were fuelled up and on our way, which, despite our earlier reluctance to get moving again, it felt good to be moving on, even if it was a lot later than we had hoped. The wind as per normal decided to be on our nose as we came out of the harbour and headed north to Canale de Piombino, the 5 mile strip of sea separating Elba from main land Italy. While traveling round Corsica and Sardinia, we had been getting constant references to the pirate Barberrossa, who it transpires could have been one of three different pirates from different periods of history, but we had discovered in the pilot book that there was a sheltered anchorage at near Porto Azzuro, on the east coast of Elba called Spiaggia Barberrossa, Barberrossa’s Beach, the big kid inside me could not resist adding a bit of fake adventure in my children’s lives. I do not know who’s imagination was being more active, mine or the kids, as I picked up on their excitement at going and possibly even anchoring at ‘Real Pirate Beach’, that might even have treasure. The distance to Barberrossa is 17 miles, but closehauled, close to the cliffs, and with the engine on our progress is dreadfully slow, unlike the ferries from Piombino and other mainland ports, who seem to have only two speeds, full ahead or dead stop, and leave big wakes trailing behind them, which leave us wallowing accompanied by the now inevitable sound of something falling on to the floor. Neither Sara nor I are looking forward to the trip at these speeds, fortunately just round Capo Della Vita, there is a small harbour of Cavo tucked under the lee of a headland and Monto Lentisco, there is an island and some rocks to negotiate, the depth is marginal, but looking at the pilot book there should be enough for us on the end of the pontoons and the maximum length is 12meters, we decide to give it a go. We creep in slowly keeping an eye on both depth and heading, we gain the entrance without any problems and call across to two sailing school boats to enquire about he depth, they inform there is two meters, the berth is the third one in, in a narrow gap, summoning all my confidence I believe we can do it, we slot in first time, as if the gap was made for us, which was fortunate, as there wasn’t room to get it wrong, getting out might be a problem, but that will have to wait. It is 17:30; it has taken us nearly two hours to cover 7 miles. There are two beaches on either side of the harbour, we take the children to the southerly one, which still has a bit of sunlight left on it, and they go swimming in still chilly water.
Cavo is a small town with is mainly developed in a strip parallel to the beachfront, which is in the middle of development to create a large promenade. All the provision shops appeared to on roads leading out the back of town It has a small ferry disembarkation pier, which must bring a huge amount of trade to the town in summer, but now out of season it was empty apart from locals and small groups of cyclists coming through. We liked it, it somehow managed to feel more real and more Italian than Porto Ferrario, and the kids could jump off the boat and be playing on the beach in less than five minutes.
The next morning we caught a couple of small crabs in the kids bucket, and saw a purple blue coloured jellyfish. It was a lovely place and we decided that the children needed a break from traveling, so we elected to stay here for a day and let the children play on the beach, after an aborted attempt to walk up Monto Lentisco, to get to the monument, which overlooks the harbour. We returned to the northern beach, where we managed to restrain the children long enough to get their armbands on, but only just, before they plunged into the chilly sea. The beach was sheltered by a small headland on which a lovely green shuttered villa had been built. We had a pleasant time despite the construction work taking place at the harbour 300 meters away. The bay in front of the beach would make a beautiful anchorage in settled weather.

12/05/2006 Barbarossa Spiaggia Elba Island
The next morning we were getting ready to depart, when we found a marina card stuffed under the anchor, which enabled us to find the harbourmaster and pay our fees. The harbour was full of purple, blue and brown jellyfish about 3inches in diameter, and a couple of long transparent tube-like ones, which appeared to propel themselves by squeezing water through their middle. By the time we had stopped to look and catch some in a bucket, you can see a lot of detail in zoomed in digital photos, our departure had been delayed by an hour and a half, however the only reason for an early start was in order to get to our destination earlier so as not to feel that we had been traveling all day. Spiaggia Barberrossa remained hidden as we approached Porto Azzurro, the alternative anchorages were in sight, it was not until we were sailing past the bay that it revealed itself. The midday peace of the anchorage was disturbed by the rattle of chain, is it followed our delta down to the sandy bottom, and reverse engaged to bury it deep into the sandy bottom, the head of the bay had a couple of beach huts, to our starboard was a red coloured bluff dropping onto a rocky foreshore and on our port side, on top of a pine clad hill, was a old fort, Fotezza Di Giacomo, with not a pirate flag to be seen. There were two other boats already at anchor, a French boat, and Flirty who had arrived the day before. Bob was launched and we motored to the beach. Judy rowed ashore later and Phoebe and Nick did their best boat boy impressions running forward to take Judy’s painter, although Nick in his eagerness did go in a bit deeper than he should and the water nearly went over his head. Richard had stayed on board trying to fix their winch, although Dreamcatcher has a winch, it has no chain gypsy, and we haven’t worked out how to use chain on it yet, so as we say, we use the wench, Sara is rather good at anchor work, which is handy, as I struggle to drop and recover the anchor. After having his work disturbed by us all motoring out to Flirty, to join them for a pre lunch drink, a cup of tea, us cruisers like the simple home comforts, Richard gave up on his winch for the day. Later Richard and Judy took Bingo and walked into Porto Azzurro, however Richard is not a happy anchorer and does not like letting Flirty out of sight when on anchor, so he asked us to keep an eye on his boat, and gave us instructions on how to start his engine, all of which turned out to be unnecessary, although the idea of moving his boat did briefly enter my head. The next day we walked through the pine wood to the castle, which had been used as a prison, and I continued on into Porto Azzurro, for supplies, while Sara got pestered by the kids into taking them back to the beach.
Porto Azzurro was approached down a step hill, to reveal a large piazza looking onto the harbour. The piazza is ringed by restaurants and cafes, and there are some restaurants built on stilts that go out into the harbour. Behind the piazza are a number of smaller twisting alleys, with the normal tourist shops and a number of gem cum rock stores, selling things made from amethyst and other crystalline rocks, for which the area is known.
We discovered on our second day that our holding tank was full and starting to overflow, we had neglected to empty it while coming down from Cavo, another lesson in living on a boat, along with never pass an opportunity to fill your water and diesel tanks, forget to empty your holding tank at your peril.

14/05/2006 Talamone, Italy
The wind had moved to the South, blowing into the anchorage and was forecast to increase during the day, Isola Giglio, the Island of Lilly’s, our next stop, lay 33 miles to the south east, with the engine running to charge the batteries we waved goodbye to Flirty and set off. It was an uncomfortable morning, the horrible short Mediterranean swell, was in fine form, coming from the South East, the only way to make the journey even slightly bearable was to either head East or South, we chose the latter. After 4 hours we still had 23 miles to go to Giglio, we aborted and set course North East to Castiglione della Pescaia. A sheltered harbour with a narrow dredged entrance channel with depths of 1.5 to 3 meters, although dangerous to enter in strong on shore winds, the wind was from the south, and it should not present any difficulties. Two hours later things were not much better: -
“14:50 All sails down. Horrible lumpy sea, everywhere seems to be the wrong direction”
The seas appeared to have got worse, and we were rocking and rolling, like a boxer just before he hits the canvas. We were not having fun. In an attempt to steady the boat we let out some jib, the wind had veered and increased, we were now heading onto a lee shore. The seabed from the shore shelves relatively slowly, so that at one mile out you are in only 20 meters. I was concerned about the now onshore wind, but the waves were not that big, and we were watching motorboats going into the harbour to see if they were having any difficulties, which they were not. With Phoebe calling out the depth, and Sara on lookout, we approached the harbour under bare poles. The depths started shoaling rapidly as we approached the breakwater, then they leveled off at 2.1meters, a fishing man, on the harbour wall, watching us coming in walked over to the side of the breakwater, apparently standing by to take our lines, the engine speed was increased to maintain steerage way, when with the depth still at 2.1meters, Dreamcatcher bow dipped sharply and we all shot forward, we had landed on Italy, aground in a narrow entrance channel, with an onshore wind and waves pushing us in, in a boat that does not reverse in a straight line and with a RIB right behind us intent on getting into the harbour. The options were try and push over the sand bar, wait to get bashed about by the waves and maybe rescued or go full power in reverse and hope to pull ourselves off, and then hope that Dreamcatcher will not swing round in astern as she normally does. Hobson’s choice really, full power astern. We came off and started heading backwards, I now had to hope that I could manage to steer in a straight line, and avoid the RIB that was behind us. The RIB seemed to notice our intentions, probably helped by me staring backwards at him and waving my arms, but he went astern and moved out of our way, and Dreamcatcher edged backwards in a more or less straight line, avoiding the breakwater and the on the other side. During these moments of high anxiety I noticed the fisherman raise his hands palm upwards, and with an Italian shrug, walk back to his rods and carry on fishing, if only I knew some Italian, I could have used some choice words just then. With 5 meters under the keel, we risked turning round and headed back out the way we had come. With 10 meters of water under us, and my heart still intent on making a bid for freedom, I unfurled the jib, stopped the engine we needed the calm. As we headed South Sara was down below consulting the pilot book to find an alternative stopping place for the night. We had a lovely sail down the coast, passing the anchorage of Cala Di Forno, The Oven, which looked beautiful with red cliffs in the evening light, but it seemed a bit exposed for the forecast weather, and after our day so far we didn’t need any more problems, At 20:45 we finally tied up at Talamone, whose harbour is in a bay protected from the West by a Castle and village on a hill, the south by a concrete breakwater, and the other two sides the Tuscan hills. It had been a long unpleasant day, 12 hours and 49 miles, and we were nowhere near where we intended to be, but somehow the lovely sail at the end of the day coupled with the feeling of having overcome adversity and the comfort derived from being able to adapt our plans so that we had arrived after a fantastic sunset into this harbour, left us feeling happy and contented as we sat in the cockpit looking out at the gently rolling hills of Tuscany.

15/05/2006 Talamone
After the day before we need a bit of quiet, we had entered Talamone the night before, making our way cautiously to avoid the shallows and rocks, which are reputed to lie alongside the entrance to the harbour, we did not want a repeat of our earlier disaster. The next morning we were visited by two men who said they were the Harbourmasters, on enquiring as to where their office was, we were given directions which we did not fully understand, we paid up for two nights and where issued with a receipt. Despite being mid May we were clearly to early for the tourist season and after a walk around the walled medieval town, not only did we had the piazza to ourselves as we ate our ice creams, but the port-a-cabin that was the tourist information office did not open for another two weeks. Fortunately their was a bus and train timetable posted in a display case, for the previous year, but we decided to go with the times as shown, which indicated that their was only one viable connection available to get us into Rome, and give us time to do our jobs and look around, before catching the last train home.

16/05/06
We were all up early to start our journey, it is a bit of an unusual feeling to be heading into a city like Rome, not to do tourist bits, but merely to sort out paperwork. Train stations early in the morning have a magical quality to them, all calm and freshness, a gentle place as yet unsullied by the noise, heat and smells that accompany us nearly everywhere we go. The downside of this peace and quiet is there is no one in the ticket office to assist you, only a German couple, and a ticket machine. The German couple were confused by the machine as we were at first, then we managed to get it working, the initial ticket selection was second class, but in trying to find the station in Rome we wanted, it offered us Cambio tickets, seeing as we were not going far I choose these the cheapest return ticket option. As we left the ticket office Sara told me that she thought we should click our tickets in an orange machine, I thought we did not need to as we had our tickets, but it was for locals to click their weekly tickets. I was wrong. As we left the station the ticket inspector came down the train, I got my tickets out, but he waved them away as he moved down to the back of the train. Thirty minute or so later, he came into the carriage and asked for the tickets, which I passed to him. He stared at them and informed me these were no good, after a long and heated discussion involving me and Sara, me and the inspector, Sara and the inspector, we were lead to believe that there was no Cambio on this line, he confiscated our tickets and refused to return them so that I could not get a refund, and despite the fact that the return tickets cost more than the correct single fair he insisted on us buying new single tickets from him, and paying a fine for not having the correct tickets. One bureaucratic individual ruined my day, I spent all day ranting and mumbling about his attitude, as we later found out we are not the only ones to fall foul of train ticket inspectors, whom it would appear can be rather obdurate. After getting off at Termini, we walked to the Embassy, which is a modern building with fine grounds and Henry Moore sculptures, all protected by high fences, armed Carabinari, video cameras, turnstiles, bombproof doors and security guards. I felt more vulnerable in the embassy than I did on the streets. We got Phoebes passport application in, but had no money, so after arguing about the charge, to discover that we had to pay for a biometric passport, which contained absolutely no Biometric data, I had to find a bank. By the time we had finished it was time to head back to the station to catch our train home. We got back without incident apart from a long wait of 50 minutes, which was passed by eating a fantastic takeaway tomato pizza which cost under E3-00.

17/05/2006 Giglio Island
A lazy start to the day, after the previous day exertions, while Sara went ashore to get fresh provisions before we departed, I filled the water tanks, hosed off the deck and washed out the cockpit. Sara came back and turned off the hose and jumped onto Dreamcatcher, the cockpit drains go out through the main bilge outlet, and we had washed out some oil residue. As we were trying to disperse the oil, a group of men came walking down the pontoon to us. There was nothing we could do, no one had been near the boat for three days, and now we are in the middle of a multicoloured sheen, we were going to have to face the consequences. It transpired that they had noticed Dreamcatcher the day before and had been admiring her, and were doing the sailor thing of asking the what’s and where’s, and passing on compliments. We felt uncomfortable after our incident and decided to leave as soon as possible; we cast off our lines at 13:00 and headed towards the Island of Lillies. With all sail set we had a lovely sail towards Isola Giglio, With the wind on the port bow we couldn’t lay a course direct to the harbour, but got as close as we comfortably could, a with the helm centered and left to look after itself, we sailed along adjusting the course by tweaking the mizzen, it was not a fast sail only 3.8knots over the ground, but it was a beautiful sail, we put in a couple of tacks near to the island, to both get in closer and to avoid a tug pulling an enormous platform, then did a quick calculation as to the amount of time it would take us to get in under sail, and turned the engine on. It was impossible after such a lovely sail and land fall to be annoyed about anything anymore. Giglio is a small island with a small town that has grown around the harbour, with a large mountain behind it on top of which is the Castello, the old walled still inhabited town, in which the locals apparently sort refuge when attacked by pirates. The pontoons were full of boats, although their was space on the harbour wall, but it was having construction work done on it, we were just thinking of going to the harbour wall, when a man appeared in a scruffy t shirt and shorts, who waved us in to a spot, and assisted us in tying up. He was a hard working marinello, who seemed to be always doing his best to squeeze boats in. It cost E40-00/night, which was paid for the first night and our last night, the ones in the middle just got forgotten about, whether intentionally or not I do not know, although he did seem a bit surprised when I tried paying him for our last night, I got the feeling that provided you were in his book and he had at least one receipt and payment from you it did not matter to much. Giglio is a lovely island which held us for longer than expected, the bus ride from the harbour to the Castello is not to be missed, as the bus winds it way up the road cut into the side of the mountain. Castello is still largely untouched by tourism, with a bar and restaurant outside the walls, and not much else of a tourist nature inside, it is a town inhabited by locals, and is a delightfully untouched spot.
We went to the church and inspected the relics, the ulna of some Saint in a glass case wearing a metal gauntlet, a scimitar reputed to have belonged to one of last group of pirates who tried to sack the island, and a beautifully detail small statue if Jesus on the cross, so detailed that you could see teeth in the open mouth, I was fascinated and kept staring at it, it was one of the most beautiful things I have seen.
In the relatively small harbour ferries arrive in regular streams from the mainland, and come into the harbour without seeming to slow down, then aiming their bows at the tied up yachts execute a ferry J-turn, the first couple of times it is rather alarming to have a large mass of metal coming straight towards you, then slewing round and going backwards only about 50 feet from you, after a couple you remember they do this about 6 or 8 times a day everyday, and you relax and let them get on with it, although it did get a bit cramped while we were rafting a 45” charter boat alongside us, with slack lines, another yacht outside of them trying to come alongside, and the last ferry of the day turning round at the same time. Rafting up was a bit awkward as the charter party had not done it before, and could not grasp the concept of how to do it and just stood round in groups on their deck with short lines in their hands, Sara and I managed to get them sorted, and explained that it was perfectly acceptable to cross over our decks to get ashore, I just didn’t expect everyone of them to continually ask me permission whenever they needed to cross. The water in the harbour is beautifully clear allowing you to see down to the bottom day or night, as at night the harbour has floodlights, which while they enabled you to read a carefully angled book in the cockpit, are not intrusive.
On our second day Nick and I had a boys day, and went off exploring, we found a number of twisting alleys that lead us to lighthouse and the old eel pounds, nice square holes carved out of the rock in a small cove behind the harbour. We explored more roads and tracks until we found another long bay with a sandy beach at the far end. Later that afternoon all four of us set off once again, and Nick, arguing with his sister about who was in front, took on the leaders role as he proudly showed his mother and sister all the things we had discovered earlier.

.20/05/2006 Porto Ercole
We finally managed to drag ourselves away, and at 08:50 we left Giglio to head towards the Italian mainland and Mont Argentario, an island which has been joined to the mainland by silt carried down by flooding rivers. After an uneventful sail we encountered a number of sailing and powerboats heading towards Giglio for a sailing festival, why we had decided to leave, when a sailing festival was coming to town I can not remember maybe we thought it might be able to find berths more easily. We entered the harbour at Porto Ercole, which seem rather full of sailing and powerboats. We saw one sailing boat get waved away from a pontoon, they then tied up against some fishing boats and where then made to move on. We found a spot but where waved away as we approached, and it was indicated we move two pontoons further down, and there between two motorboats was the perfect space. With fenders and lines ready we slipped in, and had our lines taken by a man on the pontoon. As I was getting ready to take the stern line, a man came running down the pontoon to tell us that this was his friends space and we had to go, he did not enquire how long we wished to stay, but started untying our lines and casting us off. Slightly annoyed by the lack of cooperation we went back to circling in the middle of the harbour, here we watched the same boat from earlier being chased away from yet another spot. I called across to an Italian sailing boat that was also doing circles, he suggested we either anchor in the middle of the harbour, or go to the marina outside the harbour, but he warned us it was expensive. By now we were hot and tired, so we headed out of the harbour, and headed towards the beach, Tombola di Feniglia, where a number of boats draped over by sunbathing bodies were anchored up. We set our anchor and launched Bob to head in to the beach, in order for the kids to swim, to sit in the shade of the pine trees, and to get away from the uncomfortable swell. We took some fenders for the kids to play with, they spent the afternoon pulling each other round in the water on the fender, rolling round in the sand and trying to catch small crabs in the sea. It was a thoroughly pleasant afternoon, and the water was a lovely warm temperature for swimming in. Slowly the beach emptied as did the anchorage, with the boats all heading back to the marina or the harbour 300 or 800 meters away respectively. By 17:00 everyone was gone apart from group of teenagers who had a fire and quite party going until 02:00.
We set the anchor alarm and went to sleep, in the knowledge that if things did blow up we could cut and run into the well-lit marina. During the night the anchor alarm went off, which was caused by the wind strengthening and blowing offshore, which swung us round, and calmed the motion down, Sara slept beautifully, I did not, I was up and down regularly during the night checking our position.

21/05/2006 Cittivechia Italy
The next morning the wind was back onshore, and the swells had picked up, Nick was sick while we were still at anchor and Sara struggled to get the anchor in and it was not easy holding Dreamcatcher into the swells during recovery of the anchor. The swells were so uncomfortable that the kids did not raise any objections to leaving such a lovely beach behind. At 18:00 after a long boring day sailing down flat featureless coastline, with a passing uninspiring towns frustrating day with out much wind we arrived at Riva Di Traiano, where we had a three way VHF conversation with the harbour master, with a kindly English man joining in as an interpreter. It is large purpose built marina, which according to Rod Heikel has berthing for 1180 boats and has 110 visitors’ berths with the usual marina type shops and restaurants. Toilet blocks are spread evenly round the complex, but all key controlled apart from one block of 2 showers and 3 toilets for the visitors pontoon. Maybe because I was hot and tired, or possibly because despite all the shops we could not find anywhere that would serve us food, I lost my sense of objectivity and recorded it in the logbook as ‘Concrete dump’. However it is one of the few places that provide shelter down this stretch of the coast, and it is meant to be a good spot to leave your boat if you want to head into Rome, and the staff were helpful and polite, it cost E60-00 for one night.

22/05/2006 Fiumincino Italy- Marina
At 10:00 after dealing with formalities, and showering, and with trepidation about the potential future costs, we cast off and headed towards Fumincino. Which is meant to have a small marina, or moorings alongside the canal, although not very secure, and is meant to have good transport links to Rome. The wind is once more on the nose, so we head off shore hoping to get a good angle on our tack to take us all the way down to Fiumincino but to no avail having set full sail at 10:50 by 11:40 we are back motorsailing, although we did have a dolphin cross our path, the first one since leaving Corsica. Eventually we wind shifts and we manage to complete our journey under sail alone. As the pilot book says Fiumincino is easy to spot, just watch for the planes taking off and landing, otherwise the landscape is flat and featureless, with no significant landmarks, it must have provided a fair challenge for early navigators. We stood off while we identified the narrow entrance to the canal, which we did by watching another boat and seeing where they went, but even with this guide it was not easy to clearly identify the entrance. At 18:00 we had squeezed our way into a berth in the Darsena Traiano, and Vincenzo relieved us of E40-00 for a night or E200-00 for a week.
Fiumincino is an unsupposing place, which appears to have been built to service fishing boats and the airport. It does have a plethora of ice-cream shops, which the kids seem determined to categorise according to the quality of their ice cream; we made a start on the research that first night.


23/05/2006 Fiuminicino Canal Italy The next morning Sara goes off in search of other moorings and shops, and comes back with us booked in for a week at a yard further up the canal at E1-50/m/night. The canal is spanned by two lifting bridges with fixed times for opening. Sara praised my manoeuvring into the berth when we arrived, as she did not think I would get Dreamcatcher in, ?I did not get praise for our exit, which was conducted with far less élan then the arrival. I must learn to go with the prop walk, we went out into the middle of the canal where a held station for a while, the canal appears to have a lot of contrary currents, at least that is my excuse for the hash we made of tying up to the wall while waiting for the bridges to open. With bells and sirens the pedestrian bridge swung up , and a procession of boats headed up stream, towards the second bridge, which was not open. With all this going on I noticed that the second bridge was a horizontally lifting bridge, and we did not know its height, a quick look at the boats going through revealed all their masts were lower than ours, apart from the lead boat, a large American flagged catamaran, the answer was simple, they could be our ‘twang stick’, if they got through so would we. With the sound of bells the pedestrian bridge lifted and our convoy of boats headed up stream. Then things went a bit pear shaped, as the second bridge opened a big motor yacht shot out towards our convoy, then once clear of the bridge he seemed to stop and head across the canal directly towards the lead catamaran. The harbour master started waving his arms about, and the catamaran pulled over and tied up to the left bank of the canal. I had been moving slowly and watched this chaos smugly, then realized that their was no a huge gap between me and the other boats, and I? Had better get a move on if we wanted to get through the bridge, I increased engine speed and mover Dreamcatcher up to 5/6knots, when as we started approaching the catamaran, his engine emitted a great gout of smoke, his lines were slipped and he shoot out towards us, it was Marseilles all over again, with full reverse and a cavitating prop, I tried to stop 10 tons of boat, fortunately a yell from his crew alerted their skipper and went back towards the wall, and we missed him, we were now still charging along at about 4 knots as we headed for the bridge. This is when I realized that our ‘twang stick’ was now behind us, it was to late to stop or turn around, reducing speed as much as possible we passed under, how much room we had I do not know as I could not tilt my head to look. As we headed slowly upstream looking for the berth, their was a bang, sounds of breaking plastic and shouts, turning round we were in time to see our ‘twang stick’ remove his windex on the first girder, his masthead lights on the second and his VHF antenna on the third. Pitching backwards and forwards with each crunching contact. The damage was not too severe and fortunately could be easily fixed, but he still had to get back out again, and the only way was back under the bridge.