The Med at last, or is this the last.

10/03/06 We had been watching the weather closely, and despite the mistral blowing, it looked like we might have a good window in the early part of next week, so we got ready to leave, this involved deregistering the children from school, letting everyone know that we hope to go on Tuesday, returning and collecting various books DVD’s etcetera, and filing the tanks with water and diesel. A farewell party was hastily organised to take place on the Saturday, by Sherry from Arca di Bella, our neighbours for the last 3 months. Blue Duck another Swedish boat had been trying to leave all week, but had been weather bound, they were now hoping to go on the Monday.

11/03/06 Veliserdi braved the mistral to come and visit in batches, a comment to Dianne that our Chart plotter software wasn’t working had Serge pedalling across to help me sort out the problem. Before he disappeared that night with my GPS we persuaded him to come to the party, his comment to me later was that he did not realise that there were going to be so many people, all the boat people turned up apart from Julian and Peter, Peter it transpired thought he had been excluded as he was not invited directly, and we don’t know what happened to Julian, as we did not see the pirate again before we left. During the day I began to suspect that my fixed VHF antenna was not working properly, Dennis kindly offered to go up my mast the next day, although the forecast was for more Mistral.

12/03/06 Mistral still blowing, shrouds finally pinned, deck gear stowed. Spare antenna cable from Blue Duck confirmed that there was a fault.

13/03/05 Blue Duck still not gone, the mistral has gone but it is still a strong and bitterly cold North wind blowing, Dennis goes up the mast, so we can check the cable, which is fine therefore it is the antenna itself which needs to be changed. Serge arrived with my GPS complete with lead to connect to the chart plotter. We decided to delay our departure until the VHF antenna can be changed. Later that night while checking all our other bits of electronics I discover that the GPS is not working, the original wires get reconnected to the radar switch, and it works although not with the chart plotter.

14/03/06 Get woken up at 07:00 by a knocking on the hull, I find Serge outside with some software revisions that will enable the chart plotter to work more fully, he was worried we might leave before he had it working properly. After discovering that the only fault with Serge’s cable was that it had been wired into a disconnected earth bus bar, it had worked the day before as the computer provided an earth link, and apologising over a coffee we got the chart plotter working. Dennis had arrived to ask when he was required to go back up the mast, it had been arranged for 10:00, but it was still windy and cold, so we rescheduled till lunch time, when the antenna from the chart table got plugged in and at last we were all systems go at 14:30, it wouldn’t be like me to get things ready to soon in advance. Blue Duck had slipped out some time in the morning, so with the help of the Capitainair, Dennis Sherry and an kind wind blowing us off, we slipped our lines and left Port Saint Louis three month exactly after first arriving. We had meet some friendly people some of whom we hope to meet later as we all head for Greece, and others who are going in different directions, we hope to keep in contact with them and wish them all fair winds and slight seas. We passed Andy working on his boat, and with jib only we showed 5.7 knots on our log as we headed the 2 miles to Navy Services. This stop had been planned last night, as we wanted to leave Port Saint Louis and now there were too many people at Navy Services to whom we wanted to say goodbye to. Veliserdi saw us arriving and before we were alongside, Veliserdi, Topea and Christine were all standing by to take our lines, it was an excellent welcome. The children thought this was an excellent sailing idea, leave one place arrive somewhere else less than 30 minutes later to be met by all your friends. Sara and I managed to find all the people we were looking for. Ann and Norman joined us onboard briefly to say goodbye, then Dreamcatcher’s crew all went to Veliserdi, which was stood on the hard having repairs done, where we were joined by Guner and Eve from Topea who brought our supper. After a pleasant evening containing a reasonable quantity of wine we departed leaving Serge with a bottle of Malt Scotch as thanks for all his help.

15/03/06 Dermot arrives just as we are about to depart and helps slip our lines, we are hoping to make a quiet departure, leaving Phoebes bike behind for Veliserdi to use, but our departure is spotted by Veliserdi, and before long Veliserdi are all on the quay wall waving and shouting their goodbyes. It is a sad moment as we do not anticipate seeing Veliserdi again for a long time, as they hope to be returning to Paris for a two year employment contract, as we finally past out of sight behind the land they are still stood there waving. After this start Sara and I are quiet for a while caught in our own thoughts, we motor out into the Golf de Fos and finally into the Mediterranean Sea. Phoebe helps helm, there is a bit of wind but I had a sleepless night due to some stomach bug, and I can’t manage the effort of putting the sails up and down so we motor on. The landscape changes as we move away from the flat industrial part of the Golf de Fos, and round the corner towards Carry le Rouet, there are sand coloured hills with olive green vegetation, at last this is beginning to look like my idea of the Mediterranean coast of France. Marseilles revels itself guarded and sheltered by its islands including for people familiar with Alexandra Dumas’ Conte of Monte Cristo Il D’If complete with its prison Chateau D’If. 5 hours after leaving Navy Services we thread our way in past the Phare and the Fort, to find the Vieux Port opening up in front of us, we slow down as we try to locate the reception pontoon. I notice a large wooden boat reversing out in front of us, it stops then goes back in, trying to line itself up on it’s pontoon, as we get closer it starts reversing again I anticipate it stopping and going back in, when I realise it is not going to stop but is continuing backwards, I can’t turn to port as I now have another boat overtaking me, if I try to reverse I will just stop behind him, so increasing throttle, I yell across for them to stop, at last they react diving for the cockpit, but they do not stop instead they increase their speed backwards and with a loud banging and crashing noise smash into my pushpit, we are slewed around to starboard, as they continue to career across the harbour straight towards moored motor boats on the other side. Eventually they stop, and come back and apologise, and ask us to come alongside their pontoon so that we can sort it out. Beinevenue Marseille. The reception pontoon was 20 meters in front of us. It transpired that his engine telegraph had malfunctioned, and after assessing the damage, our pushpit is seriously distorted pushed in on the starboard side with all the uprights bent, and their inflatable, which was what actually hit us and acted like a fender, burst, we moored up at the reception pontoon and waited for the morning when we would sort it all out.

16-22/03/05 The next seven days are spent getting the boat repaired and walking round discovering Marseille, an unusual place that reveals its secrets slowly, it is too easy to take it as a busy commercial mish mash of a city, but that would be a disservice, it is a colourful, friendly and frenetic mix of cultures squashed together, but still different, in a sprawling city, if anything this was clearly indicated in the Carnaval we went to, a procession of nearly 1.5miles of floats all representing different districts; schools or cultural groups, packed full of energy. We stood at the side of the road, for over 2 hours, in the sun until the last float finally came past, with its band and troop of dancers still in full flight. The carnaval went down the road heading towards the horse race course, a part of the city which had been developed because the city council thought they should develop that area. We walked round the North African area, near the Arch De Triomph, and found Tea shops selling baklava’s and other sweet cakes, alongside Halal markets and stalls from which wafted the heady scents of spices. The daily fish market at the end of the Vieux Port, sells fish caught by the local fisherman, sold by the local fishermen, it is so fresh that it is quite literally flapping, as some of the trays are flooded with water to keep the fish alive. The character of the town is typified by Renee’ and his cohorts who come round to fix the pushpit rather than involving the insurance companies, the pushpit is removed later one afternoon, and rather than trying to get it through the busy rush hour traffic it gets put into a rib, a rib with a somewhat temperamental motor. The rib announces its appearance by an engine starting and quickly going up it rev range to full power, as it shoots out into the harbour, does a quick turn and heads towards us whereupon it engine promptly dies. The pushpit is loaded up and off the ribs goes, with Renee at the helm, and his companion standing up in the bow, this in Marseille is not unusual as we have seen the Harbour master patrol boats regularly taking people out all standing up, usually holding on to part of the structure, what is unusual about Renee’s rib, is it only about 7 foot long, and the bloke standing up in the front is holding my pushpit over his shoulders. The ribs engine stalls 10 meters from Dreamcatcher, and not wanting to miss an opportunity like this the chap holding the pushpit lets go of it, leaving it balanced on his shoulder while he proceeds to roll and light a cigarette, while Renee is tugging at the started cord. The Harbour masters office was getting refitted for the start of the season, and Nick soon made friends with the builders, due to delays in getting the pushpit remade we moved onto Renee’s pontoon and tied up alongside one of his day trip boats, which he sorted out with the harbourmaster. Nick and Phoebe made friends of Renee and Jean Michel, to the extent that whenever they came on board they were either shot by Nick, or they attached themselves to their legs stopping them form leaving. When Jean Michel came on board to fix some new boards in the ceiling, Nick got dressed up in his construction workers costume and took his tool kit in to help, and was a bit upset when Jean Michel went ashore to get a saw, as Nick had on in his toolbox, which he got out and offered to Jean Michel when he came back. The trip boat community got a bit interesting while we were there, as the charter company taking day trippers to Port Friole and Château D’If, which it was alleged had a gangster element, which it was believed had had a hand in fire bombing two of Renee’s boats, including the one we were moored up to, in the past, had finally had its licences revoked, and their boats had been impounded, chained to the jetty, then towed away by the police. When we finally left we were told that any time we came back to Marseille, we were welcome to tie up in their yard, and as we sailed away Jean Michel who had taken a ferry across to Port Frioul past us going the other way, and hooted his horn in farewell, which the children responded to with excited waving.

23/03/06 Once more we had got ourselves sailing to a deadline and losing time; in January when Jean and Michael had been with us we arranged to meet them again in Sardinia at Easter. Sitting in port in winter 200 miles in over 4 months did not seem extreme, even leaving when we did gave us time and allowed for the odd weather bound day, but did not include losing time due to repairs, the last two days had had horrible weather, some even if we had been ready we could not have left, however we now had a window, Westerly 2/3, slight seas, just what we require for our first real sail of the season, if a bit light we should make the 16miles to Port Miou easily. As we came round the corner form the Vieux Port, we hoisted the mizzen, in a lumpy swell, left over from the last 2 days of westerlies. We turned the engine on after ghosting past Chateau D’If, and were slopping round in the swells, I thought about raising the main, but decided to wait until we were out of the shelter of the islands, as we started getting out of the shelter the swells started getting bigger, there were white horses on the crests of the waves, and the wind got stronger. Phoebe and Nick lost the struggle and started being sick, Dreamcatcher was tromping along beautifully showing over 6 knots sometimes going over 7, with the wind and waves on the starboard bow. If we carried on we would have to turn the corner and run before the wind, which should lessen the apparent wind, but could led to problems later when we needed to turn into Port Miou, although I had confidence in Dreamcatcher, the crew would be a problem, and another 2 to 3 hours of this would not be pleasant for the children, and Sara would then be needed to look after them, leaving me by myself, it was an easy decision to make, with the strong winds which I estimated at closer to a F6 than F3, white crests on the waves, we turned back. This now moved the Mizzen boom across onto the other adjustable backstay, due to the motion I did not ask Sara to go back to loosen it, which meant that in the gusts we had tremendous weather helm, as the mizzen tried to swing us to wind, with full opposite helm we stayed more or less on course, even this did not slow us down with over 7 knots on the log. As we got more sheltered we loosened our backstay and headed towards Port Frioul, a harbour in the shelter of the Rattenau islands off Marseille. Three hours after setting off we were 2.5 miles from where we had started. However I am glad we had to make the stop otherwise we would have missed this delightful spot. While Sara and I tied up the boat, after 4 months travelling down the canals and three months in port, we had neglected to stow the boat properly for sea, the children’s toys which had been set up on the table were all over the floor, where they were having a party with books, charts, smashed glasses, bread boards, some battery operated stainless silver salt and pepper pots, Christmas presents, which we now refer to as the missiles, various fruit and vegetables, which had decided they were missing out, or did not want to be eaten, we kept finding bits of glass and vegetables reappearing from their hiding places over the next two days, Phoebe and Nick were put on the jetty, and allowed to run off and explore by themselves, something we had been hoping to let them do ever since we set off, we fetched them back when we saw Nick standing on the edge of the cliff looking down. After a rest I took the children for a walk on the nature reserve, the sun was warm on our faces as we walked up the rocky hill covered with scrub plants, went through a cutting, to see the Mediterranean Sea with white capped waves, more closely clear blue waters in the cove in front of us, a castle on the hill at the far end of the island, it was what we had been aiming for the last two years, I finally felt that we had got there, it was an emotional moment. As we ran back to fetch Sara, as she should not miss out on this, we had a lovely view of Marseille behind Isle D’If.

24/03/06 Weather bound, so we went walking round the island and the children went swimming in the sea, that evening as I was tiding up a French Family with a little girl walked down the jetty to talk to us, they had seen our children walking about the jetty, and came across to talk to us. They were going to heading down to Greece later in the year, to visit the island that his grandfather a sponge fisherman had come from. He told us that if there is a westerly wind in the area that there are always big swells. Weather looks good for tomorrow.

25/03/06 Up at 7:00 aiming to get a good start if the wind is calm, it is a flat calm in the harbour. Off to Port Miou, with options to continue on if it is good. We sneak through the gap between the mainland and the islands off the tip of Marseille, which cuts three miles off our journey towards Port Miou, 6 meters of water is disconcerting after being in over 80 meters. Mizzen raised jib out, and we are running before the wind, still with the engine on to keep up the miles. We pass Port Miou and head across towards Ciotat, Roger the autohelm gets pulled out of his cupboard and turned on, the winds is still gentle, the 11:15 SSB weather forecast still foretells good weather. This is very different from our first attempt to leave Marseille, the sea is has a gentle swell and all are smiling. At 12:00 Sara serves up ravioli, and the engine gets turned off so we can sail through a gentle lunch. Dreamcatcher maintains an indicated 4 knots, the lost 1.5 knots for an hour while we have lunch will not add too much on to the journey. We decided to keep sailing as the speed slowly moves up to 4.5 knots, and we head off towards Porquerolles, an island that everyone tells is lovely. The wind picks up and we reef the mizzen, we are still running, with the log now showing 6.5knots going up to 7.5, the seas are catching us on the stern and trying to slew us round, ‘Roger’ had been struggling to keep up and spent most of the time turned off. It was uncomfortable to hold the chosen course, so we headed a further 10 degrees off shore, moving the wind from dead astern to the Starboard Quarter, would put us off track, but it made the motion a lot more comfortable. As we got closer to Porquerolles we executed a gib, got it horribly wrong with the jib wrapped round the forestay, and did a series of circles to untangle it, during which ‘Roger’s’ belt snapped, this might cause us problems on longer passages unless we could find a replacement, which I believed where in the engine room. We identified the gap between Porquerolles and the mainland, and slipped in, the wind was blowing strongly in the harbour, but their were plenty of people offering help with our lines, at 17:0 after a fantastic days sailing we tied up having turned the engine on at the last 20 minutes to get us into the harbour. 52 miles in 9.5hours an average speed of 5.5knots, with most of the latter part of the afternoon spent at nearly 7 knots, I felt alive and buzzing, this was the furthest and fastest we had ever just sailed, without the engine on, in Dreamcatcher, and we had done it just as a family without any help, and the children had been with us playing in the cockpit all day. Sara took the children for walk while I talked to people on other boats, and put on sail covers and generally tidied up the topsides.

26/03/06 Woke up late, after we had got ourselves dressed and breakfasted, we set off to go explore, and found a note on the deck from the harbourmaster asking us to go to his office before 11:30, we arrived at 10:45, I found him stood at his door, hew told me he was closed and was not open now till Monday. This was a bit confusing as we were on time but the clock at the ferry station showed was an hour later, it was now Summer time in Europe. I was disappointed with Porquerolles, the harbour was new, and was filling up with motor boats coming over from Toulon, and then sitting in the marina moored next to each other having barbeques and lunch staring at a lump of concrete, wearing pastel sweaters and thick gold chains round their necks. The village was not much better, as far as I could see its only reason for being there was to provide holiday accommodation it had the feel of artificiality, a form of Bowness on Sea. It may have been better if we had anchored up off one of the beaches, or had walked further onto the island. During lunch we had a conversation looked at the forecast weather, we would need two days of good weather to get to Corsica, as the distance was 120 miles, we had a forecast which was good now and tomorrow but a bit iffy for the day after, we decided to go in the afternoon, at 14:45 we turned on the engine cast off our lines and headed out towards Corsica.

26-27/03/06 This was going to be a challenge, our first long crossing, with just Sara myself and the children, once we had left there were no stopping places on route, but we were still on a high from our fantastic day the day before, we had chosen to move the goalposts slightly, instead of doing the normal route of Porquerolles to Calvi we had opted for Girolata, about a third of the way down the coast, but that meant it was going to be a bit further to go. We were all in the cockpit as we motored between Porquerolles and Ile De Port Cros, we turned off the engine and raised the jib while we had supper, but there was no wind to talk off at all, so after supper it was back on with the engine as we set off to Corsica. Sara got the kids to bed, then went down to get some kip, but spent an hour or so plotting positions and tidying up, but before finally getting her head down at 22:00. It was a moonless night, and we appeared to have the sea to ourselves, it would have been peaceful if it weren’t for the engine throbbing away. The boredom of night watches with nothing in sight was broken by staring over the sides watching the sea light in our wake with blue phosphorescence, and trying to keep the jib filled, which was not helped by the swell left over from the last 3 days of westerlies. Sara was up again at midnight to take over, by which time I was looking forward to getting some kip. I gave Sara a course to steer, asked if she was all right, then headed towards the spare bunk in the saloon. I didn’t think I had fallen asleep, but I was woken by Sara bashing my foot and shouting at me. Lifejacket and harness on I was up in the cockpit, trying to find out what the problem was and found Sara struggling to keep the jib filled. Sara’s major concern was she had been shouting at me, and trying to throw things at me, to try and wake me up, before coming down to physically wake me, I had been sleeping with my hearing ear in the pillow, and with the combination of engine noise and tiredness I had not heard her. I really needed some more sleep, but Sara wasn’t happy with being on watch by herself. I got a blanket and a pillow and tried to get some kip in the cockpit, which was a lot harder than it sounds, not only are the seats to short to stretch out on, they are narrow and with the rolling seas, I was trying to sleep with one hand alternating between the binnacle and the cockpit cover. After finally nearly sliding all the way off the seat, I asked Sara if I could take over the helm. Sara and I changed positions, Sara was a lot more successful at getting to sleep. She was so fast asleep that when we were caught by an awkward swell she only woke up once she was in a heap on the cockpit floor. While I was staring out the starboard side, Sara claimed she had seen a dolphin or something that had snorted and made her jump, I did not believe this, the only light was what ever was reflecting from our steaming light. At 04:00 I had to believe her as I saw a steel blue fin cut through the water and followed by a trail of phosphorescence in the water, we had been joined by two dolphins who swam round and under our boat for the next 45 minutes. It woke us up and gave the passage a magical element. Before the dolphins arrived I had been struggling to stay awake, and there were times when I had micro sleeps while helming. At 05:00 I suddenly saw masthead lights in front of us, they had not been there when I had last looked, maybe I had been asleep, I could not make out what it was, a stern light, a steaming light or an anchor light, what ever it was it was big and close, as it was bright and high. I jumped up poked my head through the opening in the cockpit cover, we had seen 5 ships during the night, I did not want to get run down, I could not see any other navigation lights, I took my glasses off, this still did not improve it, I turned to starboard, what ever it was I couldn’t stay where I was. I cleaned my glasses and put them back on, still no better. It aspect was not changing it was still there, what was it? Finally the truth dawned, it was a planet or star that had appeared from behind the thinning clouds. It was time for me to get some proper sleep. Sara took over the helming, commented about the star, and I went below for some kip. I woke at 07:00 with light coming into the saloon, to see Sara stood at the helm, talking to Nicholas, who was sat in the cockpit, in his pyjamas, wrapped in a blanket, keeping his mum company. I plotted our position still 35 miles from Corsica and told Sara that she might soon be able to see Corsica. Sara said she had been seeing it since dawn, I came up into the cockpit and saw the mountains in the north of Corsica arranged like teeth ripping at the sky, as we got closer the mountains slowly revealed more details, the high peaks in the background were snow capped, giving way to dark granite coloured peaks, then drab olive green and finally at the base were they joined the sea the red of iron rich rocks. The red band dwarfed initially dwarfed by the peaks, slowly got larger blotting out the higher bits behind, as they plunger shear into the water, they rose to over 500 meters, and the sea depths rose equally sharply, just over 1 mile off shore the depths were still over 1000metres, finally rising to 20metres about 100 meters from the shore. We anchored up in the bay at Girolata, tucked up in the lee of a castle topped premonitory. There was one other boat at anchor, although it appeared to have been left there all winter and was not occupied, the village, accessible only either by foot or by boat, appeared mostly empty. There was a bit of activity on the shore as a small group of about 6 men repairing jetties and getting the wooden sided bar and restaurant ready for the season.