Date Location
08/06/2008 Msedia Creek, Malta
04/06/2008 Mgarr, Gozo
01/06/2008 Lampedusa, Again
29/05/2008 Isola Congelia, Lampedusa
18/05/2008 Monastir, Tunisia
10/06/2007 El Kantaoui, Tunisia
03/06/2007 Scauri, Sicily
01/05/2007 Sciacca, Sicily
08/11/2006 El Kantaoui, Tunisia
05/11/2006 Monastir, Tunisia
30/08/2006 El Kantaoui, Tunisia
17/08/2006 Yasmine Hammamet, Tunisia
15/08/2006 Kalibia, Tunisia
13/08/2006 Marsala Sicily
09/08/2006 Capo Sant Vito Sicily
08/08/2006 Castellmare Sicily
07/08/2006 Baia Di mondello Sicily
03/08/2006 Cefalu Sicily
01/08/2006 Capo D Orlando Sicily
27/07/2006 Salina, Aeolian Islands, Sicily
25/07/2006 Volcano, Aeolian Islands, Sicily
20/07/2006 Salina, Aeolian Islands, Sicily
18/07/2006 Salerno Italy
16/07/2006 Isola Ischia Italy
14/07/2006 Isola Ventotene Italy
12/07/2006 Isola Ponza Italy
11/07/2006 Anzio Italy
14/06/2006 England
22/05/2006 Fiumicino, Italy
21/05/2006 Civitavecchia Italy
20/05/2006 Porto Ercole Italy
17/05/2006 Isola del Giglio, Italy
14/05/2006 Talamone, Italy
12/05/2006 Spiagge Barbarossa, Elba
10/05/2006 Cavo ,Elba
08/05/2006 Portoferraio, Elba
07/05/2006 Campoloro Taverna, Corsica
06/05/2006 Solenzara, Corsica
02/05/2006 Porto Vecchio, Corsica
27/04/2006 Maddalena, Sardinia
23/04/2006 Olbia, Sardinia
22/04/2006 Baia Caddinas, Sardinia
20/04/2006 Porto Rotunda, Sardinia
18/04/2006 Maddalena, Sardinia
17/04/2006 Isola Razzoli, Sardiniia
13/04/2006 Santa Teresa di Gallura, Sardinia
09/04/2006 Propriano, Corsica
02/04/2006 Ajaccio, Corsica
01/04/2006 Cargese, Corsica
27/03/2006 Girolata, Corsica
25/03/2006 Porquerolles, France
23/03/2006 Port Frioul , France
15/03/2006 Marseille Vieux Port, France
16/12/2005 Port Saint Louis (Sea side), France
15/12/2005 Port Saint Louis (River side), France
14/12/2005 Ecluse Saint Louis, France
12/12/2005 Aiges-Mor, France
09/12/2005 Sete, France
08/12/2005 Pavlov des Flots, France
07/12/2005 Arles, France
28/11/2005 Avignon, France
27/11/2005 Saint Etienne desSortes, France
26/11/2005 Viviers, France
24/11/2005 Valence, France
22/11/2005 Tournon, France
19/11/2005 Condrieu, France
18/11/2005 Trevoux, France
16/11/2005 Macon, France
12/11/2005 Tournus, France
06/11/2005 Challon Sur Soanne ( Soanne Side), France
04/11/2005 Challon Sur Soanne ( Canal Side), France
02/11/2005 Montreau Les Mines, France
28/10/2005 Paray Le Monial, France
27/10/2005 Digoin, France
25/10/2005 Ganney Sur Loire, France
22/10/2005 Decize, France
21/10/2005 Chevenon, France
18/10/2005 Chatillon sur Loire, France
16/10/2005 Chatillon-Caligny, France
14/10/2005 Montargis, France
12/10/2005 St Mammes, The start of the Canals, France
11/10/2005 Samours Sur Seine, France
10/10/2005 Somewhere Pretty, France
30/09/2005 The Arsenal Paris, France
29/09/2005 Port Van Gogh, Paris, France
28/09/2005 Somewhere horrible, France
27/09/2005 Mericourt, France
24/09/2005 Vernon, France
23/09/2005 Amfreville Ecluse, France
18/09/2005 Rouen, France
15/09/2005 Honfleur, France
10/09/2005 Le Havre, France
08/09/2005 Haslar Marina, Portsmouth
28/08/2005 Shamrock Quay, Southampton
11/07/2005 Wicor Marine, Portchester
09/07/2005 Cherbourg France
07/07/2005 Braye Harbour Alderney
05/07/2005 St Peter Port Guernsey
03/07/2005 Cherbourg France
09/06/2005 Wicor Marine, Portchester
29/05/2005 Chichester Marina, Chichester Harbour
23/03/2005 Wicor Marine, Portchester
26/12/2004 Haslar Marina, Portsmouth
Friday 20 June 2008
Thursday 14 February 2008
Monday 13 November 2006
To Tunisia
Sicily 2006
01 August 2006. Picking out Capo Orlando through the background haze had been rather difficult. We had picked up the headland of Capo Orlando, and therefore had a rough idea where the harbour should be. The GPS and chart plotter told us where it should be, but we couldn’t find it, the huge concrete breakwater wall round the outside, blended with the background and the usual tell tale signs of masts were missing. As we got closer we finally started picking out what looked like masts, which then revealed what looked like the entrance. We had been warned of a sandbank in the entrance from the pilot book and by Eva and Hokan, so we approached with caution. Finally we picked out what looked like a navigation bouy in the open entrance to the harbour, binoculars confirmed it as a green cone shaped starboard marker. We hadn’t seen one of these since entering the river Seine at Honfleur. Sara had been dispatched to the chart table to find out which side we should pass, before we applied logic and remembered which side to pass starboard marks on, our confusion had been caused by how far back from the harbour wall the marker was. The entrance was about two hundred meters wide, and the bouy was indicating that over half of the entrance was not navigable. As we came past the outer breakwater we realised why it had been so hard to pick up masts, apart from the fact that most of the boats were either motorboats or small sailing boats, the breakwater wall was approximately 5 meters high, and because of the sandbank most of the boats were moored along way from the wall. Eva and Hokan were easy to find, there was a boat with a Swedish flag, with two people waving their arms about, and blasting an airhorn, fortunately there were no other people living on their boats.
Sara did the deck work of getting the fenders and mooring warps ready and I looked for suitable mooring spots, while keeping an eye on the depth. Our intentions must have been confusing to onlookers as a man appeared and waved us into the spot where Eva and Hokan were moored, then proceeded to start untying them. We eventually got it all sorted and headed off to the beach for a swim and rounded off the day at the local pizzeria.
Well that’s not entirely true, we got round to discussing where we were going next, had some beers, looked at charts, had some more beers, Africa seemed very close, has some more beers, discussed the possibility of sailing to Africa, then went to bed. In the morning while off buying some bread, I discovered that the romance adventure of sailing to Africa had got hold, we arrived back at our boat with plans forming. When we informed Hokan that we were off to Africa, he signed up to the idea, and we were doing a cruise in company to Africa!
Two days later at 10:30 on 3rd of August we motored out towards Cefalu. Eva and Hokan were worried that we would go to fast, we spent the day watching them disappear ahead of us in the light winds of the Med. We arrived at the new Harbour to the east of Cefalu, to find the marina full, some boats had anchored in the harbour and taken long lines ashore, we managed to find a spot moored bows to the quay, close to the hydrofoil landing stage. There was a swell which came into the harbour, which got exacerbated by the hydrofoil coming in and out, which caused Dreamcatcher to continually surge backwards and forwards, even with the rubber damper on the lines.
Getting on and off was a bit of a struggle, not always helped by the children deciding to be awkward. We found ourselves holed up for four days while weather systems blew in from the West. The day before we left the surging got so bad that it snapped the rubber spring on the bow line, and ripped off both starboard bow cleats. We were not the only boats holed up because of the winds, most people heading west were taking shelter, however some boats were still heading towards us out of the east. We watched one of these boats make slow progress towards Cefalu and finally they made it in, we helped the three chaps on board tie up, and exchanged greetings, about an hour later we noticed that the chaps had been joined by three women, it transpired that the women had always been on board, but for what ever reasons did not deem it necessary to help out in the tying up, cleaning down or stowing of the sails. The next day the behaviour was slightly more bizarre.
I was up on deck checking fenders and things, when I noticed that one of the female crew on was perched on their coachroof facing our boat, I was separated from this lady by the distance of half of our combined side decks and a fender, while she sat in a pair of shorts using a lady shave on her legs, this was not a problem, however when she janked her leg up and started doing her bikini line, I retreated hastily to our cockpit, where I found Sara trying hard to stifle her laughter.
The town of Cefalu is very nice, medieval town, approached by a walk of about a mile round the headland. It has some newer bits largely sprawling off along the beach. The roads were narrow and cobbled, with occasional glimpses of the sea. The town has suffered earthquakes in the past, most noticeably to us in the church, where the old bits are few surrounded by new repairs. The church has a lovely setting, set between high cliffs on one side, stone buildings on the other, and a large piazza in front, apparently the tomb of the legendry Diane is located to the top of the cliff.
The town still has a medieval laundry, set down some steps, where the tubs have been carved into the gently sloping rock floor. The spring water enters at the top, then flows into successive tubs until finally making its way out through the rocks to the sea, occasionally the water from a larger than normal wave would push its way back into the laundry. The children were not slow in removing their shoes and socks to go paddling in the tubs, but I beat them to it, the water was lovely and cool, quite refreshing after the walk into town.
While making our way back to the Piazza, we encountered the local Brass band, which had been doing a concert in the Piazza the day before, marching round the town. The children wanted to join the followers, and we did, following the band round the old town as we all headed back to the Piazza in front of the church.
The day before our departure we did an expedition to the new bit of town to find a supermarket. We found Eva and Hokan, in a Café across the road from the supermarket, and we joined them for a coffee and ice cream. I went into the shop to help the children choose their ice creams and ordered two little ones, the assistant kept heaping ice cream into the cups, after the third spoon I realised my Italian had let me down, once more I expressed my wish for small ice creams, where I was told in English that they only did one size, I had visions of another national debt clearing bill similar to the one in Rome, the bill for two ice creams bigger than the kids heads, two coffees and two beers was a bit over E10-00. No wonder the place was full of locals.
On the way back to the boat after shopping we saw a plane coming down to scoop up water from the sea to fight the bush fire on the hill behind us. Anxious locals who gathered in a piazza to watch the progress of the fire as it moved towards houses on the hill. Then that evening I saw a Search and Rescue Helicopter practicing outside the harbour. It was getting far to hectic, time to move.
7 August 2006 We left the harbour at 10:00 into light winds and proceeded to motor sail towards Capo Gallo. An hour and a half later, we were all getting fractious, it was hot and the light winds meant the engine had been on continuously which wears down, there followed a discussion about my choice of sails and the course we had chosen, as Ingalan was disappearing in front of us.
Lunch time was a relief, melon followed by cheese, followed by a cheese being introduced to peoples thighs and faces, and giggling children.
To break up the monotony of motoring, Nick helmed for twenty minutes, then so did Phoebe. However Phoebe found it hard to helm and eat her melon. We then had a MOB, Melon Over Board, which improved her helming.
By 17:10 we were had made progress of 25 miles, and were passing Capo Mongerbino, about 6 mile east of Palermo, I was down below cooking supper, when were joined by four dolphins, 3 Common and 1 Rossou’s. The kids and I went forward to the Dolphin nose while Sara helmed and watched them play in our bow wake.
17:23 I returned to the galley, leaving the kids on the foredeck with the dolphins to find that supper is now burnt, but we didn’t mind. Phoebe who had spent the day missing her friends in Salina and at home, had been bending our ears about how horrible it was living on a boat, and how she wanted to go home, but when I put the question to her during supper and post dolphin encounter, I was informed that a girl is allowed to change her mind.
19:33 Arrived at a marina, and tied up to the pontoon at Baia D Mondello. We all dived into the warm sea, and swam round watching the sun set. Later that evening we were joined by Eva and Hokan as we walked into the town, there was a permanent fair ground with dodgems, we let the kids go on by themselves, which they loved, Nick was so excited when the ride ended, that he jumped out of his dodgem with his ‘seatbelt’ still on, got it caught round his feet and ended up in a heap, with a grin so wide I thought his head was going to come off. Eva and Hokan spoilt the kids by buying them more tokens, saying that as they didn’t have any kids with them they would treat our instead, a tired and happy crew found their way back to the boat, a lovely end to what had started out as a horrible day.
08/08/06 A slow start to the day saw us leaving at 12:15 after being charged an extortionate amount of E50:00 for one night mooring, determined that we will try anchoring more. Eva and Hokan do not anchor, they are not confident in their ground tackle, and are not sure about things like scope, so we feel obliged to tie up with them, tying up has its advantages, easy access to shore and shops, possibly water and electricity, but with the amount of motoring we are doing, batteries going flat is not an issue. But we will stay tying up, but if the charges continue at this rate or get higher, we will anchor.
The passage round to Castellamare was beautiful rugged rock headlands full of cliffs and crags off set from the sea by dry scrub land. Again it was motoring most of the day, but the log reads 16:27 Course 213T Speed 6.3knots, Main and Jib only A GOOD SAIL AT LAST!!!
16:46 Who turned the wind off?
We persevered and got a good wind as we approached the harbour, for a change we were in front on INGALAN, and I was enjoying the sail, I could see the harbour was large and clear, with ample room to drop the sails in the shelter inside, so we sailed kept he sails up as we sailed into the harbour, it felt fantastic, gave me a sense of pride and achievement, helped even more b the radio message from Ingalan, saying how good it looked to see us sailing into the harbour.
While dropping the sails, the radio crackled back into life, for us to hear a worried Hokan asking for assistance as he had got a rope on his prop that had stopped him, we acknowledged, and said we were on our way as soon as we had got the sails stowed. Shortly afterwards the radio started again, it was a very relieved sounding Hokan, he had put his engine into reverse, and the line had fallen clear.
We managed to squeeze ourselves into yet another impossibly tight berth, and watched the moon rise over a beautiful stone town, before retiring to bed, while Eva and Hokan went into town.
09/08/06 Up early, unable to get the weather forecast off Channel 68, and rely on the forecast from the day before.
07:15 Oil topped up, Stern gland loosened, Tea made, flasks filled
07:47 Engine on lines dropped, as we exit our berth using warps and springs, it feels good. We are going slowly, slower than we should be going.
07:55 Having untangled the lazy line that had got tangled round our fender we could now continue with our departure.
It was a cool cloudy morning, the tops of the mountains were trying to tear holes in the grey clouds as they scudded past. Still to much interference to get a weather forecast, there is some wind, up goes the main and mizzen. We leave the motor, as we watch the weather, I want to get the main up but Sara wouldn’t let me. We start picking up gust of wind coming down off the mountains, we decided to see what the wind is like once we clear Capo Sant Vito before we raise any more sail. We clear Capo San Vito, the next piece of land to the west of us is Spain, the wind has got stronger, the waves have got bigger, and we are going like a train smashing through the waves, unfortunately it is like a train towards Sardinia not Marsala. WE get on the radio to Ingalan to advise them to have their sails reefed before they clear the headland, to be informed that they have no sail up and are thinking of putting in at Capo Sant Vito. We have a discussion, we are fine, but the crew in Ingalan will have a horrible time if they continue, we go about to head back. Dreamcatcher did not like the change of course, and protested by blowing out the mizzen below the first reef. With the jib reduced and the mizzen reefed we were soon in the shelter of Capo San Vito. We were waved to a berth, which took us two attempts to get into. After tying up I went below to tighten up the stern gland. My adrenaline levels shot up as I found engine room flooded with oily water, we had a leak! I quickly found the problem was the stern gland that had not been lock off, had come loose, I could feel the cold water pouring in, it was soon back on and tightened up.
We were in a mess, the water was up to the floorboards, the gearbox was under water, which meant it had probably filled with water, and the water was oily, there was no way we could pump it out with our bilge pump without polluting the whole harbour. I went and found the marina staff and tried to explain the problem asking if some one had a large pump. I was told they would find someone. A bit later a bloke turned up a small hand pump for emptying the residual amounts of water out a motorboat. The problem got explained properly once I had dragged the chap from the marina into the boat and showed him the engine room. He set off saying he would go find a man. About half and hour later he returned saying he had found an mechanic who would come that afternoon to have a look, when I asked how much this would cost, I was informed he would come have a look for E100-00.
If I had been having a bad time up until then ,things got worse, I lost it, E100-00 just to come have look, I started shouting about them all being Mafiosi, and waving my arms around, this was probably not a good thing to say only 40 mile away from Palermo. Sara was trying to get me to calm down and be quiet, but I was not in the mood, I was being extorted. Hokan in the boat next door was laughing away and talking to me. Finally he managed to get through the argument and explain that the E100-00 was the estimate for pumping out the boat. The chap from the marina left with a bemused expression on his face saying the mechanic would be here at 15:00, undoubtedly quite convinced that the English are mad.
I spent the rest of that afternoon thinking about, the implications and how we were going to deal with this problem. Three o’clock came, no mechanic, a marina hand appeared came and said the mechanic would be there at five o’clock, and go I go to the office and pay. I walked up to the office to find something resembling a scene from the Soprano’s, their were four Uncle Juniors sat round a table in nylon tracksuits bottoms and mismatched shirts, playing cards, one bloke trying to relay the wooden floor boards while being given instructions from the Uncle Ju’s and four other assorted mismatched blokes who were hanging around. I was beginning to regret my Mafiosi comment, however there were no concrete slippers or sleeping with the fishes for me.
The mechanic duly arrived at 5 o’clock, however he could not get his truck with the pump down the jetty, so we had to move the boat across the harbour to the fuel berth. With an engine and gearbox underwater, I did not want to use the engine. The solution, Marina chap #1 offered to tow me using his motor boat. We duly rigged fenders and got lines ready, as he came between the moored boats. IT had been a tight squeeze going in, it was going to be tighter getting out. I was expecting him to tie up alongside our quarter, from where he could push and pull, and turn, but instead he took lines to both stern cleats. Good idea there was not going to be enough room to turn us both, so he was going to pull us out, then come alongside. No I got that wrong as I discovered as he pulled us out, it was his intention to tow us backwards, down the length of the pontoon, and then across the harbour. We had people running up and down our deck, and the decks of the other boats as we went past, fending off like demons, as I was fending us off a nice shiny new boat flying a British ensign, the bloke who was stretched out in his hammock from the mast to the forestay, lifted his head in mild curiosity from his book, but did not bother to offer assistance, or even fend us off from his boat, I couldn’t resist the temptation and called that this is what happens if you don’t pay your fees. Finally we were out from the pontoon and in the empty harbour, then the tow stopped , ten tons of boat did not, more fenders, more shouting, if I hadn’t been my boat involved I probably would have enjoyed watching the spectacle.
Then I discovered that we were not going alongside the fuel berth as I thought we were, they were going to try a Med, Stern to, mooring, the anchor was dropped , and we managed to get a line ashore, with Sara on the foredeck doing the anchor, I was left to pull us in. My back was giving me a lot of pain and I couldn’t do it, Sara was summoned to assist. We were soon moving towards the fuel berth, where a group of Italian males were stood, one of whom had been yelling at me in English to pull the boat in, once I passed the pulling over to Sara, he stood there muttering away to his mates while pointing at me. I pointed at Sara and said ‘She’s good isn’t she? I can tell you where to get one.’
That got him muttering that he didn’t need one, he could do his own pulling.
Once again I had opened up the first impressions with the locals score at minus.
Finally we got moored up, and a huge industrial drain clearing sucker got moved into place, 1000 litres later, we were dry. I could now do a preliminary inspection of the engine and gearbox. The gearbox was full of water, but on the plus side the engine was still okay and started first time.
We retired below, other yachts entering the harbour, seeing us on the fuel pontoon, tied up, and soon there was a collection of four other boats tied to the fuel pontoon.
We got woken by a lot of shouting, a fishing boat had come in and this was his spot, we all had to move and go to the marina, we tried to explain about the engine and gearbox, but all this did was make him shout some more, finally an angler who had been there when we first moored up managed to explain to the trawler man, and he went off muttering, and collapsed back into bed.
I was woken at 1 o’clock by Sara, she was convinced something was wrong, she went up and had a look, another trawler had tied up to the first and his bow was directly above our deck on the Starboard side, and he was moored on our port side, his bow passing through the triangle created by the forestay and the main mast. We got another line and were trying to decided how to get ashore to pass it back to the jetty, when Trawler man #1 appeared, on the deck of the trawler on our starboard side, that was just what we needed. But he was a changed man, he understood our circumstance, he took our line and made fast it fast, told us not to worry about a thing, and if we had any problems to call him and he would come help.
The following morning, Fuel Berth, was back, he had learnt his English while living in America, so I was surprised to find him telling us we had to go to the marina. Once again I explained about the gearbox and engine, he was not having it, we had to move as he had a big boat coming in for fuel, and he was going to need the whole jetty, even though we were tied up right at the end. His suggested we get our friends to move us, I explained that we had no friends with a b oat capable of towing us into a marina spot.
He could ask the harbour master to tow us. Great could he do it, well yes he could but it would cost E1000-00.
This was beginning to get stupid. Sara and I discussed our plan, we would cast of the lines and shorten the scope of the anchor, moving us into the middle of the harbour, while I continued to flush and replace the gearbox oil. As we were doing this, Fuel Berth appeared again, to ask what we were doing, so once more we told him, to be asked in an incredulous voice, ‘Your engine does not work?’
We rode at anchor in the harbour, while I continued to sort the gearbox, and Sara dealt with all the enraged small boat fisherman, who now had to make a slight turn to get round us, I now know ‘Machinca Non Funczione’, while not strictly the correct Italian it would have communicated the problem. At last a bit of wind came up, and we put plan ‘B’ in to operation, we unfurled the jib got it drawing while we pulled up the anchor and sailed out of the harbour to anchor up in the anchorage outside. Sailing off the hook is a skill to learn, but doing it for the first time in small harbour, with a uncertain auxiliary propulsion unit, is incredibly satisfying. If it started going wrong we were prepared to either drop the hook wherever we were pr sail back to Castellamare, where we knew we could anchor in the harbour.
We spent the next three days at anchor, going ashore in Bob, trying to find ATF for the gearbox and swimming in the sea. We hired a car and drove to Trapani, on a quest for a Tunisian courtesy flag, and took the cable car up to the village of Erice, a World Heritage site, built on top of a hill. The village had fantastic views across Sicily and towards the Egadi islands, but the cable car ride was worth every penny. The cable car is lit at night and must be a really good aid to navigation, as during our crossing to Tunisia it was visible a good thirty five miles off.
13/08/06 I was happy to give leave, the engine seemed okay, the forecast was good, at 09:15 we raised the anchor and headed towards Marsala, making sure we got lots of sea room as the coast there has teeth, lots of them made of red jagged rocks, it was not an area we wanted things to go wrong on. Sara went below and called a course to steer, it was not right, it had us heading for rocks. I went to check what was wrong, the course appeared to be right, cross checking to paper charts, it still seemed correct. Going back into the cockpit to check the compass, and remove any metal objects from near the compass, we found the problem, Nick’s Geo-Mags were found next to the compass, we watched the compass correct itself by twenty degrees. Once this was sorted we were off having a cracking sail under main, jib and reefed torn mizzen. We saw a squall heading our way and started reducing sail, when we were nearly T-Boned by an overtaking French Catamaran, we yelled and waved then took evading action, to greeted by a shrug and a point at his burgee, obviously different collision regs apply in the Med.
After this little incident we had a lovely nearly event free sail, running before the wind to Marsala. Ingalan had motor sailed off into the distance while we continued with our sailing, when we got a call over the VHF, Ingalan had a steering failure, we set course to rendezvous, and once there stood by ready to offer assistance. Their steering cables had come loose, but it they resolved it, and we carried on tying up at 18:20. That evening Dreamcatchers crew took walk round Marsala, it felt like we had arrived in Africa, weathered sandstone walls and palm trees. We returned via a Gelateria, and fell happily asleep.
14/06/06. We took the opportunity, while we were close to some shops to reprovision. We found Marsala as an uninspiring town, with unusual if not plain weird statues. While Sara and Eva sat in their cockpits completing home made Tunisian courtesy flags, I prepared and cooked Calamari for lunch then got some sleep ready for our night passage.
At 18:15 we dropped our lines and under main and jib we set off towards Africa. During our last night passage Nick had stayed in the cockpit, so Phoebe was determined to do a night watch, when she woke up at about 22:30, I told her that she had been entered up as being on watch, and she went below to her bunk. During the crossing we stayed close to Ingalan, and it was strangely comforting to have anther boats lights keeping you company. At 01:30 while keeping our plot up to date, I noticed a strange luminance coming from the galley, it was the waste from the Calamari which we had been keeping for Nick to use as bait for fishing. It was duly disposed off over the side, and the bowl left on deck to be washed up once the smell had dissipated.
06:00 The light at Cap Bon was sighted and identified, and half an hour later we had our first sunrise in Africa. At about 10:00 we got caught in a bit of a blow, we hove to and rode it out, arriving at Kelibia at 13:00. Customs formalities we quickly dealt with, no doubt speeded up by Sara choosing that moment to wash up the calamari bowl.
Kelibia is a fishing harbour, full of the smells of diesel and fish, where big wooden fishing boats are built and repaired. The harbourmaster changed some money for us, at a favourable rate, and we took a taxi into the town. While in a shop getting more provisions, the shop owners young son, gave Phoebe and big hug and then proceeded to help carry the shopping basket round the shop. I went across to a British flagged vessel, and started talking to the owners, Brian and Christine. They had done a slow circumnavigation, and had settled in Sicily, spending their summers cruising to round Tunisia, Malta and Sicily.
We found the Tunisians to be friendly and they all seem to love children, not thinking twice about picking up our kids and hugging or kissing them.
!7/08/06 We set off towards Yasmine Hammamet, we encountered an uncomfortable swell in the shallow waters outside the harbour, and headed offshore to find some deeper water and easier swells. WE then had a pleasant sail towards Hammamet, rounding Beni Khiar at 15:45, to see what looked like a pirate ship heading towards us. As we passed by each other, we could hear the music blaring, as the crew danced away doing their best to give the tourists a good time. Shortly afterwards we got a call for Ingalan, saying they were nearly at the harbour, which surprised us as we had not seen them go past us. Half an hour later as we were preparing to enter the harbour at Jasmine Hammamet, we got another call, Ingalan could not find the harbour, it turned out that the co-ordinates in the Med Almanac were incorrect, and Ingalan was trying to sail into the Medina at Hammamet three miles behind us.
The error was attributable to the wrong co-ordinates in the Med Almanac, we settled in the kids were more than happy, there were bouncy castles being set up about 50 meters from our berth. During our stay here we hired a car to check out El Kantaoui as a possible winter mooring, as we had heard stories about the atrocious winter conditions at Yasmine Hammamet, and took in El Jem, an incongruous place to find an almost intact Roman amphitheatre, it seems to rise, as does the small town surrounding it from the very earth itself, with no logical reason for it to be there, it is the last Roman Amphitheatre built, it is an amazing building, used for concerts in summer, but still with access to its underground gladiator cells. We had told Nick that they were there, and he ran round trying to find the entrance, which we knew when he had found it, by the great shout of joy, which would have been heard over the baying crowds of 30,000 which El Jem would have held in its heyday. We got the kids imaginations going by pointing out marks on the walls and telling them they were made by the lions before going up into the arena, what a great place to play at being lions and gladiators, the smell of the hot dust, and the sight of the tiers enclosing you, gave an almost tangible feel to its history.
On our return we told Eva and Hokan that we were going to be moving on to El Jem, as they had a place for us to over winter, finally the wind eased and we took got ready to leave, sail covers off, electricity unplugged, engine started, or it should have done, all we got was a click. Kill switch was checked, battery charge was checked, everything was okay. We had not escaped from our flooding after all, the started motor had seized, it had been fitted new in England before we set off. I set to removing it, I undid the studs that held it in, it would not move. I retightened the studs holding the cover on, and found the correct studs, swore a bit to myself, at both their location, and the fact that I did not have an Allen key big enough. I spent most of the day trying to fashion a key out of what I had on board, as there did not appear to be anyone locally who could supply one, my efforts were futile, I went to the harbourmasters office to see if they could tell me where to get one, and they let me the one they just happened to have in their draw, this made the job a lot easier.
The starter was dully removed, the water poured out of it, stripped cleaned, and then I tried to reassemble it. This seemingly simple job was complicated by having nothing to depress the springs on the bushes, I would get three depressed only to have them spring free before I could get the new ones in. Pop rivets came to the rescue, and so it was on the afternoon of the second day I found myself in the engine room, with temps outside of 35C, trying to align a heavy motor suspended by ropes from a pole, with so much sweat soaking through my trousers, they could be wrung out by the time I had finished. After about an hour of struggling I discovered that a couple of screwdrivers through the back of the holes the studs went in lined it up perfectly. At last it was refitted, wires connected, engine start button pushed, nothing. Note to self, when fixing a starter motor don’t forget to clean the solenoid. Remove starter clean solenoid, refit, job time now down to one and half hours, and improvement over one and a half days. Try again, the engine started, I was to tired to get excited it was now 11 o’clock at night, as I backed out of the engine room, I bashed into a shelf knocking items off it, fortunately all tied on with bits of string, and among all these items was an Allen key, of exactly the right size to remove the starter motor.
The next day the weather had changed and it took us another week before we finally got to El Kantaoui, but not before on checking out of Hammamet, we discovered we did not have the right papers, when we left Kelibia, we had been giving Ingalans duplicate documents, it required a fax from Kelibia to allow us to continue. Getting a fax required finding the official with the keys to the cupboard where the fax machine was kept, then three people to plug it in and get it working, although this was amusing, it brought home the relevant affluence of Europe, where fax machines are in every office, and receiving and sending fax’s are parts of peoples daily routines.
.El Kantaoui is a purpose built resort, surrounding the marina. Fresh fish and vegetables can be purchased from the medina at Sousse, and bread cost 3p/loaf. I found it necessary to make two trips back to England whilst in El Kantaoui, trying to sort out the insurance claim ,and visiting doctors. We also managed a sail to Monastir, with my mum and Dad who had come out to visit us for Nicks birthday. On the way back from Monastir with the cruising chute up for the first time, my father who was helming fell asleep whilst stood up, it says a lot for the balance of Dreamcatcher under the cruising chute, that we continued to track straight and true, until the kids woke him up with their shouts.
Whilst in Monastir we went to the Rabat, the one used in ‘The Life of Brian’ and other films, to discover they were making a documentary dealing with the evolvement of writing, and it had been set up as a town at about the time of Christ, with the actors all in appropriate costumes, it was the only time we didn’t have to get Phoebe and Nick to use their imaginations.
Shortly after our trip to Monastir, we all returned to England, in order for me to start some new treatment for my arthritis. So we left Dreamcatcher hoping to return in three months time and continue our adventures, we were away for nearly six months, and on our return we were no longer as free as we had been when we set off.
01 August 2006. Picking out Capo Orlando through the background haze had been rather difficult. We had picked up the headland of Capo Orlando, and therefore had a rough idea where the harbour should be. The GPS and chart plotter told us where it should be, but we couldn’t find it, the huge concrete breakwater wall round the outside, blended with the background and the usual tell tale signs of masts were missing. As we got closer we finally started picking out what looked like masts, which then revealed what looked like the entrance. We had been warned of a sandbank in the entrance from the pilot book and by Eva and Hokan, so we approached with caution. Finally we picked out what looked like a navigation bouy in the open entrance to the harbour, binoculars confirmed it as a green cone shaped starboard marker. We hadn’t seen one of these since entering the river Seine at Honfleur. Sara had been dispatched to the chart table to find out which side we should pass, before we applied logic and remembered which side to pass starboard marks on, our confusion had been caused by how far back from the harbour wall the marker was. The entrance was about two hundred meters wide, and the bouy was indicating that over half of the entrance was not navigable. As we came past the outer breakwater we realised why it had been so hard to pick up masts, apart from the fact that most of the boats were either motorboats or small sailing boats, the breakwater wall was approximately 5 meters high, and because of the sandbank most of the boats were moored along way from the wall. Eva and Hokan were easy to find, there was a boat with a Swedish flag, with two people waving their arms about, and blasting an airhorn, fortunately there were no other people living on their boats.
Sara did the deck work of getting the fenders and mooring warps ready and I looked for suitable mooring spots, while keeping an eye on the depth. Our intentions must have been confusing to onlookers as a man appeared and waved us into the spot where Eva and Hokan were moored, then proceeded to start untying them. We eventually got it all sorted and headed off to the beach for a swim and rounded off the day at the local pizzeria.
Well that’s not entirely true, we got round to discussing where we were going next, had some beers, looked at charts, had some more beers, Africa seemed very close, has some more beers, discussed the possibility of sailing to Africa, then went to bed. In the morning while off buying some bread, I discovered that the romance adventure of sailing to Africa had got hold, we arrived back at our boat with plans forming. When we informed Hokan that we were off to Africa, he signed up to the idea, and we were doing a cruise in company to Africa!
Two days later at 10:30 on 3rd of August we motored out towards Cefalu. Eva and Hokan were worried that we would go to fast, we spent the day watching them disappear ahead of us in the light winds of the Med. We arrived at the new Harbour to the east of Cefalu, to find the marina full, some boats had anchored in the harbour and taken long lines ashore, we managed to find a spot moored bows to the quay, close to the hydrofoil landing stage. There was a swell which came into the harbour, which got exacerbated by the hydrofoil coming in and out, which caused Dreamcatcher to continually surge backwards and forwards, even with the rubber damper on the lines.
Getting on and off was a bit of a struggle, not always helped by the children deciding to be awkward. We found ourselves holed up for four days while weather systems blew in from the West. The day before we left the surging got so bad that it snapped the rubber spring on the bow line, and ripped off both starboard bow cleats. We were not the only boats holed up because of the winds, most people heading west were taking shelter, however some boats were still heading towards us out of the east. We watched one of these boats make slow progress towards Cefalu and finally they made it in, we helped the three chaps on board tie up, and exchanged greetings, about an hour later we noticed that the chaps had been joined by three women, it transpired that the women had always been on board, but for what ever reasons did not deem it necessary to help out in the tying up, cleaning down or stowing of the sails. The next day the behaviour was slightly more bizarre.
I was up on deck checking fenders and things, when I noticed that one of the female crew on was perched on their coachroof facing our boat, I was separated from this lady by the distance of half of our combined side decks and a fender, while she sat in a pair of shorts using a lady shave on her legs, this was not a problem, however when she janked her leg up and started doing her bikini line, I retreated hastily to our cockpit, where I found Sara trying hard to stifle her laughter.
The town of Cefalu is very nice, medieval town, approached by a walk of about a mile round the headland. It has some newer bits largely sprawling off along the beach. The roads were narrow and cobbled, with occasional glimpses of the sea. The town has suffered earthquakes in the past, most noticeably to us in the church, where the old bits are few surrounded by new repairs. The church has a lovely setting, set between high cliffs on one side, stone buildings on the other, and a large piazza in front, apparently the tomb of the legendry Diane is located to the top of the cliff.
The town still has a medieval laundry, set down some steps, where the tubs have been carved into the gently sloping rock floor. The spring water enters at the top, then flows into successive tubs until finally making its way out through the rocks to the sea, occasionally the water from a larger than normal wave would push its way back into the laundry. The children were not slow in removing their shoes and socks to go paddling in the tubs, but I beat them to it, the water was lovely and cool, quite refreshing after the walk into town.
While making our way back to the Piazza, we encountered the local Brass band, which had been doing a concert in the Piazza the day before, marching round the town. The children wanted to join the followers, and we did, following the band round the old town as we all headed back to the Piazza in front of the church.
The day before our departure we did an expedition to the new bit of town to find a supermarket. We found Eva and Hokan, in a Café across the road from the supermarket, and we joined them for a coffee and ice cream. I went into the shop to help the children choose their ice creams and ordered two little ones, the assistant kept heaping ice cream into the cups, after the third spoon I realised my Italian had let me down, once more I expressed my wish for small ice creams, where I was told in English that they only did one size, I had visions of another national debt clearing bill similar to the one in Rome, the bill for two ice creams bigger than the kids heads, two coffees and two beers was a bit over E10-00. No wonder the place was full of locals.
On the way back to the boat after shopping we saw a plane coming down to scoop up water from the sea to fight the bush fire on the hill behind us. Anxious locals who gathered in a piazza to watch the progress of the fire as it moved towards houses on the hill. Then that evening I saw a Search and Rescue Helicopter practicing outside the harbour. It was getting far to hectic, time to move.
7 August 2006 We left the harbour at 10:00 into light winds and proceeded to motor sail towards Capo Gallo. An hour and a half later, we were all getting fractious, it was hot and the light winds meant the engine had been on continuously which wears down, there followed a discussion about my choice of sails and the course we had chosen, as Ingalan was disappearing in front of us.
Lunch time was a relief, melon followed by cheese, followed by a cheese being introduced to peoples thighs and faces, and giggling children.
To break up the monotony of motoring, Nick helmed for twenty minutes, then so did Phoebe. However Phoebe found it hard to helm and eat her melon. We then had a MOB, Melon Over Board, which improved her helming.
By 17:10 we were had made progress of 25 miles, and were passing Capo Mongerbino, about 6 mile east of Palermo, I was down below cooking supper, when were joined by four dolphins, 3 Common and 1 Rossou’s. The kids and I went forward to the Dolphin nose while Sara helmed and watched them play in our bow wake.
17:23 I returned to the galley, leaving the kids on the foredeck with the dolphins to find that supper is now burnt, but we didn’t mind. Phoebe who had spent the day missing her friends in Salina and at home, had been bending our ears about how horrible it was living on a boat, and how she wanted to go home, but when I put the question to her during supper and post dolphin encounter, I was informed that a girl is allowed to change her mind.
19:33 Arrived at a marina, and tied up to the pontoon at Baia D Mondello. We all dived into the warm sea, and swam round watching the sun set. Later that evening we were joined by Eva and Hokan as we walked into the town, there was a permanent fair ground with dodgems, we let the kids go on by themselves, which they loved, Nick was so excited when the ride ended, that he jumped out of his dodgem with his ‘seatbelt’ still on, got it caught round his feet and ended up in a heap, with a grin so wide I thought his head was going to come off. Eva and Hokan spoilt the kids by buying them more tokens, saying that as they didn’t have any kids with them they would treat our instead, a tired and happy crew found their way back to the boat, a lovely end to what had started out as a horrible day.
08/08/06 A slow start to the day saw us leaving at 12:15 after being charged an extortionate amount of E50:00 for one night mooring, determined that we will try anchoring more. Eva and Hokan do not anchor, they are not confident in their ground tackle, and are not sure about things like scope, so we feel obliged to tie up with them, tying up has its advantages, easy access to shore and shops, possibly water and electricity, but with the amount of motoring we are doing, batteries going flat is not an issue. But we will stay tying up, but if the charges continue at this rate or get higher, we will anchor.
The passage round to Castellamare was beautiful rugged rock headlands full of cliffs and crags off set from the sea by dry scrub land. Again it was motoring most of the day, but the log reads 16:27 Course 213T Speed 6.3knots, Main and Jib only A GOOD SAIL AT LAST!!!
16:46 Who turned the wind off?
We persevered and got a good wind as we approached the harbour, for a change we were in front on INGALAN, and I was enjoying the sail, I could see the harbour was large and clear, with ample room to drop the sails in the shelter inside, so we sailed kept he sails up as we sailed into the harbour, it felt fantastic, gave me a sense of pride and achievement, helped even more b the radio message from Ingalan, saying how good it looked to see us sailing into the harbour.
While dropping the sails, the radio crackled back into life, for us to hear a worried Hokan asking for assistance as he had got a rope on his prop that had stopped him, we acknowledged, and said we were on our way as soon as we had got the sails stowed. Shortly afterwards the radio started again, it was a very relieved sounding Hokan, he had put his engine into reverse, and the line had fallen clear.
We managed to squeeze ourselves into yet another impossibly tight berth, and watched the moon rise over a beautiful stone town, before retiring to bed, while Eva and Hokan went into town.
09/08/06 Up early, unable to get the weather forecast off Channel 68, and rely on the forecast from the day before.
07:15 Oil topped up, Stern gland loosened, Tea made, flasks filled
07:47 Engine on lines dropped, as we exit our berth using warps and springs, it feels good. We are going slowly, slower than we should be going.
07:55 Having untangled the lazy line that had got tangled round our fender we could now continue with our departure.
It was a cool cloudy morning, the tops of the mountains were trying to tear holes in the grey clouds as they scudded past. Still to much interference to get a weather forecast, there is some wind, up goes the main and mizzen. We leave the motor, as we watch the weather, I want to get the main up but Sara wouldn’t let me. We start picking up gust of wind coming down off the mountains, we decided to see what the wind is like once we clear Capo Sant Vito before we raise any more sail. We clear Capo San Vito, the next piece of land to the west of us is Spain, the wind has got stronger, the waves have got bigger, and we are going like a train smashing through the waves, unfortunately it is like a train towards Sardinia not Marsala. WE get on the radio to Ingalan to advise them to have their sails reefed before they clear the headland, to be informed that they have no sail up and are thinking of putting in at Capo Sant Vito. We have a discussion, we are fine, but the crew in Ingalan will have a horrible time if they continue, we go about to head back. Dreamcatcher did not like the change of course, and protested by blowing out the mizzen below the first reef. With the jib reduced and the mizzen reefed we were soon in the shelter of Capo San Vito. We were waved to a berth, which took us two attempts to get into. After tying up I went below to tighten up the stern gland. My adrenaline levels shot up as I found engine room flooded with oily water, we had a leak! I quickly found the problem was the stern gland that had not been lock off, had come loose, I could feel the cold water pouring in, it was soon back on and tightened up.
We were in a mess, the water was up to the floorboards, the gearbox was under water, which meant it had probably filled with water, and the water was oily, there was no way we could pump it out with our bilge pump without polluting the whole harbour. I went and found the marina staff and tried to explain the problem asking if some one had a large pump. I was told they would find someone. A bit later a bloke turned up a small hand pump for emptying the residual amounts of water out a motorboat. The problem got explained properly once I had dragged the chap from the marina into the boat and showed him the engine room. He set off saying he would go find a man. About half and hour later he returned saying he had found an mechanic who would come that afternoon to have a look, when I asked how much this would cost, I was informed he would come have a look for E100-00.
If I had been having a bad time up until then ,things got worse, I lost it, E100-00 just to come have look, I started shouting about them all being Mafiosi, and waving my arms around, this was probably not a good thing to say only 40 mile away from Palermo. Sara was trying to get me to calm down and be quiet, but I was not in the mood, I was being extorted. Hokan in the boat next door was laughing away and talking to me. Finally he managed to get through the argument and explain that the E100-00 was the estimate for pumping out the boat. The chap from the marina left with a bemused expression on his face saying the mechanic would be here at 15:00, undoubtedly quite convinced that the English are mad.
I spent the rest of that afternoon thinking about, the implications and how we were going to deal with this problem. Three o’clock came, no mechanic, a marina hand appeared came and said the mechanic would be there at five o’clock, and go I go to the office and pay. I walked up to the office to find something resembling a scene from the Soprano’s, their were four Uncle Juniors sat round a table in nylon tracksuits bottoms and mismatched shirts, playing cards, one bloke trying to relay the wooden floor boards while being given instructions from the Uncle Ju’s and four other assorted mismatched blokes who were hanging around. I was beginning to regret my Mafiosi comment, however there were no concrete slippers or sleeping with the fishes for me.
The mechanic duly arrived at 5 o’clock, however he could not get his truck with the pump down the jetty, so we had to move the boat across the harbour to the fuel berth. With an engine and gearbox underwater, I did not want to use the engine. The solution, Marina chap #1 offered to tow me using his motor boat. We duly rigged fenders and got lines ready, as he came between the moored boats. IT had been a tight squeeze going in, it was going to be tighter getting out. I was expecting him to tie up alongside our quarter, from where he could push and pull, and turn, but instead he took lines to both stern cleats. Good idea there was not going to be enough room to turn us both, so he was going to pull us out, then come alongside. No I got that wrong as I discovered as he pulled us out, it was his intention to tow us backwards, down the length of the pontoon, and then across the harbour. We had people running up and down our deck, and the decks of the other boats as we went past, fending off like demons, as I was fending us off a nice shiny new boat flying a British ensign, the bloke who was stretched out in his hammock from the mast to the forestay, lifted his head in mild curiosity from his book, but did not bother to offer assistance, or even fend us off from his boat, I couldn’t resist the temptation and called that this is what happens if you don’t pay your fees. Finally we were out from the pontoon and in the empty harbour, then the tow stopped , ten tons of boat did not, more fenders, more shouting, if I hadn’t been my boat involved I probably would have enjoyed watching the spectacle.
Then I discovered that we were not going alongside the fuel berth as I thought we were, they were going to try a Med, Stern to, mooring, the anchor was dropped , and we managed to get a line ashore, with Sara on the foredeck doing the anchor, I was left to pull us in. My back was giving me a lot of pain and I couldn’t do it, Sara was summoned to assist. We were soon moving towards the fuel berth, where a group of Italian males were stood, one of whom had been yelling at me in English to pull the boat in, once I passed the pulling over to Sara, he stood there muttering away to his mates while pointing at me. I pointed at Sara and said ‘She’s good isn’t she? I can tell you where to get one.’
That got him muttering that he didn’t need one, he could do his own pulling.
Once again I had opened up the first impressions with the locals score at minus.
Finally we got moored up, and a huge industrial drain clearing sucker got moved into place, 1000 litres later, we were dry. I could now do a preliminary inspection of the engine and gearbox. The gearbox was full of water, but on the plus side the engine was still okay and started first time.
We retired below, other yachts entering the harbour, seeing us on the fuel pontoon, tied up, and soon there was a collection of four other boats tied to the fuel pontoon.
We got woken by a lot of shouting, a fishing boat had come in and this was his spot, we all had to move and go to the marina, we tried to explain about the engine and gearbox, but all this did was make him shout some more, finally an angler who had been there when we first moored up managed to explain to the trawler man, and he went off muttering, and collapsed back into bed.
I was woken at 1 o’clock by Sara, she was convinced something was wrong, she went up and had a look, another trawler had tied up to the first and his bow was directly above our deck on the Starboard side, and he was moored on our port side, his bow passing through the triangle created by the forestay and the main mast. We got another line and were trying to decided how to get ashore to pass it back to the jetty, when Trawler man #1 appeared, on the deck of the trawler on our starboard side, that was just what we needed. But he was a changed man, he understood our circumstance, he took our line and made fast it fast, told us not to worry about a thing, and if we had any problems to call him and he would come help.
The following morning, Fuel Berth, was back, he had learnt his English while living in America, so I was surprised to find him telling us we had to go to the marina. Once again I explained about the gearbox and engine, he was not having it, we had to move as he had a big boat coming in for fuel, and he was going to need the whole jetty, even though we were tied up right at the end. His suggested we get our friends to move us, I explained that we had no friends with a b oat capable of towing us into a marina spot.
He could ask the harbour master to tow us. Great could he do it, well yes he could but it would cost E1000-00.
This was beginning to get stupid. Sara and I discussed our plan, we would cast of the lines and shorten the scope of the anchor, moving us into the middle of the harbour, while I continued to flush and replace the gearbox oil. As we were doing this, Fuel Berth appeared again, to ask what we were doing, so once more we told him, to be asked in an incredulous voice, ‘Your engine does not work?’
We rode at anchor in the harbour, while I continued to sort the gearbox, and Sara dealt with all the enraged small boat fisherman, who now had to make a slight turn to get round us, I now know ‘Machinca Non Funczione’, while not strictly the correct Italian it would have communicated the problem. At last a bit of wind came up, and we put plan ‘B’ in to operation, we unfurled the jib got it drawing while we pulled up the anchor and sailed out of the harbour to anchor up in the anchorage outside. Sailing off the hook is a skill to learn, but doing it for the first time in small harbour, with a uncertain auxiliary propulsion unit, is incredibly satisfying. If it started going wrong we were prepared to either drop the hook wherever we were pr sail back to Castellamare, where we knew we could anchor in the harbour.
We spent the next three days at anchor, going ashore in Bob, trying to find ATF for the gearbox and swimming in the sea. We hired a car and drove to Trapani, on a quest for a Tunisian courtesy flag, and took the cable car up to the village of Erice, a World Heritage site, built on top of a hill. The village had fantastic views across Sicily and towards the Egadi islands, but the cable car ride was worth every penny. The cable car is lit at night and must be a really good aid to navigation, as during our crossing to Tunisia it was visible a good thirty five miles off.
13/08/06 I was happy to give leave, the engine seemed okay, the forecast was good, at 09:15 we raised the anchor and headed towards Marsala, making sure we got lots of sea room as the coast there has teeth, lots of them made of red jagged rocks, it was not an area we wanted things to go wrong on. Sara went below and called a course to steer, it was not right, it had us heading for rocks. I went to check what was wrong, the course appeared to be right, cross checking to paper charts, it still seemed correct. Going back into the cockpit to check the compass, and remove any metal objects from near the compass, we found the problem, Nick’s Geo-Mags were found next to the compass, we watched the compass correct itself by twenty degrees. Once this was sorted we were off having a cracking sail under main, jib and reefed torn mizzen. We saw a squall heading our way and started reducing sail, when we were nearly T-Boned by an overtaking French Catamaran, we yelled and waved then took evading action, to greeted by a shrug and a point at his burgee, obviously different collision regs apply in the Med.
After this little incident we had a lovely nearly event free sail, running before the wind to Marsala. Ingalan had motor sailed off into the distance while we continued with our sailing, when we got a call over the VHF, Ingalan had a steering failure, we set course to rendezvous, and once there stood by ready to offer assistance. Their steering cables had come loose, but it they resolved it, and we carried on tying up at 18:20. That evening Dreamcatchers crew took walk round Marsala, it felt like we had arrived in Africa, weathered sandstone walls and palm trees. We returned via a Gelateria, and fell happily asleep.
14/06/06. We took the opportunity, while we were close to some shops to reprovision. We found Marsala as an uninspiring town, with unusual if not plain weird statues. While Sara and Eva sat in their cockpits completing home made Tunisian courtesy flags, I prepared and cooked Calamari for lunch then got some sleep ready for our night passage.
At 18:15 we dropped our lines and under main and jib we set off towards Africa. During our last night passage Nick had stayed in the cockpit, so Phoebe was determined to do a night watch, when she woke up at about 22:30, I told her that she had been entered up as being on watch, and she went below to her bunk. During the crossing we stayed close to Ingalan, and it was strangely comforting to have anther boats lights keeping you company. At 01:30 while keeping our plot up to date, I noticed a strange luminance coming from the galley, it was the waste from the Calamari which we had been keeping for Nick to use as bait for fishing. It was duly disposed off over the side, and the bowl left on deck to be washed up once the smell had dissipated.
06:00 The light at Cap Bon was sighted and identified, and half an hour later we had our first sunrise in Africa. At about 10:00 we got caught in a bit of a blow, we hove to and rode it out, arriving at Kelibia at 13:00. Customs formalities we quickly dealt with, no doubt speeded up by Sara choosing that moment to wash up the calamari bowl.
Kelibia is a fishing harbour, full of the smells of diesel and fish, where big wooden fishing boats are built and repaired. The harbourmaster changed some money for us, at a favourable rate, and we took a taxi into the town. While in a shop getting more provisions, the shop owners young son, gave Phoebe and big hug and then proceeded to help carry the shopping basket round the shop. I went across to a British flagged vessel, and started talking to the owners, Brian and Christine. They had done a slow circumnavigation, and had settled in Sicily, spending their summers cruising to round Tunisia, Malta and Sicily.
We found the Tunisians to be friendly and they all seem to love children, not thinking twice about picking up our kids and hugging or kissing them.
!7/08/06 We set off towards Yasmine Hammamet, we encountered an uncomfortable swell in the shallow waters outside the harbour, and headed offshore to find some deeper water and easier swells. WE then had a pleasant sail towards Hammamet, rounding Beni Khiar at 15:45, to see what looked like a pirate ship heading towards us. As we passed by each other, we could hear the music blaring, as the crew danced away doing their best to give the tourists a good time. Shortly afterwards we got a call for Ingalan, saying they were nearly at the harbour, which surprised us as we had not seen them go past us. Half an hour later as we were preparing to enter the harbour at Jasmine Hammamet, we got another call, Ingalan could not find the harbour, it turned out that the co-ordinates in the Med Almanac were incorrect, and Ingalan was trying to sail into the Medina at Hammamet three miles behind us.
The error was attributable to the wrong co-ordinates in the Med Almanac, we settled in the kids were more than happy, there were bouncy castles being set up about 50 meters from our berth. During our stay here we hired a car to check out El Kantaoui as a possible winter mooring, as we had heard stories about the atrocious winter conditions at Yasmine Hammamet, and took in El Jem, an incongruous place to find an almost intact Roman amphitheatre, it seems to rise, as does the small town surrounding it from the very earth itself, with no logical reason for it to be there, it is the last Roman Amphitheatre built, it is an amazing building, used for concerts in summer, but still with access to its underground gladiator cells. We had told Nick that they were there, and he ran round trying to find the entrance, which we knew when he had found it, by the great shout of joy, which would have been heard over the baying crowds of 30,000 which El Jem would have held in its heyday. We got the kids imaginations going by pointing out marks on the walls and telling them they were made by the lions before going up into the arena, what a great place to play at being lions and gladiators, the smell of the hot dust, and the sight of the tiers enclosing you, gave an almost tangible feel to its history.
On our return we told Eva and Hokan that we were going to be moving on to El Jem, as they had a place for us to over winter, finally the wind eased and we took got ready to leave, sail covers off, electricity unplugged, engine started, or it should have done, all we got was a click. Kill switch was checked, battery charge was checked, everything was okay. We had not escaped from our flooding after all, the started motor had seized, it had been fitted new in England before we set off. I set to removing it, I undid the studs that held it in, it would not move. I retightened the studs holding the cover on, and found the correct studs, swore a bit to myself, at both their location, and the fact that I did not have an Allen key big enough. I spent most of the day trying to fashion a key out of what I had on board, as there did not appear to be anyone locally who could supply one, my efforts were futile, I went to the harbourmasters office to see if they could tell me where to get one, and they let me the one they just happened to have in their draw, this made the job a lot easier.
The starter was dully removed, the water poured out of it, stripped cleaned, and then I tried to reassemble it. This seemingly simple job was complicated by having nothing to depress the springs on the bushes, I would get three depressed only to have them spring free before I could get the new ones in. Pop rivets came to the rescue, and so it was on the afternoon of the second day I found myself in the engine room, with temps outside of 35C, trying to align a heavy motor suspended by ropes from a pole, with so much sweat soaking through my trousers, they could be wrung out by the time I had finished. After about an hour of struggling I discovered that a couple of screwdrivers through the back of the holes the studs went in lined it up perfectly. At last it was refitted, wires connected, engine start button pushed, nothing. Note to self, when fixing a starter motor don’t forget to clean the solenoid. Remove starter clean solenoid, refit, job time now down to one and half hours, and improvement over one and a half days. Try again, the engine started, I was to tired to get excited it was now 11 o’clock at night, as I backed out of the engine room, I bashed into a shelf knocking items off it, fortunately all tied on with bits of string, and among all these items was an Allen key, of exactly the right size to remove the starter motor.
The next day the weather had changed and it took us another week before we finally got to El Kantaoui, but not before on checking out of Hammamet, we discovered we did not have the right papers, when we left Kelibia, we had been giving Ingalans duplicate documents, it required a fax from Kelibia to allow us to continue. Getting a fax required finding the official with the keys to the cupboard where the fax machine was kept, then three people to plug it in and get it working, although this was amusing, it brought home the relevant affluence of Europe, where fax machines are in every office, and receiving and sending fax’s are parts of peoples daily routines.
.El Kantaoui is a purpose built resort, surrounding the marina. Fresh fish and vegetables can be purchased from the medina at Sousse, and bread cost 3p/loaf. I found it necessary to make two trips back to England whilst in El Kantaoui, trying to sort out the insurance claim ,and visiting doctors. We also managed a sail to Monastir, with my mum and Dad who had come out to visit us for Nicks birthday. On the way back from Monastir with the cruising chute up for the first time, my father who was helming fell asleep whilst stood up, it says a lot for the balance of Dreamcatcher under the cruising chute, that we continued to track straight and true, until the kids woke him up with their shouts.
Whilst in Monastir we went to the Rabat, the one used in ‘The Life of Brian’ and other films, to discover they were making a documentary dealing with the evolvement of writing, and it had been set up as a town at about the time of Christ, with the actors all in appropriate costumes, it was the only time we didn’t have to get Phoebe and Nick to use their imaginations.
Shortly after our trip to Monastir, we all returned to England, in order for me to start some new treatment for my arthritis. So we left Dreamcatcher hoping to return in three months time and continue our adventures, we were away for nearly six months, and on our return we were no longer as free as we had been when we set off.
Monday 31 July 2006
Ripped sails and flooded boats
Sicily 2006
01 August 2006. Picking out Capo Orlando through the background haze had been rather difficult. We had picked up the headland of Capo Olando, and therefore had a rough idea where the harbour should be. The GPS and chartplotter told us where it should be, but we couldn’t find it, the huge concrete breakwater wall round the outside, blended with the background and the usual tell tale signs of masts were missing. As we got closer we finally started picking out what looked like masts, which then revealed what looked like the entrance. We had been warned of a sandbank in the entrance from the pilot book and by Eva and Hakan, so we approached with caution. Finally we picked out what looked like a navigation bouy in the open entrance to the harbour, binoculars confirmed it as a green cone shaped starboard marker. We hadn’t seen one of these since entering the river Seinne at Honfleur. Sara had been dispatched to the chart table to find out which side we should pass, before we applied logic and remembered which side to pass starboard marks on, our confusion had been caused by how far back from the harbour wall the marker was. The entrance was about two hundred meters wide, and the bouy was indicating that over half of the entrance was not navigable. As we came past the outer breakwater we realised why it had been so hard to pick up masts, apart from the fact that most of the boats were either motorboats or small sailing boats, the breakwater wall was approximately 5 meters high, and because of the sandbank most of the boats were moored along way from the wall. Eva and Hakan were easy to find, there was a boat with a Swedish flag, with two people waving their arms about, and blasting an airhorn, fortunately there were no other people living on their boats.
Sara did the deck work of getting the fenders and mooring warps ready and I looked for suitable mooring spots, while keeping an eye on the depth. Our intentions must have been confusing to onlookers as a man appeared and waved us into the spot where Eva and Hokan were moored, then proceeded to start untying them. We eventually got it all sorted and headed off to the beach for a swim and rounded off the day at the local pizzeria.
Well that’s not entirely true, we got round to discussing where we were going next, had some beers, looked at charts, had some more beers, Africa seemed very close, has some more beers, discussed the possibility of sailing to Africa, then went to bed. In the morning while off buying some bread, I discovered that the romance adventure of sailing to Africa had got hold, we arrived back at our boat with plans forming. When we informed Hokan that we were off to Africa, he signed up to the idea, and we were doing a cruise in company to Africa!
Two days later at 10:30 on 3rd of August we motored out towards Cefalu. Eva and Hokan were worried that we would go to fast, we spent the day watching them disappear ahead of us in the light winds of the Med. We arrived at the new Harbour to the east of Cefalu, to find the marina full, some boats had anchored in the harbour and taken long lines ashore, we managed to find a spot moored bows to the quay, close to the hydrofoil landing stage. There was a swell which came into the harbour, which got exacerbated by the hydrofoil coming in and out, which caused Dreamcatcher to continually surge backwards and forwards, even with the rubber damper on the lines.
Getting on and off was a bit of a struggle, not always helped by the children deciding to be awkward. We found ourselves holed up for four days while weather systems blew in from the West. The day before we left the surging got so bad that it snapped the rubber spring on the bow line, and ripped off both starboard bow cleats. We were not the only boats holed up because of the winds, most people heading west were taking shelter, however some boats were still heading towards us out of the east. We watched one of these boats make slow progress towards Cefalu and finally they made it in, we helped the three chaps on board tie up, and exchanged greetings, about an hour later we noticed that the chaps had been joined by three women, it transpired that the women hadalways been on board, but for what ever reasons did not deem it necessary to help out in the tying up, cleaning down or stowing of the sails. The next day the behaviour was slightly more bizarre.
I was up on deck checking fenders and things, when I noticed that one of the female crew on was perched on their coachroof facing our boat, I was separated from this lady by the distance of half of our combined side decks and a fender, while she sat in a pair of shorts using a lady shave on her legs, this was not a problem, however when she janked her leg up and started doing her bikini line, I retreated hastily to our cockpit, where I found Sara trying hard to stifle her laughter.
The town of Cefalu is very nice, medieval town, approached by a walk of about a mile round the headland. It has some newer bits largely sprawling off along the beach. The roads were narrow and cobbled, with occasional glimpses of the sea. The town has suffered earthquakes in the past, most noticeably to us in the church, where the old bits are few surrounded by new repairs. The church has a lovely setting, set between high cliffs on one side, stone buildings on the other, and a large piazza in front, apparently the tomb of the legendry Diane is located to the top of the cliff.
The town still has a medieval laundry, set down some steps, where the tubs have been carved into the gently sloping rock floor. The spring water enters at the top, then flows into successive tubs until finally making its way out through the rocks to the sea, occasionally the water from a larger than normal wave would push its way back into the laundry. The children were not slow in removing their shoes and socks to go paddling in the tubs, but I beat them to it, the water was lovely and cool, quite refreshing after the walk into town.
While making our way back to the Piazza, we encountered the local Brass band, which had been doing a concert in the Piazza the day before, marching round the town. The children wanted to join the followers, and we did, following the band round the old town as we all headed back to the Piazza in front of the church.
The day before our departure we did an expedition to the new bit of town to find a supermarket. We found Eva and Hokan, in a Café across the road from the supermarket, and we joined them for a coffee and icecream. I went into the shop to help the children choose their icecreams and ordered two little ones, the assistant kept heaping icecream into the cups, after the third spoon I realised my Italian had let me down, once more I expressed my wish for small icecreams, where I was told in English that they only did one size, I had visions of another national debt clearing bill similar to the one in Rome, the bill for two icecreams bigger than the kids heads, two coffees and two beers was a bit over E10-00. No wonder the place was full of locals.
On the way back to the boat after shopping we saw a plane coming down to scoop up water from the sea to fight the bush fire on the hill behind us. Anxious locals who gathered in a piazza to watch the progress of the fire as it moved towards houses on the hill. Then that evening I saw a Search and Rescue Helicopter practicing outside the harbour. It was getting far to hectic, time to move.
7 August 2006 We left the harbour at 10:00 into light winds and proceeded to motor sail towards Capo Gallo. An hour and a half later, we were all getting fractious, it was hot and the light winds meant the engine had been on continuously which wears down, there followe a discussion about my choice of sails and the course we had chosen, as Ingalan was disappearing in front of us.
Lunch time was a relief, melon followed by cheese, followed by a cheese being introduced to peoples thighs and faces, and giggling children.
To break up the monotony of motoring, Nick helmed for twenty minutes, then so did Phoebe. However Phoebe found it hard to helm and eat her melon. We then had a mOB, melon Over Board, which improved her helming.
By 17:10 we were had made progress of 25 miles, and were passing Capo Mongerbino, about 6 mile east of Palermo, I was down below cooking supper, when were joined by four dolphins, 3 Common and 1 Rossou’s. The kids and I went forward to the Dolphin nose while Sara helmed and watched them play in our bow wake.
17:23 I returned to the galley, leaving the kids on the foredeck with the dolphins to find that supper is now burnt, but we didn’t mind. Phoebe who had spent the day missing her friends in Salina and at home, had been bending our ears about how horrible it was living on a boat, and how she wanted to go home, but when I put the question to her during supper and post dolphin encounter, I was informed that a girl is allowed to change her mind.
19:33 Arrived at a marina, and tied up to the pontoon at Baia D Mondello. We all dived into the warm sea, and swam round watching the sun set. Later that evening we were joined by Eva and Hokan as we walked into the town, there was a permanent fair ground with dodgems, we let the kids go on by themselves, which they loved, Nick was so excited when the ride ended, that he jumped out of his dodgem with his ‘seatbelt’ still on, got it caught round his feet and ended up in a heap, with a grin so wide I thought his head was going to come off. Eva and Hokan spoilt the kids by buying them more tokens, saying that as they didn’t have any kids with them they would treat our instead, a tired and happy crew found their way back to the boat, a lovely end to what had started out as a horrible day.
08/08/06 A slow start to the day saw us leaving at 12:15 after being charged an extortionate amount of E50:00 for one night mooring, determined that we will try anchoring more. Eva and Hokan do not anchor, they are not confident in their ground tackle, and are not sure about things like scope, so we feel obliged to tie up with them, tying up has its advantages, easy access to shore and shops, possibly water and electricity, but with the amount of motoring we are doing, batteries going flat is not an issue. But we will stay tying up, but if the charges continue at this rate or get higher, we will anchor.
The passage round to Castellamare was beautiful rugged rock headlands full of cliffs and crags off set from the sea by dry scrub land. Again it was motoring most of the day, but the log reads 16:27 Course 213T Speed 6.3knots, Main and Jib only A GOOD SAIL AT LAST!!!
16:46 Who turned the wind off?
We persevered and got a good wind as we approached the harbour, for a change we were in front on INGALAN, and I was enjoying the sail, I could see the harbour was large and clear, with ample room to drop the sails in the shelter inside, so we sailed kept he sails up as we sailed into the harbour, it felt fanatastic, gave me a sense of pride and achievement, helped even more b the radio message from Ingalan, saying how good it looked to see us sailing into the harbour.
While dropping the sails, the radio crackled back into life, for us to hear a wooried Hokan asking for assistance as he had got a rope on his prop that had stopped him, we aknowledge, and said we were on our way as soon as we had got the sails stowed. Shortly afterwards the radio started again, it was a very relieved sounding Hokan, he had put his engine into reverse, and the line had fallen clear.
We managed to squeeze ourselves into yet another impossibly tight berth, and watched the moon rise over a beautiful stone town, before retiring to bed, while Eva and Hokan went into town.
09/08/06 Up early, unable to get the weather forecast off Channel 68, and rely on the forecast from the day before.
07:15 Oil topped up, Stern gland loosened, Tea made, flasks filled
07:47 Engine on lines dropped, as we exit our berth using warps and springs, it feels good. We are going slowly, slower than we should be going.
07:55 Having untangled the lazy line that had got tangled round our fender we could now continue with our departure.
It was a cool cloudy morning, the tops of the mountains were trying to tear holes in the grey clouds as they scudded past. Still to much interference to get a weather forecast, there is some wind, up goes the main and mizzen. We leave the motor, as we watch the weather, I want ot et the main up but Sara wouldn’t let me. We start picking up gust of wind coming down off the mountains, we decided to see what the wind is like once we clear Capo Sant Vito before we raise any more sail. We clear Capo San Vito, the next piece of land to the west of us is Spain, the wind has got stronger, the waves have got bigger, and we are going like a train smashing through the waves, unfortunately it is like a train towards Sardinia not Marsala. WE get on the radio to Ingalan to advise them to have their sails reefed before they clear the headland, to be informed that they have no sail up and are thinking of putting in at Capo Sant Vito..We have a discussion, we are fine, but the crew in Ingalan will have a horrible time if they continue, we go about to head back. Dreamcatcher did not like the change of course, and protested by blowing out the mizzen below the first reef. With the jib reduced and the mizzen reefed we were soon in the shelter of Capo San Vito. We were waved to a berth, which took us two attempts to get into. After tying up I went below to tighten up the stern gland. My adrenaline levels shot up as I found engine room flooded with oily water, we had a leak! I quickly found the problem was the stern gland that had not been lock off, had come loose, I could feel the cold water pouring in, it was soon back on and tightened up.
We were in a mess, the water was up to the floorboards, the gearbox was under water, which meant it had probably filled with water, and the water was oily, there was no way we could pump it out with our bilge pump without polluting the whole harbour. I went and found the marina staff and tried to explain the problem asking if some one had a large pump. I was told they would find someone. A bit later a bloke turned up a small hand pump for emptying the residual amounts of water out a motorboat. The problem got explained properly once I had dragged the chap from the marina into the boat and showed him the engine room. He set off saying he would go find a man. About half and hour later he returned saying he had found an mechanic who would come that afternoon to have a look, when I asked how much this would cost, I was informed he would come have a look for E100-00.
If I had been having a bad time up until then ,things got worse, I lost it, E100-00 just to come have look, I started shouting about them all being Mafiosi, and waving my arms around, this was probably not a good thing to say only 40 mile away from Palermo. Sara was trying to get me to calm down and be quiet, but I was not in the mood, I was being extorted. Hokan in the boat next door was laughing away and talking to me. Finally he managed to get through the argument and explain that the E100-00 was the estimate for pumping out the boat. The chap from the marina left with a bemused expression on his face saying the mechanic would be here at 15:00, undoubtedly quite convinced that the English are mad.
I spent the rest of that afternoon thinking about, the implications and how we were going to deal with this problem. Three o’clock came, no mechanic, a marina hand appeared came and said the mechanic would be there at five o’clock, and go I go to the office and pay. I walked up to the office to find something resembling a scene from the Soprano’s, their were four Uncle Juniors sat round a table in nylon tracksuits bottoms and mismatched shirts, playing cards, one bloke trying to relay the wooden floor boards while being given instructions from the Uncle Ju’s and four other assorted mismatched blokes who were hanging around. I was beginning to regret my Mafiosi comment, however there were no concrete slippers or sleeping with the fishes for me.
The mechanic duly arrived at 5 o’clock, however he could not get his truck with the pump down the jetty, so we had to move the boat across the harbour to the fuel berth. With an engine and gearbox underwater, I did not want to use the engine. The solution, Marina chap #1 offered to tow me using his motor boat. We duly riggd fenders and got lines ready, as he came between the moored boats. IT had been a tight squeeze going in, it was going to be tighter getting out. I was expecting him to tie up alongside our quarter, from where he could push and pull, and turn, but instead he took lines to both stern cleats. Good idea there was not going to be enough room to turn us both, so he was going to pull us out, then come alongside. No I got that wrong as I discovered as he pulled us out, it was his intention to tow us backwards, down the length of the pontoon, and then across the harbour. We had people running up and down our deck, and the decks of the other boats as we went past, fending off like demons, as I was fending us off a nice shiny new boat flying a British ensign, the bloke who was stretched out in his hammock from the mast to the forestay, lifted his head in mild curiousity from his book, but did not bother to offer assistance, or even fend us off from his boat, I couldn’t resist the temptation and called that this is what happens if you don’t pay your fees. Finally we were out from the pontoon and in the empty harbour, then the tow stopped , ten tons of boat did not, more fenders, more shouting, if I hadn’t been my boat involved I probably would have enjoyed watching the spectacle.
Then I discovered that we were not going alongside the fuel berth as I thought we were, they were going to try a Med, Stern to, mooring, the anchor was dropped , and we managed to get a line ashore, with Sara on the foredeck doing the anchor, I was left to pull us in. My back was giving me a lot of pain and I couldn’t do it, Sara was summoned to assist. We were soon moving towards the fuel berth, where a group of Italian males were stood, one of whom had been yelling at me in English to pull the boat in, once I passed the pulling over to Sara, he stood there muttering away to his mates while pointing at me. I pointed at Sara and said ‘She’s good isn’t she? Ican tell you where to get one.’
That got him muttering that he didn’t need one, he could do his own pulling.
Once again I had opened up the first impressions with the locals score at minus.
Finally we got moored up, and a huge industrial drain clearing sucker got moved into place, 1000 litres later, we were dry. I could now do a preliminary inspection of the engine and gearbox. The gearbox was full of water, but on the plus side the engine was still okay and started first time.
We retired below, other yachts entering the harbour, seeing us on the fuel pontoon, tied up, and soon there was a collection of four other boats tied to the fuel pontoon.
We got woken by a lot of shouting, a fishing boat had come in and this was his spot, we all had to move and go to the marina, we tried to explain about the engine and gearbox, but ll this did was make him shout some more, finally an angler who had been there when we first moored up managed to explain to the trawler man, and he went off muttering, and collapsed back into bed.
I was woken at 1 o’clock by Sara, she was convinced something was wrong, she went up and had a look, another trawler had tied up to the first and his bow was directly above our deck on the Starboard side, and he was moored on our port side, his bow passing through the triangle created by the forestay and the main mast. We got another line and were trying to decided how to get ashore to pass it back to the jetty, when Trawler man #1 appeared, on the deck of the trawler on our starboard side, that was just what we needed. But he was a changed man, he understood our circumstance, he took our line and made fast it fast, told us not to worry about a thing, and if we had any problems to call him and he would come help.
The following morning, Fuel Berth, was back, he had learnt his English while living in America, so I was surprised to find him telling us we had to go to the marina. Once again I explained about the gearbox and engine, he was not having it, we had to move as he had a big boat coming in for fuel, and he was going to need the whole jetty, even though we were tied up right at the end. His suggested we get our friends to move us, I explained that we had no friends with a b oat capable of towing us into a marina spot.
He could ask the harbour master to tow us. Great could he do it, well yes he could but it would cost E1000-00.
This was beginning to get stupid. Sara and I discussed our plan, we would cast of the lines and shorten the scope of the anchor, moving us into the middle of the harbour, while I continued to flush and replace the gearbox oil. As we were doing this, Fuel Berth appeared again, to ask what we were doing, so once more we told him, to be asked in an incredulous voice, ‘Your engine does not work?’
We rode at anchor in the harbour, while I continued to sort the gearbox, and Sara dealt with all the enraged small boat fisherman, who now had to make a slight turn to get round us, I now know ‘Machinca Non Funczione’, while not strictly the correct Italian it would have communicated the problem. At last a bit of wind came up, and we put plan ‘B’ in to operation, we unfurled the jib got it drawing while we pulled up the anchor and sailed out of the harbour to anchor up in the anchorage outside. Sailing off the hook is a skill to learn, but doing it for the first time in small harbour, with a uncertain auxiliary propulsion unit, is incredibly satisfying. If it started going wrong we were prepared to either drop the hook wherever we were pr sail back to Castellamare, where we knew we could anchor in the harbour.
We spent the next three days at anchor, going ashore in Bob, trying to find ATF for the gearbox and swimming in the sea. We hired a car and drove to Trapani, on a quest for a Tunisian courtesy flag, and took the cable car up to the village of Erice, a World Heritage site, built on top of a hill. The village had fantastic views across Sicily and towards the Egadi islands, but the cable car ride was worth every penny. The cable car is lit at night and must be a really good aid to navigation, as during our crossing to Tunisia it was visible a good thirty five miles off.
13/08/06 I was happy to give leave, the engine seemed okay, the forecast was good, at 09:15 we raised the anchor and headed towards Marsala, making sure we got lots of sea room as the coast there has teeth, lots of them made of red jagged rocks, it was not an area we wanted things to go wrong on. Sara went below and called a course to steer, it was not right, it had us heading for rocks. I went to check what was wrong, the course appeared to be right, cross checking to paper charts, it still seemed correct. Going back into the cockpit to check the compass, and remove any metal objects from near the compass, we found the problem, Nick’s Geo-Mags were found next ot the compass, we watched the compass correct itself by twenty degrees. Once this was sorted we were off having a cracking sail under main, jib and reefed torn mizzen. We saw a squall heading our way and started reducing sail, when we were nearly T-Boned by an overtaking French Catermaran, we yelled and waved then took evading action, to greeted by a shrug and a point at his burgee, obviously different collision regs apply in the Med.
After this little incident we had a lovely nearly event free sail, running before the wind to Marsala. Ingalan had motor sailed off into the distance while we continued with our sailing, when we got a call over the VHF, Ingalan had a steering failure, we set course to rendezvous, and once there stood by ready to offer assistance. Their steering cables had come loose, but it they resolved it, and we carried on tying up at 18:20. That evening Dreamcatchers crew took walk round Marsala, it felt like we had arrived in Africa, weathered sandstone walls and palm trees. We returned via a Gelataria, and fell happily asleep.
14/06/06. We took the opportunity, while we were close to some shops to reprovision. We found Marsala as an uninspiring town, with unusual if not plain weird statues. While Sara and Eva sat in their cockpits completing home made Tunisian courtesy flags, I prepared and cooked Calamari for lunch then got some sleep ready for our night passage.
At 18:15 we dropped our lines and under main and jib we set off towards Africa. During our last night passage Nick had stayed in the cockpit, so Phoebe was determined to do a night watch, when she woke up at about 22:30, I told her that she had been entered up as being on watch, and she went below to her bunk. During the crossing we stayed close to Ingalan, and it was strangely comforting to have anther boats lights keeping you company. At 01:30 while keeping our plot up to date, I noticed a strange luminance coming from the galley, it was the waste from the Calamari which we had been keeping for Nick to use as bait for fishing. It was dult disposed off over the side, and the bowl left on deck to be washed up once the smell had dissipated.
06:00 The light at Cap Bon was sighted and identified, and half an hour later we had our first sunrise in Africa. At about 10:00 we got caught in a bit of a blow, we hove to and rode it out, arriving at Kalibia at 13:00. Customs formalities we quickly dealt with, no doubt speeded up by Sara choosing that moment to wash up the calamari bowl.
Kalibia is a fishing harbour, full of the smells of diesel and fish, where big wooden fishing boats are built and repaired. The harbourmaster changed some money for us, at a favourable rate, and we took a taxi into the town. While in a shop getting more provisions, the shop owners young son, gave Phoebe and big hug and then proceeded to help carry the shopping basket round the shop. I went across to a British flagged vessel, and started talking to the owners, Brian and Christine. They had done a slow circumnavigation, and had settled in Sicily, spending their summers cruising to round Tunisia, Malta and Sicily.
We found the Tunisians to be friendly and they all seem to love children, not thinking twice about picking up our kids and hugging or kissing them.
07/08/06 We set off towards Yasmine Hammet, we encounted an uncomfortable swell in the shallow waters outside the harbour, and headed offshore to find some deeper water and easier swells. WE then had a pleasant sail towards Hammet, rounding Beni Khiar at 15:45, to see what looked like a pirate ship heading towards us. As we passed by each other, we could hear the music blaring, as the crew danced away doing their best to give the tourists a good time. Shortly afterwards we got a call for Ingalan, saying they were nearly at the harbour, which surprised us as we had not seen them go past us. Half an hour later as we were preparing to enter the harbour at Jasmine Hammet, we got another call, Ingalan could not find the harbour, it turned out that the co-ordinates in the Med Almanac were incorrect, and Ingalan was trying to sail into the Medina at Hammamet three miles behind us.
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01 August 2006. Picking out Capo Orlando through the background haze had been rather difficult. We had picked up the headland of Capo Olando, and therefore had a rough idea where the harbour should be. The GPS and chartplotter told us where it should be, but we couldn’t find it, the huge concrete breakwater wall round the outside, blended with the background and the usual tell tale signs of masts were missing. As we got closer we finally started picking out what looked like masts, which then revealed what looked like the entrance. We had been warned of a sandbank in the entrance from the pilot book and by Eva and Hakan, so we approached with caution. Finally we picked out what looked like a navigation bouy in the open entrance to the harbour, binoculars confirmed it as a green cone shaped starboard marker. We hadn’t seen one of these since entering the river Seinne at Honfleur. Sara had been dispatched to the chart table to find out which side we should pass, before we applied logic and remembered which side to pass starboard marks on, our confusion had been caused by how far back from the harbour wall the marker was. The entrance was about two hundred meters wide, and the bouy was indicating that over half of the entrance was not navigable. As we came past the outer breakwater we realised why it had been so hard to pick up masts, apart from the fact that most of the boats were either motorboats or small sailing boats, the breakwater wall was approximately 5 meters high, and because of the sandbank most of the boats were moored along way from the wall. Eva and Hakan were easy to find, there was a boat with a Swedish flag, with two people waving their arms about, and blasting an airhorn, fortunately there were no other people living on their boats.
Sara did the deck work of getting the fenders and mooring warps ready and I looked for suitable mooring spots, while keeping an eye on the depth. Our intentions must have been confusing to onlookers as a man appeared and waved us into the spot where Eva and Hokan were moored, then proceeded to start untying them. We eventually got it all sorted and headed off to the beach for a swim and rounded off the day at the local pizzeria.
Well that’s not entirely true, we got round to discussing where we were going next, had some beers, looked at charts, had some more beers, Africa seemed very close, has some more beers, discussed the possibility of sailing to Africa, then went to bed. In the morning while off buying some bread, I discovered that the romance adventure of sailing to Africa had got hold, we arrived back at our boat with plans forming. When we informed Hokan that we were off to Africa, he signed up to the idea, and we were doing a cruise in company to Africa!
Two days later at 10:30 on 3rd of August we motored out towards Cefalu. Eva and Hokan were worried that we would go to fast, we spent the day watching them disappear ahead of us in the light winds of the Med. We arrived at the new Harbour to the east of Cefalu, to find the marina full, some boats had anchored in the harbour and taken long lines ashore, we managed to find a spot moored bows to the quay, close to the hydrofoil landing stage. There was a swell which came into the harbour, which got exacerbated by the hydrofoil coming in and out, which caused Dreamcatcher to continually surge backwards and forwards, even with the rubber damper on the lines.
Getting on and off was a bit of a struggle, not always helped by the children deciding to be awkward. We found ourselves holed up for four days while weather systems blew in from the West. The day before we left the surging got so bad that it snapped the rubber spring on the bow line, and ripped off both starboard bow cleats. We were not the only boats holed up because of the winds, most people heading west were taking shelter, however some boats were still heading towards us out of the east. We watched one of these boats make slow progress towards Cefalu and finally they made it in, we helped the three chaps on board tie up, and exchanged greetings, about an hour later we noticed that the chaps had been joined by three women, it transpired that the women hadalways been on board, but for what ever reasons did not deem it necessary to help out in the tying up, cleaning down or stowing of the sails. The next day the behaviour was slightly more bizarre.
I was up on deck checking fenders and things, when I noticed that one of the female crew on was perched on their coachroof facing our boat, I was separated from this lady by the distance of half of our combined side decks and a fender, while she sat in a pair of shorts using a lady shave on her legs, this was not a problem, however when she janked her leg up and started doing her bikini line, I retreated hastily to our cockpit, where I found Sara trying hard to stifle her laughter.
The town of Cefalu is very nice, medieval town, approached by a walk of about a mile round the headland. It has some newer bits largely sprawling off along the beach. The roads were narrow and cobbled, with occasional glimpses of the sea. The town has suffered earthquakes in the past, most noticeably to us in the church, where the old bits are few surrounded by new repairs. The church has a lovely setting, set between high cliffs on one side, stone buildings on the other, and a large piazza in front, apparently the tomb of the legendry Diane is located to the top of the cliff.
The town still has a medieval laundry, set down some steps, where the tubs have been carved into the gently sloping rock floor. The spring water enters at the top, then flows into successive tubs until finally making its way out through the rocks to the sea, occasionally the water from a larger than normal wave would push its way back into the laundry. The children were not slow in removing their shoes and socks to go paddling in the tubs, but I beat them to it, the water was lovely and cool, quite refreshing after the walk into town.
While making our way back to the Piazza, we encountered the local Brass band, which had been doing a concert in the Piazza the day before, marching round the town. The children wanted to join the followers, and we did, following the band round the old town as we all headed back to the Piazza in front of the church.
The day before our departure we did an expedition to the new bit of town to find a supermarket. We found Eva and Hokan, in a Café across the road from the supermarket, and we joined them for a coffee and icecream. I went into the shop to help the children choose their icecreams and ordered two little ones, the assistant kept heaping icecream into the cups, after the third spoon I realised my Italian had let me down, once more I expressed my wish for small icecreams, where I was told in English that they only did one size, I had visions of another national debt clearing bill similar to the one in Rome, the bill for two icecreams bigger than the kids heads, two coffees and two beers was a bit over E10-00. No wonder the place was full of locals.
On the way back to the boat after shopping we saw a plane coming down to scoop up water from the sea to fight the bush fire on the hill behind us. Anxious locals who gathered in a piazza to watch the progress of the fire as it moved towards houses on the hill. Then that evening I saw a Search and Rescue Helicopter practicing outside the harbour. It was getting far to hectic, time to move.
7 August 2006 We left the harbour at 10:00 into light winds and proceeded to motor sail towards Capo Gallo. An hour and a half later, we were all getting fractious, it was hot and the light winds meant the engine had been on continuously which wears down, there followe a discussion about my choice of sails and the course we had chosen, as Ingalan was disappearing in front of us.
Lunch time was a relief, melon followed by cheese, followed by a cheese being introduced to peoples thighs and faces, and giggling children.
To break up the monotony of motoring, Nick helmed for twenty minutes, then so did Phoebe. However Phoebe found it hard to helm and eat her melon. We then had a mOB, melon Over Board, which improved her helming.
By 17:10 we were had made progress of 25 miles, and were passing Capo Mongerbino, about 6 mile east of Palermo, I was down below cooking supper, when were joined by four dolphins, 3 Common and 1 Rossou’s. The kids and I went forward to the Dolphin nose while Sara helmed and watched them play in our bow wake.
17:23 I returned to the galley, leaving the kids on the foredeck with the dolphins to find that supper is now burnt, but we didn’t mind. Phoebe who had spent the day missing her friends in Salina and at home, had been bending our ears about how horrible it was living on a boat, and how she wanted to go home, but when I put the question to her during supper and post dolphin encounter, I was informed that a girl is allowed to change her mind.
19:33 Arrived at a marina, and tied up to the pontoon at Baia D Mondello. We all dived into the warm sea, and swam round watching the sun set. Later that evening we were joined by Eva and Hokan as we walked into the town, there was a permanent fair ground with dodgems, we let the kids go on by themselves, which they loved, Nick was so excited when the ride ended, that he jumped out of his dodgem with his ‘seatbelt’ still on, got it caught round his feet and ended up in a heap, with a grin so wide I thought his head was going to come off. Eva and Hokan spoilt the kids by buying them more tokens, saying that as they didn’t have any kids with them they would treat our instead, a tired and happy crew found their way back to the boat, a lovely end to what had started out as a horrible day.
08/08/06 A slow start to the day saw us leaving at 12:15 after being charged an extortionate amount of E50:00 for one night mooring, determined that we will try anchoring more. Eva and Hokan do not anchor, they are not confident in their ground tackle, and are not sure about things like scope, so we feel obliged to tie up with them, tying up has its advantages, easy access to shore and shops, possibly water and electricity, but with the amount of motoring we are doing, batteries going flat is not an issue. But we will stay tying up, but if the charges continue at this rate or get higher, we will anchor.
The passage round to Castellamare was beautiful rugged rock headlands full of cliffs and crags off set from the sea by dry scrub land. Again it was motoring most of the day, but the log reads 16:27 Course 213T Speed 6.3knots, Main and Jib only A GOOD SAIL AT LAST!!!
16:46 Who turned the wind off?
We persevered and got a good wind as we approached the harbour, for a change we were in front on INGALAN, and I was enjoying the sail, I could see the harbour was large and clear, with ample room to drop the sails in the shelter inside, so we sailed kept he sails up as we sailed into the harbour, it felt fanatastic, gave me a sense of pride and achievement, helped even more b the radio message from Ingalan, saying how good it looked to see us sailing into the harbour.
While dropping the sails, the radio crackled back into life, for us to hear a wooried Hokan asking for assistance as he had got a rope on his prop that had stopped him, we aknowledge, and said we were on our way as soon as we had got the sails stowed. Shortly afterwards the radio started again, it was a very relieved sounding Hokan, he had put his engine into reverse, and the line had fallen clear.
We managed to squeeze ourselves into yet another impossibly tight berth, and watched the moon rise over a beautiful stone town, before retiring to bed, while Eva and Hokan went into town.
09/08/06 Up early, unable to get the weather forecast off Channel 68, and rely on the forecast from the day before.
07:15 Oil topped up, Stern gland loosened, Tea made, flasks filled
07:47 Engine on lines dropped, as we exit our berth using warps and springs, it feels good. We are going slowly, slower than we should be going.
07:55 Having untangled the lazy line that had got tangled round our fender we could now continue with our departure.
It was a cool cloudy morning, the tops of the mountains were trying to tear holes in the grey clouds as they scudded past. Still to much interference to get a weather forecast, there is some wind, up goes the main and mizzen. We leave the motor, as we watch the weather, I want ot et the main up but Sara wouldn’t let me. We start picking up gust of wind coming down off the mountains, we decided to see what the wind is like once we clear Capo Sant Vito before we raise any more sail. We clear Capo San Vito, the next piece of land to the west of us is Spain, the wind has got stronger, the waves have got bigger, and we are going like a train smashing through the waves, unfortunately it is like a train towards Sardinia not Marsala. WE get on the radio to Ingalan to advise them to have their sails reefed before they clear the headland, to be informed that they have no sail up and are thinking of putting in at Capo Sant Vito..We have a discussion, we are fine, but the crew in Ingalan will have a horrible time if they continue, we go about to head back. Dreamcatcher did not like the change of course, and protested by blowing out the mizzen below the first reef. With the jib reduced and the mizzen reefed we were soon in the shelter of Capo San Vito. We were waved to a berth, which took us two attempts to get into. After tying up I went below to tighten up the stern gland. My adrenaline levels shot up as I found engine room flooded with oily water, we had a leak! I quickly found the problem was the stern gland that had not been lock off, had come loose, I could feel the cold water pouring in, it was soon back on and tightened up.
We were in a mess, the water was up to the floorboards, the gearbox was under water, which meant it had probably filled with water, and the water was oily, there was no way we could pump it out with our bilge pump without polluting the whole harbour. I went and found the marina staff and tried to explain the problem asking if some one had a large pump. I was told they would find someone. A bit later a bloke turned up a small hand pump for emptying the residual amounts of water out a motorboat. The problem got explained properly once I had dragged the chap from the marina into the boat and showed him the engine room. He set off saying he would go find a man. About half and hour later he returned saying he had found an mechanic who would come that afternoon to have a look, when I asked how much this would cost, I was informed he would come have a look for E100-00.
If I had been having a bad time up until then ,things got worse, I lost it, E100-00 just to come have look, I started shouting about them all being Mafiosi, and waving my arms around, this was probably not a good thing to say only 40 mile away from Palermo. Sara was trying to get me to calm down and be quiet, but I was not in the mood, I was being extorted. Hokan in the boat next door was laughing away and talking to me. Finally he managed to get through the argument and explain that the E100-00 was the estimate for pumping out the boat. The chap from the marina left with a bemused expression on his face saying the mechanic would be here at 15:00, undoubtedly quite convinced that the English are mad.
I spent the rest of that afternoon thinking about, the implications and how we were going to deal with this problem. Three o’clock came, no mechanic, a marina hand appeared came and said the mechanic would be there at five o’clock, and go I go to the office and pay. I walked up to the office to find something resembling a scene from the Soprano’s, their were four Uncle Juniors sat round a table in nylon tracksuits bottoms and mismatched shirts, playing cards, one bloke trying to relay the wooden floor boards while being given instructions from the Uncle Ju’s and four other assorted mismatched blokes who were hanging around. I was beginning to regret my Mafiosi comment, however there were no concrete slippers or sleeping with the fishes for me.
The mechanic duly arrived at 5 o’clock, however he could not get his truck with the pump down the jetty, so we had to move the boat across the harbour to the fuel berth. With an engine and gearbox underwater, I did not want to use the engine. The solution, Marina chap #1 offered to tow me using his motor boat. We duly riggd fenders and got lines ready, as he came between the moored boats. IT had been a tight squeeze going in, it was going to be tighter getting out. I was expecting him to tie up alongside our quarter, from where he could push and pull, and turn, but instead he took lines to both stern cleats. Good idea there was not going to be enough room to turn us both, so he was going to pull us out, then come alongside. No I got that wrong as I discovered as he pulled us out, it was his intention to tow us backwards, down the length of the pontoon, and then across the harbour. We had people running up and down our deck, and the decks of the other boats as we went past, fending off like demons, as I was fending us off a nice shiny new boat flying a British ensign, the bloke who was stretched out in his hammock from the mast to the forestay, lifted his head in mild curiousity from his book, but did not bother to offer assistance, or even fend us off from his boat, I couldn’t resist the temptation and called that this is what happens if you don’t pay your fees. Finally we were out from the pontoon and in the empty harbour, then the tow stopped , ten tons of boat did not, more fenders, more shouting, if I hadn’t been my boat involved I probably would have enjoyed watching the spectacle.
Then I discovered that we were not going alongside the fuel berth as I thought we were, they were going to try a Med, Stern to, mooring, the anchor was dropped , and we managed to get a line ashore, with Sara on the foredeck doing the anchor, I was left to pull us in. My back was giving me a lot of pain and I couldn’t do it, Sara was summoned to assist. We were soon moving towards the fuel berth, where a group of Italian males were stood, one of whom had been yelling at me in English to pull the boat in, once I passed the pulling over to Sara, he stood there muttering away to his mates while pointing at me. I pointed at Sara and said ‘She’s good isn’t she? Ican tell you where to get one.’
That got him muttering that he didn’t need one, he could do his own pulling.
Once again I had opened up the first impressions with the locals score at minus.
Finally we got moored up, and a huge industrial drain clearing sucker got moved into place, 1000 litres later, we were dry. I could now do a preliminary inspection of the engine and gearbox. The gearbox was full of water, but on the plus side the engine was still okay and started first time.
We retired below, other yachts entering the harbour, seeing us on the fuel pontoon, tied up, and soon there was a collection of four other boats tied to the fuel pontoon.
We got woken by a lot of shouting, a fishing boat had come in and this was his spot, we all had to move and go to the marina, we tried to explain about the engine and gearbox, but ll this did was make him shout some more, finally an angler who had been there when we first moored up managed to explain to the trawler man, and he went off muttering, and collapsed back into bed.
I was woken at 1 o’clock by Sara, she was convinced something was wrong, she went up and had a look, another trawler had tied up to the first and his bow was directly above our deck on the Starboard side, and he was moored on our port side, his bow passing through the triangle created by the forestay and the main mast. We got another line and were trying to decided how to get ashore to pass it back to the jetty, when Trawler man #1 appeared, on the deck of the trawler on our starboard side, that was just what we needed. But he was a changed man, he understood our circumstance, he took our line and made fast it fast, told us not to worry about a thing, and if we had any problems to call him and he would come help.
The following morning, Fuel Berth, was back, he had learnt his English while living in America, so I was surprised to find him telling us we had to go to the marina. Once again I explained about the gearbox and engine, he was not having it, we had to move as he had a big boat coming in for fuel, and he was going to need the whole jetty, even though we were tied up right at the end. His suggested we get our friends to move us, I explained that we had no friends with a b oat capable of towing us into a marina spot.
He could ask the harbour master to tow us. Great could he do it, well yes he could but it would cost E1000-00.
This was beginning to get stupid. Sara and I discussed our plan, we would cast of the lines and shorten the scope of the anchor, moving us into the middle of the harbour, while I continued to flush and replace the gearbox oil. As we were doing this, Fuel Berth appeared again, to ask what we were doing, so once more we told him, to be asked in an incredulous voice, ‘Your engine does not work?’
We rode at anchor in the harbour, while I continued to sort the gearbox, and Sara dealt with all the enraged small boat fisherman, who now had to make a slight turn to get round us, I now know ‘Machinca Non Funczione’, while not strictly the correct Italian it would have communicated the problem. At last a bit of wind came up, and we put plan ‘B’ in to operation, we unfurled the jib got it drawing while we pulled up the anchor and sailed out of the harbour to anchor up in the anchorage outside. Sailing off the hook is a skill to learn, but doing it for the first time in small harbour, with a uncertain auxiliary propulsion unit, is incredibly satisfying. If it started going wrong we were prepared to either drop the hook wherever we were pr sail back to Castellamare, where we knew we could anchor in the harbour.
We spent the next three days at anchor, going ashore in Bob, trying to find ATF for the gearbox and swimming in the sea. We hired a car and drove to Trapani, on a quest for a Tunisian courtesy flag, and took the cable car up to the village of Erice, a World Heritage site, built on top of a hill. The village had fantastic views across Sicily and towards the Egadi islands, but the cable car ride was worth every penny. The cable car is lit at night and must be a really good aid to navigation, as during our crossing to Tunisia it was visible a good thirty five miles off.
13/08/06 I was happy to give leave, the engine seemed okay, the forecast was good, at 09:15 we raised the anchor and headed towards Marsala, making sure we got lots of sea room as the coast there has teeth, lots of them made of red jagged rocks, it was not an area we wanted things to go wrong on. Sara went below and called a course to steer, it was not right, it had us heading for rocks. I went to check what was wrong, the course appeared to be right, cross checking to paper charts, it still seemed correct. Going back into the cockpit to check the compass, and remove any metal objects from near the compass, we found the problem, Nick’s Geo-Mags were found next ot the compass, we watched the compass correct itself by twenty degrees. Once this was sorted we were off having a cracking sail under main, jib and reefed torn mizzen. We saw a squall heading our way and started reducing sail, when we were nearly T-Boned by an overtaking French Catermaran, we yelled and waved then took evading action, to greeted by a shrug and a point at his burgee, obviously different collision regs apply in the Med.
After this little incident we had a lovely nearly event free sail, running before the wind to Marsala. Ingalan had motor sailed off into the distance while we continued with our sailing, when we got a call over the VHF, Ingalan had a steering failure, we set course to rendezvous, and once there stood by ready to offer assistance. Their steering cables had come loose, but it they resolved it, and we carried on tying up at 18:20. That evening Dreamcatchers crew took walk round Marsala, it felt like we had arrived in Africa, weathered sandstone walls and palm trees. We returned via a Gelataria, and fell happily asleep.
14/06/06. We took the opportunity, while we were close to some shops to reprovision. We found Marsala as an uninspiring town, with unusual if not plain weird statues. While Sara and Eva sat in their cockpits completing home made Tunisian courtesy flags, I prepared and cooked Calamari for lunch then got some sleep ready for our night passage.
At 18:15 we dropped our lines and under main and jib we set off towards Africa. During our last night passage Nick had stayed in the cockpit, so Phoebe was determined to do a night watch, when she woke up at about 22:30, I told her that she had been entered up as being on watch, and she went below to her bunk. During the crossing we stayed close to Ingalan, and it was strangely comforting to have anther boats lights keeping you company. At 01:30 while keeping our plot up to date, I noticed a strange luminance coming from the galley, it was the waste from the Calamari which we had been keeping for Nick to use as bait for fishing. It was dult disposed off over the side, and the bowl left on deck to be washed up once the smell had dissipated.
06:00 The light at Cap Bon was sighted and identified, and half an hour later we had our first sunrise in Africa. At about 10:00 we got caught in a bit of a blow, we hove to and rode it out, arriving at Kalibia at 13:00. Customs formalities we quickly dealt with, no doubt speeded up by Sara choosing that moment to wash up the calamari bowl.
Kalibia is a fishing harbour, full of the smells of diesel and fish, where big wooden fishing boats are built and repaired. The harbourmaster changed some money for us, at a favourable rate, and we took a taxi into the town. While in a shop getting more provisions, the shop owners young son, gave Phoebe and big hug and then proceeded to help carry the shopping basket round the shop. I went across to a British flagged vessel, and started talking to the owners, Brian and Christine. They had done a slow circumnavigation, and had settled in Sicily, spending their summers cruising to round Tunisia, Malta and Sicily.
We found the Tunisians to be friendly and they all seem to love children, not thinking twice about picking up our kids and hugging or kissing them.
07/08/06 We set off towards Yasmine Hammet, we encounted an uncomfortable swell in the shallow waters outside the harbour, and headed offshore to find some deeper water and easier swells. WE then had a pleasant sail towards Hammet, rounding Beni Khiar at 15:45, to see what looked like a pirate ship heading towards us. As we passed by each other, we could hear the music blaring, as the crew danced away doing their best to give the tourists a good time. Shortly afterwards we got a call for Ingalan, saying they were nearly at the harbour, which surprised us as we had not seen them go past us. Half an hour later as we were preparing to enter the harbour at Jasmine Hammet, we got another call, Ingalan could not find the harbour, it turned out that the co-ordinates in the Med Almanac were incorrect, and Ingalan was trying to sail into the Medina at Hammamet three miles behind us.
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Sunday 23 July 2006
Aeolian Islands
Salina to Sicily
23/07/06: Having spent the previous day, recovering from the passage across, with lots of swimming, watching the hydrofoils and ferries coming and going regularly between the islands and the mainland, we decided it was time to escape the swell created by these vessels and go ashore. The swell no doubt was exacerbated by where we had anchored, the bottom had shelved fairly quickly, but not having confidence in our anchor winches ability to deal with 10meters plus of depth, we had moved into shallower water of about 5m, which brought us close under a cliff between two short promontories, this had the combined effect of creating taller waves and we were caught by the wave as it came back after bouncing off the cliff. The holding was a mix of weed rock and gritty sand, and our anchor was nicely set into a clear batch of sand, so I was reluctant to move it. We launched ‘Bob’ by now using our trusted method of hauling the dinghy up, using the spinnaker halyard, swinger it over the guard wires, and lower into the sea, it is both easy and controlled, until that is you try doing it when the wind is blowing, when instead of it being nice and controlled, you end up with a dinghy swinging backwards and forwards trying to knock anyone in its way overboard, this we do have first hand experience of. However on launching ‘Bob’ we discovered a new problem, we had a leak, not only in the floor letting in water, but in the starboard tube. We pumped it up and went ashore to explore. The town of Santa Marina, is built on a slope, with what appears to be one main street, it is full of typical holiday type shops, selling loud shirts, lilo and fishing stuff, along with a couple of places selling diving gear. Along the high street, we found a couple of shops selling fresh provisions, so we stocked up with bread, drinks and fruit. Having spent a couple of hours walking round we returned to Dreamcatcher. That afternoon as the temperatures climbed we needed to keep cool the children cool without exposing them to the midday sun by swimming, we found the ideal solution, out came the hammock, which was rigged athwart ships from the shrouds, with the body passing under the boom, which meant it was covered by the cockpit tent, it became the children’s favourite spot, and that evening as we watched the setting sun turned Lipari a wonderful deep red colour, the children were ensconced side by side in the hammock, with Phoebe reading a book to Nick while he played with his stuffed toy gorilla. Later that evening I stood on the aft deck watching Stromboli in the far distance, as it occasionally lit up the sky with its pyroclastic display.
24/07/06 The wind got up a bit during the night, and I kept waking up in the night to peer out of the window to check that the marina lights were still where they should be. Sara had found things too hot in the cabin so had moved her bed up into the cockpit, where she continued to sleep for the next 7 days. Andre had told us about a small village of Lingua, at the foot of the island, where we thought his house was, so before it got too hot we went ashore and caught the bus to Lingua. Our journey ashore the previous day had acquainted us with the incredibly slippery boat launch ramp, even forewarned as we were dragging Bob out was a bit like watching a dog on ice, as our feet kept shooting out, and it was only by keeping a firm hold on the dinghy that we did not end up falling. After walking round a deserted Lingua for half an hour or so, we had drunk all our water, and the ubiquitous drinking water fountains you seem to find in all Italian towns, were not working, fortunately we found a shop selling cold drinks. Once re-hydrated and in some shade, I telephoned Fedirica to discover that she was in Santa Marina, however we arranged to meet at four o’clock that afternoon in Lingua. We waited patiently for the bus to take us back to Santa Marina and Dreamcatcher. Then we waited some more, and after about an hour a bus arrived. The distance from Lingua to Santa Marina just over 2 kilometres, but we did not fancy walking that far in the heat.
What a difference four hours make to an Italian village, we decided to go to Lingua
in Bob, and tied up behind a rock breakwater, to find the promenade full of people, and children playing in the sea. Fedirica appeared in a blowing Beach dress, draped and dragging an assortment of towels, and beach toys, while her two children were buzzing round her. We just added to the noise and confusion, as language obstacles were overcome, and the kids, dragged us all off to go swimming. As we picked our way gingerly across slippery sharp rocks, into the warm sea, the procedure to avoid nasty falls seemed to be to get into water half way up your shins, then semi float drag your way into deeper water. The kids didn’t understand this are tried to run and walk, with much falling over fortunately Phoebe and Nick had their lifejackets on, so survived the falls with only minor bumps. However the life jackets were a problem in there own right, Danieli who was younger than Nick, was a veritable fish in the water, and with his goggles on was happily diving down to the bottom to pick up rocks for his mother, our kids decided it was time for them to learn to swim. Into the confusion of trying to keep your balance, engage in conversation and keep an eye on the kids, there came Ros.
Ros, Frank and the their two children were the English Family living on Salina that Andre’ had told us about. Ros had been living on Salina for a couple of years while trying to write a book, while Frank an Antiques dealer, would fly back to London for a couple of days every month or so, to do some trading, Issy was a year older than Phoebe attended the local school, while Juno, who was the same age as Nick stayed at home with her mum. It took all of about one minute for the kids to get introduced and strike up friendships, it now became a near impossible task even with four adults to keep track of the six kids, as they climbed onto rocks and jumped into the sea, and ran around on the promenade. Ros was a fluent Italian speaker, and we found we had a willing interpreter, who helped with introductions to numerous people, and we found Salina had a number of English speaking Italians, some of whom had been living abroard and had now returned, however without the introductions by Ros and Federica we would just have been another group of tourists. We had many a confusing conversations swopping between Italian and English, which usually involved people being spoken to in the language they did not understand.
Once the kids had tired of swimming, we all went up to the promenade, where the adults conversations were interrupted regularly by, one or another of the children asking for something, or the sight of one of them suddenly appearing on a bicycle or scooter that they had just found, it seemed to be the norm that all the children came onto the promenade, with their toys, which then seemed to be fair game for anyone to play with until it was time to go home, when the children would get rounded up, relevant toys gathered up, and everyone bundle off. How the children found the time for these activities, as Juno and Izzy had set up a stall selling rocks they had gathered off the beach and painted with designs, Phoebe joined in the stall and spent her time trying to organise everyone. It was only later when Sara and I had time to confer that we realised that the mob, as a like to think of the children, had got themselves organised, and had managed to illicit numerous trips to the shop for drinks, granita’s (crushed frozen fruit drinks) or crisps, by trying approaching which ever of the adults was by themselves to ask for money.
After a pleasant laid back evening, during which we had arranged to meet the next day and go to Lipari on the hydrofoil, we returned to find Bob a bit flatter than when we had started, and had a bit of a windy, bouncy trip back to the anchorage in the dark, without any torches. Finding the anchorage was easy due to all the boats, finding Dreamcatcher was not, we had not anticipated returning after sunset and had not left an anchor light on, plus we were a lot further in towards land than the other boats, we went up and down the anchorage, until I recognised the lights of a catamaran that was moored close to us. It was a tired but happy crew of Dreamcatcher who went to bed that night.
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25/07/07 Todays trip to Lipari had to be cancelled, I had gone to check something in the engine room to find the bilge full of oily water, The stern gland was dripping and filled the bilge with water, it was not too worrying as I measured the drip rate and figured it would take three days to fill the bilge, but it was something we needed to keep an eye on. The water in the bilges was oily and I did not wish to empty my bilge this close to land, so we hauled up the anchor and ran before the wind, once we were over four miles from land we pumped out the bilge, stopping as soon as we saw a trace of oil on the surface. We decided to alter course and head towards the town of Lipari, passing between the islands of Lipari and Volcano. The crew soon all fell asleep, Phoebe in the hammock, Nick on his knees in the cockpit, and Sara while assisting with the lookout duties. I had a lovely sail slowly closing on the magnificent southern side of Lipari, and watching the fumes rising from the top of Volcano. We approached Lipari town but could not see anywhere to moor up, where we could just go to the shops and return without having to pay for the priviledge, so we returned to an anchorage Delle Genti. After four attempts to set the anchor in water deeper than we usually did, we give it up and headed back towards Salina, with a possible overnighter on Volcano. I had read about the supposed therapeutic effects of the sulphurous mud pools found on Volcano, on relieving the aches and pains of arthritis, so I was hoping to get a chance to visit the island. The harbour and main anchorage is on the East side of the island at Porto Di Levante, the name in it self is enough to make you wary, with another anchorage to the North at Cala Di Mastro Minico, with anchoring forbidden in the bay off Porto Di Ponente. However this is Italy so they bay off Ponente was filled with boats at anchor. We slowly nosed our way in, the bottom seemed generally free of rocks, sandy and gently shelving, we dropped our hook in 8 meters, and let out all 30 meters of chain, there was no wind or swell, it was open to the Northwest and North only, and if it did blow up, from their we could either nip round to the main anchorage or head back to Salina. We were close to some other boats and having watched some other boats come in, come to a stand still dump all of their chain, and just left the breeze set the anchor, we decided to rig fenders just in case any of the dragged during the night.
26/07/07 We woke the next morning, and I revisited the stern gland, looking at it more closely, A good nights sleep, had allowed me to recall some advice given to me by Paul about the stern gland, two minutes later the job was done no more leaking stern gland, now all I had to do was remember to loosen it off a bit before using the engine. We took Bob ashore to check out the town, the mud pools and find more fresh provisions. The town and the shops had a kind of scruffy, in a hippy kind of way, feel to it, but it seemed very relaxed. The island is most definitely on the backpacker route, with the ferries disgorging them in their droves, it was difficult to walk round near the ferry port without tripping over a rucksac or two. The town has boards up dealing with the emergency evacuation procedures in case of an imminent eruption, along with klaxons. Taking this all together, the backpackers, active volcanoes and natural therapies, probably helps explain the atmosphere, temporary, noisy, laid back and just generally cool.
With all this laid backness I was disappointed to discover that the free mud pools had been converted into a business, with fences and gates, but I suppose it had to be done to protect them from damage and over use. The children had been told that people are a bit smelly after using the mud pools, and we certainly passed a number of people with an overpowering rotten egg cologne, it seemed unfair to the other crew members to confine them in the boat with me smelling like that, so I elected not to play in the mud.
We returned to Bob, after first stopping at a shop to buy both Phoebe and Nick some goggles and snorkels. In short order Phoebe was swimming, The snorkel let her breath with her face in the water, and then her bottom came up and she was in the perfect swimming position, and Phoebe was off without any buoyancy aids. Nick was not quite there but he was trying. On our return to Dreamcatcher, I went to go speak to the crew of a Brit flagged boat to find out where they were going and had been. I was bit longer than expected, and Sara swam over to join us. The kids thought this looked fun, and wearing their lifejackets they swam back to Dreamcatcher with Sara.
The next morning we were up earlyish, to walk up a volcano. By the time we got ashore the it was getting warm. We walked out of the town heading towards the volcano, and found the entrance, a rickety fence and gate. We set off up the path, beginning to walk past a little hut, when we were hailed. We thought there might be problems with the kids ages. The man beckoned us towards his hut, and then proceeded to explain, while using a map to illustrate, ‘You walk up here, then you go this way. Do not go this way, you die. Then you come back the way you went. Ok have a good visit.’
And that was it. Safety briefing over off we went. The hill was a lot steeper than it looked, climbing over sharp volcanic ash. We passed a hut selling drinks, and kept going, then the going got harder. The path got steeper and as you walked you stirred up the dust, people coming back down stirred up even more dust, and every step forward you slid back half a step. The kids carried on, although we did have to have some stops. Round the next bend things got worse, the ash gave way to a pink coloured powder, that reminded me off face powder, touching it seemed to instantly dry your skin, and it was slippery. Still we went higher, the path got narrower, with gulleys erode by rain, then with a last effort, we arrived at plateau. Now we were on a moonscape, the ground was barren of vegetation but littered with rough edged grey rocks varying in size from loafs of bread to dog kennel size. We could seem yellow sulphurous gases coming out of the fumaroles, and we could at last seem the edge of the crater. The walking here was easy with fantastic views across to Salina and Lipari, the final 100 meters or so was covered quickly with excitement mounting, at last we were at the lip and able to stare down into the crater. Nick summed it up ‘Wow!’
The children were excited about having climbed a volcano, an active volcano. Although there were no lava flows, and the bottom of the crater looked like dried mud, we could see the sulphurous gases coming out of the ground, the scientists walking round in their white suites, measuring the gases and temperatures. We sat and looked down at Dreamcatcher and savoured the moment, and watched tour guides issuing respirators before taking their charges into the ‘You die’ area.
Getting down was lot easier apart from a really tricky part at the top, as we transitioned onto the face powder, where the gullies were. Our feet were sliding on the fine powder on the hard surfaces, with big drops off the edge. Phoebe, Nick and I all arrived at the refreshment hut in plenty of time to get our drinks before Sara finally arrived. Then it was straight back to the beach for some more swimming practice. We weighed anchor at 14:00, and at 17:00 after having we sailed close alongside the west side of Lipari, looking at the magnificent rock formations, and coves formed by the folds in the rocks we anchored back at nearly the same spot we had left at Salina. We were all straight into Bob and off to Lingua, for another pleasant evening.
28 July. The wind had picked up the previous day, while at Lingua, and we had had a bumpy, wet and exciting ride back. We woke up after a disturbed night as the wind continued to blow, we had planned on meeting Ros and the kids, but due to the wind we cancelled, and spent the day on board. Towards late afternoon I went snorkelling to check the anchor. I couldn’t find the anchor at first, as it was completely buried. At least I knew my anchor, and therefore our boats was not going anywhere.
29 July. Santa Marina shopping, while walking towards the town, I saw a young lad go past on a scooter, with his foot on an enormous tuna, draped across the foot plate, the tuna was so big it tail was dragging on the ground on one side with its nose grinding a groove in road on the other. Phoebe was upset about missing her only chance of seeing a tuna on a scooter, but she saw him fifteen minutes later when he came back, with slightly shorter tuna by now. We bumped into Ros and her family in town, and brought Izzy back to Dreamcatcher with us.
On our now regular evening journey to Lingua, we arrived at the beach at the same time as the wash from a hydrofoil, it completely swamped us. I was sat in a dinghy up to my waist in water, surrounded by giggling soaked kids, and frantically trying to keep my bag with the camera in out of the water. Sara was trying to get the kids out of the dinghy and I wanted her to take the bag, on the grounds that the kids were wet, not broken and not in any danger. The kids jumped out of the dinghy and ran off into town, while Sara and I unloaded the dinghy, removed the outboard, and used our hands to bail out, a dinghy full of water is very, very heavy.
When we finished we walked into Lingua, without the faintest idea where our kids were, we must have been coming to Lingua fairly often, as a couple of men sat on their boxes greeted us. We returned to Dreamcatcher in the dark, having once more forgotten to turn on the anchor light before departure. It took us bit longer to find Dreamcatcher this time, as we mistook a new arrival as the boat closest to ours.
30 July Another windy night, requiring another swim to the anchor, it had moved! It was now facing in another direction and had moved about two feet. I swam back to Dreamcatcher and hung off the anchor chain, I was amazed by how much Dreamcatcher moved with the wind. While at anchor we leave the mizzen up, and as the wind blew, it would power up the sail, and we would move forward with surprising speed until the mizzen brings the head to wind, then the boat drops back slowly until the next wind shift starts it all over again.
We were invited to Ros and Franks for meal, the kids bouncing all over Dreamcatcher in their excitement, we gave in and went to Lingua early. We meet up with Fedirica and Ros, and were waiting for Frank who was doing the cooking. There was an art competition which all six children joined in, it got a bit chaotic at prize giving, with loads of kids pushing and shoving, but Nick won a star prize of a Pizza and drink at the local restaurant, he was not happy, he wanted a water pistol like the one Juno had won.
While waiting for Frank to arrive we were once more expertly fleeced by the kids for drinks, crisps and icecreams. The art competition ended at about 19:00, with no sign of Frank. I was beginning to get hungry. 20:00 still no sign of Frank, or of Ros getting ready to move. 20:30 I am now leeting the kids buy crisps in order to nibble some for myself. 21:00 OK maybe we have got this wrong, is it tonight, was it an actual invite, or have we misunderstood. 21:30 Ros stands up time to go, at last, we gather up all the kids and head off, but first we have to stop to pick up another couple. We then wind our way up a footpath to Ros and Franks, where Franks appears from inside his tiny outside kitchen, hair plastered to his face. While the kids run round on the open terrace, and we sit round in the warm evening, Frank disappears back into the sweatbox, it must have been a very unpleasant experience for him, in the tiny room, with a small window and a hot cooker.
The meal was lovely, and we finally rounded up our kids and left at 01:00. Along the way we pasted the other guests who had left before us, having a conversation with a family on a balcony, it appeared as if no one went to sleep in this town. The kids had done really well and despite the lateness of the hour, there had been no arguments, and they walked back to Bob without complaint, although Phoebe did admit to falling asleep in Bob on the way back.
31 July Pumping up Bob before going ashore, I heard a tearing noise followed by a loud bang, it took me a while to realise that and internal baffle had blown. I set off in to go get some fuel for Bob, the engine kept cutting out, but by wiggling the engine from side to side I made it to the entrance of the harbour, from where I had to row the rest of the way to the slipway. With the coming of August every one was heading off, Ros and Frank to the UK, Federica back to Rome, it was time for us to say goodbye and head off towards Greece. Eva and Hokan, our friends from Port Saint Louis, had contacted us to let us know they were in Sicily, looking at the charts it was a small detour on the way to Greece.
01 August, we weighed anchor at 09:50, and left our holiday island, and set off towards Sicily. I pulled the winding arm out of my watch and bent it. It was not worth fixing, I asked the kids if I should throw it in the sea, they said yes, so in it went, only to have Nick burst in to tears, it turned out he wanted to keep it to play with it. The entrance to Capo Orlando is tricky as there is a large sand bar across the entrance, which is marked by a bouy, a green bouy, we had not seen a navigation bouy since leaving Port Saint Louis, it took us a while to realise that this meant we had to pass on the far side of the bouy. At 17:15 we were moored up alongside the Viking pirates, after they had had to move their boat to make way for us.
23/07/06: Having spent the previous day, recovering from the passage across, with lots of swimming, watching the hydrofoils and ferries coming and going regularly between the islands and the mainland, we decided it was time to escape the swell created by these vessels and go ashore. The swell no doubt was exacerbated by where we had anchored, the bottom had shelved fairly quickly, but not having confidence in our anchor winches ability to deal with 10meters plus of depth, we had moved into shallower water of about 5m, which brought us close under a cliff between two short promontories, this had the combined effect of creating taller waves and we were caught by the wave as it came back after bouncing off the cliff. The holding was a mix of weed rock and gritty sand, and our anchor was nicely set into a clear batch of sand, so I was reluctant to move it. We launched ‘Bob’ by now using our trusted method of hauling the dinghy up, using the spinnaker halyard, swinger it over the guard wires, and lower into the sea, it is both easy and controlled, until that is you try doing it when the wind is blowing, when instead of it being nice and controlled, you end up with a dinghy swinging backwards and forwards trying to knock anyone in its way overboard, this we do have first hand experience of. However on launching ‘Bob’ we discovered a new problem, we had a leak, not only in the floor letting in water, but in the starboard tube. We pumped it up and went ashore to explore. The town of Santa Marina, is built on a slope, with what appears to be one main street, it is full of typical holiday type shops, selling loud shirts, lilo and fishing stuff, along with a couple of places selling diving gear. Along the high street, we found a couple of shops selling fresh provisions, so we stocked up with bread, drinks and fruit. Having spent a couple of hours walking round we returned to Dreamcatcher. That afternoon as the temperatures climbed we needed to keep cool the children cool without exposing them to the midday sun by swimming, we found the ideal solution, out came the hammock, which was rigged athwart ships from the shrouds, with the body passing under the boom, which meant it was covered by the cockpit tent, it became the children’s favourite spot, and that evening as we watched the setting sun turned Lipari a wonderful deep red colour, the children were ensconced side by side in the hammock, with Phoebe reading a book to Nick while he played with his stuffed toy gorilla. Later that evening I stood on the aft deck watching Stromboli in the far distance, as it occasionally lit up the sky with its pyroclastic display.
24/07/06 The wind got up a bit during the night, and I kept waking up in the night to peer out of the window to check that the marina lights were still where they should be. Sara had found things too hot in the cabin so had moved her bed up into the cockpit, where she continued to sleep for the next 7 days. Andre had told us about a small village of Lingua, at the foot of the island, where we thought his house was, so before it got too hot we went ashore and caught the bus to Lingua. Our journey ashore the previous day had acquainted us with the incredibly slippery boat launch ramp, even forewarned as we were dragging Bob out was a bit like watching a dog on ice, as our feet kept shooting out, and it was only by keeping a firm hold on the dinghy that we did not end up falling. After walking round a deserted Lingua for half an hour or so, we had drunk all our water, and the ubiquitous drinking water fountains you seem to find in all Italian towns, were not working, fortunately we found a shop selling cold drinks. Once re-hydrated and in some shade, I telephoned Fedirica to discover that she was in Santa Marina, however we arranged to meet at four o’clock that afternoon in Lingua. We waited patiently for the bus to take us back to Santa Marina and Dreamcatcher. Then we waited some more, and after about an hour a bus arrived. The distance from Lingua to Santa Marina just over 2 kilometres, but we did not fancy walking that far in the heat.
What a difference four hours make to an Italian village, we decided to go to Lingua
in Bob, and tied up behind a rock breakwater, to find the promenade full of people, and children playing in the sea. Fedirica appeared in a blowing Beach dress, draped and dragging an assortment of towels, and beach toys, while her two children were buzzing round her. We just added to the noise and confusion, as language obstacles were overcome, and the kids, dragged us all off to go swimming. As we picked our way gingerly across slippery sharp rocks, into the warm sea, the procedure to avoid nasty falls seemed to be to get into water half way up your shins, then semi float drag your way into deeper water. The kids didn’t understand this are tried to run and walk, with much falling over fortunately Phoebe and Nick had their lifejackets on, so survived the falls with only minor bumps. However the life jackets were a problem in there own right, Danieli who was younger than Nick, was a veritable fish in the water, and with his goggles on was happily diving down to the bottom to pick up rocks for his mother, our kids decided it was time for them to learn to swim. Into the confusion of trying to keep your balance, engage in conversation and keep an eye on the kids, there came Ros.
Ros, Frank and the their two children were the English Family living on Salina that Andre’ had told us about. Ros had been living on Salina for a couple of years while trying to write a book, while Frank an Antiques dealer, would fly back to London for a couple of days every month or so, to do some trading, Issy was a year older than Phoebe attended the local school, while Juno, who was the same age as Nick stayed at home with her mum. It took all of about one minute for the kids to get introduced and strike up friendships, it now became a near impossible task even with four adults to keep track of the six kids, as they climbed onto rocks and jumped into the sea, and ran around on the promenade. Ros was a fluent Italian speaker, and we found we had a willing interpreter, who helped with introductions to numerous people, and we found Salina had a number of English speaking Italians, some of whom had been living abroard and had now returned, however without the introductions by Ros and Federica we would just have been another group of tourists. We had many a confusing conversations swopping between Italian and English, which usually involved people being spoken to in the language they did not understand.
Once the kids had tired of swimming, we all went up to the promenade, where the adults conversations were interrupted regularly by, one or another of the children asking for something, or the sight of one of them suddenly appearing on a bicycle or scooter that they had just found, it seemed to be the norm that all the children came onto the promenade, with their toys, which then seemed to be fair game for anyone to play with until it was time to go home, when the children would get rounded up, relevant toys gathered up, and everyone bundle off. How the children found the time for these activities, as Juno and Izzy had set up a stall selling rocks they had gathered off the beach and painted with designs, Phoebe joined in the stall and spent her time trying to organise everyone. It was only later when Sara and I had time to confer that we realised that the mob, as a like to think of the children, had got themselves organised, and had managed to illicit numerous trips to the shop for drinks, granita’s (crushed frozen fruit drinks) or crisps, by trying approaching which ever of the adults was by themselves to ask for money.
After a pleasant laid back evening, during which we had arranged to meet the next day and go to Lipari on the hydrofoil, we returned to find Bob a bit flatter than when we had started, and had a bit of a windy, bouncy trip back to the anchorage in the dark, without any torches. Finding the anchorage was easy due to all the boats, finding Dreamcatcher was not, we had not anticipated returning after sunset and had not left an anchor light on, plus we were a lot further in towards land than the other boats, we went up and down the anchorage, until I recognised the lights of a catamaran that was moored close to us. It was a tired but happy crew of Dreamcatcher who went to bed that night.
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25/07/07 Todays trip to Lipari had to be cancelled, I had gone to check something in the engine room to find the bilge full of oily water, The stern gland was dripping and filled the bilge with water, it was not too worrying as I measured the drip rate and figured it would take three days to fill the bilge, but it was something we needed to keep an eye on. The water in the bilges was oily and I did not wish to empty my bilge this close to land, so we hauled up the anchor and ran before the wind, once we were over four miles from land we pumped out the bilge, stopping as soon as we saw a trace of oil on the surface. We decided to alter course and head towards the town of Lipari, passing between the islands of Lipari and Volcano. The crew soon all fell asleep, Phoebe in the hammock, Nick on his knees in the cockpit, and Sara while assisting with the lookout duties. I had a lovely sail slowly closing on the magnificent southern side of Lipari, and watching the fumes rising from the top of Volcano. We approached Lipari town but could not see anywhere to moor up, where we could just go to the shops and return without having to pay for the priviledge, so we returned to an anchorage Delle Genti. After four attempts to set the anchor in water deeper than we usually did, we give it up and headed back towards Salina, with a possible overnighter on Volcano. I had read about the supposed therapeutic effects of the sulphurous mud pools found on Volcano, on relieving the aches and pains of arthritis, so I was hoping to get a chance to visit the island. The harbour and main anchorage is on the East side of the island at Porto Di Levante, the name in it self is enough to make you wary, with another anchorage to the North at Cala Di Mastro Minico, with anchoring forbidden in the bay off Porto Di Ponente. However this is Italy so they bay off Ponente was filled with boats at anchor. We slowly nosed our way in, the bottom seemed generally free of rocks, sandy and gently shelving, we dropped our hook in 8 meters, and let out all 30 meters of chain, there was no wind or swell, it was open to the Northwest and North only, and if it did blow up, from their we could either nip round to the main anchorage or head back to Salina. We were close to some other boats and having watched some other boats come in, come to a stand still dump all of their chain, and just left the breeze set the anchor, we decided to rig fenders just in case any of the dragged during the night.
26/07/07 We woke the next morning, and I revisited the stern gland, looking at it more closely, A good nights sleep, had allowed me to recall some advice given to me by Paul about the stern gland, two minutes later the job was done no more leaking stern gland, now all I had to do was remember to loosen it off a bit before using the engine. We took Bob ashore to check out the town, the mud pools and find more fresh provisions. The town and the shops had a kind of scruffy, in a hippy kind of way, feel to it, but it seemed very relaxed. The island is most definitely on the backpacker route, with the ferries disgorging them in their droves, it was difficult to walk round near the ferry port without tripping over a rucksac or two. The town has boards up dealing with the emergency evacuation procedures in case of an imminent eruption, along with klaxons. Taking this all together, the backpackers, active volcanoes and natural therapies, probably helps explain the atmosphere, temporary, noisy, laid back and just generally cool.
With all this laid backness I was disappointed to discover that the free mud pools had been converted into a business, with fences and gates, but I suppose it had to be done to protect them from damage and over use. The children had been told that people are a bit smelly after using the mud pools, and we certainly passed a number of people with an overpowering rotten egg cologne, it seemed unfair to the other crew members to confine them in the boat with me smelling like that, so I elected not to play in the mud.
We returned to Bob, after first stopping at a shop to buy both Phoebe and Nick some goggles and snorkels. In short order Phoebe was swimming, The snorkel let her breath with her face in the water, and then her bottom came up and she was in the perfect swimming position, and Phoebe was off without any buoyancy aids. Nick was not quite there but he was trying. On our return to Dreamcatcher, I went to go speak to the crew of a Brit flagged boat to find out where they were going and had been. I was bit longer than expected, and Sara swam over to join us. The kids thought this looked fun, and wearing their lifejackets they swam back to Dreamcatcher with Sara.
The next morning we were up earlyish, to walk up a volcano. By the time we got ashore the it was getting warm. We walked out of the town heading towards the volcano, and found the entrance, a rickety fence and gate. We set off up the path, beginning to walk past a little hut, when we were hailed. We thought there might be problems with the kids ages. The man beckoned us towards his hut, and then proceeded to explain, while using a map to illustrate, ‘You walk up here, then you go this way. Do not go this way, you die. Then you come back the way you went. Ok have a good visit.’
And that was it. Safety briefing over off we went. The hill was a lot steeper than it looked, climbing over sharp volcanic ash. We passed a hut selling drinks, and kept going, then the going got harder. The path got steeper and as you walked you stirred up the dust, people coming back down stirred up even more dust, and every step forward you slid back half a step. The kids carried on, although we did have to have some stops. Round the next bend things got worse, the ash gave way to a pink coloured powder, that reminded me off face powder, touching it seemed to instantly dry your skin, and it was slippery. Still we went higher, the path got narrower, with gulleys erode by rain, then with a last effort, we arrived at plateau. Now we were on a moonscape, the ground was barren of vegetation but littered with rough edged grey rocks varying in size from loafs of bread to dog kennel size. We could seem yellow sulphurous gases coming out of the fumaroles, and we could at last seem the edge of the crater. The walking here was easy with fantastic views across to Salina and Lipari, the final 100 meters or so was covered quickly with excitement mounting, at last we were at the lip and able to stare down into the crater. Nick summed it up ‘Wow!’
The children were excited about having climbed a volcano, an active volcano. Although there were no lava flows, and the bottom of the crater looked like dried mud, we could see the sulphurous gases coming out of the ground, the scientists walking round in their white suites, measuring the gases and temperatures. We sat and looked down at Dreamcatcher and savoured the moment, and watched tour guides issuing respirators before taking their charges into the ‘You die’ area.
Getting down was lot easier apart from a really tricky part at the top, as we transitioned onto the face powder, where the gullies were. Our feet were sliding on the fine powder on the hard surfaces, with big drops off the edge. Phoebe, Nick and I all arrived at the refreshment hut in plenty of time to get our drinks before Sara finally arrived. Then it was straight back to the beach for some more swimming practice. We weighed anchor at 14:00, and at 17:00 after having we sailed close alongside the west side of Lipari, looking at the magnificent rock formations, and coves formed by the folds in the rocks we anchored back at nearly the same spot we had left at Salina. We were all straight into Bob and off to Lingua, for another pleasant evening.
28 July. The wind had picked up the previous day, while at Lingua, and we had had a bumpy, wet and exciting ride back. We woke up after a disturbed night as the wind continued to blow, we had planned on meeting Ros and the kids, but due to the wind we cancelled, and spent the day on board. Towards late afternoon I went snorkelling to check the anchor. I couldn’t find the anchor at first, as it was completely buried. At least I knew my anchor, and therefore our boats was not going anywhere.
29 July. Santa Marina shopping, while walking towards the town, I saw a young lad go past on a scooter, with his foot on an enormous tuna, draped across the foot plate, the tuna was so big it tail was dragging on the ground on one side with its nose grinding a groove in road on the other. Phoebe was upset about missing her only chance of seeing a tuna on a scooter, but she saw him fifteen minutes later when he came back, with slightly shorter tuna by now. We bumped into Ros and her family in town, and brought Izzy back to Dreamcatcher with us.
On our now regular evening journey to Lingua, we arrived at the beach at the same time as the wash from a hydrofoil, it completely swamped us. I was sat in a dinghy up to my waist in water, surrounded by giggling soaked kids, and frantically trying to keep my bag with the camera in out of the water. Sara was trying to get the kids out of the dinghy and I wanted her to take the bag, on the grounds that the kids were wet, not broken and not in any danger. The kids jumped out of the dinghy and ran off into town, while Sara and I unloaded the dinghy, removed the outboard, and used our hands to bail out, a dinghy full of water is very, very heavy.
When we finished we walked into Lingua, without the faintest idea where our kids were, we must have been coming to Lingua fairly often, as a couple of men sat on their boxes greeted us. We returned to Dreamcatcher in the dark, having once more forgotten to turn on the anchor light before departure. It took us bit longer to find Dreamcatcher this time, as we mistook a new arrival as the boat closest to ours.
30 July Another windy night, requiring another swim to the anchor, it had moved! It was now facing in another direction and had moved about two feet. I swam back to Dreamcatcher and hung off the anchor chain, I was amazed by how much Dreamcatcher moved with the wind. While at anchor we leave the mizzen up, and as the wind blew, it would power up the sail, and we would move forward with surprising speed until the mizzen brings the head to wind, then the boat drops back slowly until the next wind shift starts it all over again.
We were invited to Ros and Franks for meal, the kids bouncing all over Dreamcatcher in their excitement, we gave in and went to Lingua early. We meet up with Fedirica and Ros, and were waiting for Frank who was doing the cooking. There was an art competition which all six children joined in, it got a bit chaotic at prize giving, with loads of kids pushing and shoving, but Nick won a star prize of a Pizza and drink at the local restaurant, he was not happy, he wanted a water pistol like the one Juno had won.
While waiting for Frank to arrive we were once more expertly fleeced by the kids for drinks, crisps and icecreams. The art competition ended at about 19:00, with no sign of Frank. I was beginning to get hungry. 20:00 still no sign of Frank, or of Ros getting ready to move. 20:30 I am now leeting the kids buy crisps in order to nibble some for myself. 21:00 OK maybe we have got this wrong, is it tonight, was it an actual invite, or have we misunderstood. 21:30 Ros stands up time to go, at last, we gather up all the kids and head off, but first we have to stop to pick up another couple. We then wind our way up a footpath to Ros and Franks, where Franks appears from inside his tiny outside kitchen, hair plastered to his face. While the kids run round on the open terrace, and we sit round in the warm evening, Frank disappears back into the sweatbox, it must have been a very unpleasant experience for him, in the tiny room, with a small window and a hot cooker.
The meal was lovely, and we finally rounded up our kids and left at 01:00. Along the way we pasted the other guests who had left before us, having a conversation with a family on a balcony, it appeared as if no one went to sleep in this town. The kids had done really well and despite the lateness of the hour, there had been no arguments, and they walked back to Bob without complaint, although Phoebe did admit to falling asleep in Bob on the way back.
31 July Pumping up Bob before going ashore, I heard a tearing noise followed by a loud bang, it took me a while to realise that and internal baffle had blown. I set off in to go get some fuel for Bob, the engine kept cutting out, but by wiggling the engine from side to side I made it to the entrance of the harbour, from where I had to row the rest of the way to the slipway. With the coming of August every one was heading off, Ros and Frank to the UK, Federica back to Rome, it was time for us to say goodbye and head off towards Greece. Eva and Hokan, our friends from Port Saint Louis, had contacted us to let us know they were in Sicily, looking at the charts it was a small detour on the way to Greece.
01 August, we weighed anchor at 09:50, and left our holiday island, and set off towards Sicily. I pulled the winding arm out of my watch and bent it. It was not worth fixing, I asked the kids if I should throw it in the sea, they said yes, so in it went, only to have Nick burst in to tears, it turned out he wanted to keep it to play with it. The entrance to Capo Orlando is tricky as there is a large sand bar across the entrance, which is marked by a bouy, a green bouy, we had not seen a navigation bouy since leaving Port Saint Louis, it took us a while to realise that this meant we had to pass on the far side of the bouy. At 17:15 we were moored up alongside the Viking pirates, after they had had to move their boat to make way for us.
Tuesday 11 July 2006
Swinging at anchor and Volcanoes
Andre' who lived in Rome, and who had the Hallbergy Rassey moored two boats in front of us, had a family home on Salina, one of the Eolian Islands, and he was taking his family down there over July and August. He wasn’t sure if he was going to sail there, due to work commitments, but he invited us to go down, apparently they knew an English family on the island and he thought it would be good if we were down their with his family, to help his children with English. I did rather want to go down there, and see Stromboli doing its stuff, but the pilot books warned of strong winds coming up out of nowhere, so I was having second thoughts. However armed with local knowledge, provided by Andre’, that there was always somewhere to shelter no matter which direction the wind came from, and the chance of strong winds during July and August was minimal, and after meeting his family, his wife Federica, who spoke a little English, Danieli who was Nicks age and Lavina who at Phoebes age spoke fluent English, we decided to head that way when we left.
After a couple more trips into Rome, where Nick got his head dunked into the Trevi fountain, by his horrible dad, and to make matters worse he didn’t know whether to be cross or not, as all the people round him, which on a summer day amounted to a good 300 people, where laughing, although he did say to me quietly afterwards that it was not a nice thing to have done. In fairness I agree, he had gone in a bit further than I anticipated, but it did cool him down. A trip back to England for Phoebe's birthday, and to attend to some medical appointments, regarding our car accident. A visit out to us by Grandma, with a trip to Rome, which included a E60-00 bill for four ice creams and three coffees, I did think that when I left I should try taking the table with me, as I must have bought it for the price they charged us. Travel broadens the mind and flattens the wallet. A trip to Ostia Antica, a fantastic place to visit, really hands on Roman ruins of a town abandoned by its inhabitants when the Goths invaded Rome. Only for a flood to them change the course of the river, leaving no reason for the town to be re-inhabited, although a lot of the marble got reclaimed, and had been taken into Rome for inclusion in Temples and churches over the years. It lay abandoned covered in earth until Victorian archaeologists rediscovered it, and started excavating the site and planting trees to provide shade, it is hardly visited by tourists, as it appears not to be on Tour Guides schedules. We engaged the services of a guide, a German lady who had been studying the site for many years, she pitched the tour at the kids at our request, and seemed generally impressed by Phoebes level of knowledge, stating she knew more about the Romans than a lot of adults she had shown round the site. Mosaics laid in the floors of the old market, depicting the trade of the stalls, fish, cereals, wine etc, bathhouses, Thermoplia it was all there, to be seen touched and experienced.
Watching Italy win the world cup, in a bar on the quayside with the kids sharing one of those enormous polystyrene hands, provided by John from a boat further up the quay. The party was almost instantaneous with parachute flares, foghorns searchlights from the coast Guard. Car horns, big flags and lots of noise from everyone else. Phoebe discovered that while walking back to Dreamcatcher, a simple wave of her enormous hand at the passing cars, would inject renewed vigour into its inhabitants whose noise levels would rise further. The party carried on until after we went to bed at 02:00.
11/07/06 We had slowly been moving in towards the quayside, so when it was our time to leave we where against the wall with two yachts to our outside, fortunately there was an open space in front of us, and we were pointing into the stream. After saying goodbye to new friends, and with a fair bit of line juggling we moved into the gap, we were now able to use the stream to ferry glide slowly out of the gap, being constantly alert to any increase current as we headed into midstream. We had been planning on leaving a couple of days earlier, but Michaeli the owner of the yard had asked us if we could wait as he was going away for the weekend, and he wanted to be there to assist in our smooth exit, so we had waited and used the time to bring trolley loads of bottled water and provisions back to the boat. We were a bit early, for the bridge opening, so we took the time to tidy up lines and fenders, and get familiar with the controls and the feel of movement once more. Without incident or mishap we passed the end of the breakwater at 10:30. At 11:20 we turned the engine off, at 11:30 it came back on, as we were wallowing along at 1.5 knots, the engine finally got turned off at 12:30 as the wind began to fill in, at 16:00 the mizzen was dropped as we ran before the wind, we negotiated the tricky entrance into Anzio, missing the apparently ever changing sandbar, and did our first stern-to mooring since Corsica, all squared away by 18:00, 32 miles in a little over 7 hours.
The biggest problem of going stern-to, is getting off, the shape off Dream catcher’s stern makes the step off the back a very long step, with the plank rigged, you have to take a couple of unsupported steps, a half swing half throw gets the kids off, Sara manages, but I struggle, possibly due to the lack of movement in my back, or the lack of confidence to jump, knowing that if it goes wrong and I land awkwardly, I am going to be in a world of pain, and then not able to get back on board, we managed somehow, it was not elegant.
We had only just left Fiumicino, but once more we off shopping for provisions. Whilst having ice creams, a convertible F350 Ferrari, in red, well this is Italy, parked outside, Nick displayed his petrol head credentials, by having his jaw drop and issuing an appreciative noise. We arrived in the main plaza as the sun was setting. A beautiful place, we felt guilty about not having left Fiumicino earlier, while my mother was with us, as she would have loved this town. We didn’t get to the war memorial which was the other side of the bay, and was probably only of interest to me.
12/07/06 Anchor broken out, covered in mud, at 08:30, as we set off towards Ponza, trying to get some miles in before the heat of the day. The children were being a bit grumpy this morning, partly due to a late night, and Phoebe and Nick didn’t want to leave so many Gelateria. A rather uneventful day, with some good sailing towards the end. We lost the wind as came under the lee of Ponza, so motored towards Ponza Town, we had been warned that the harbour was expensive, and judging by the size of the motor boats tied up, it would be, however there is an unofficial anchorage just outside the harbour, we found our spot among the boats and dropped the hook at 18:00. We were all hot and sticky it was time to cool down, the kids donned their lifejackets and we all went swimming off the back of the boat, in the ‘Big Sea’. The water was clear and warm, one of the reasons we came down to the Med. Bucket showers rounded off the day.
It was a beautiful spot, sheltered from the wind, with occasional wash from the big motorboats that seemed to charge into the harbour, without any consideration for their wash. We found we were one of the smaller boats in the anchorage, with a large proportion of ketch’s. While at anchor we saw something at a distance in the water, we couldn’t make out what it was, but it seemed to be moving purposely towards the shore, when it emerged it turned out to be dog that had jumped off one of the boats and had swum over 300 meters to shore. There was boat between us and the shore with a beautiful seemingly constantly topless woman onboard, who seemed to be joined regularly by a procession of different boats, maybe it was imagination, but they appeared to be redefining the term ‘swinging at anchor.’
The plan had been to take ‘Bob’ into the harbour, and wander round the town, but we, spent the whole of the next day at anchor, reading and jumping into the sea. Nick plucked up his courage and jumped off the side, he got so confident doing it, that sometimes he was jumping before Sara or myself was there to assist him.
14/07/06 09:00 anchor weighed, and off we went towards Ventotena, no wind motored all day. While on passage we experienced an interesting phenomenon, the magnetic attraction objects exert on boats, the rhumb line between the two islands is 23 miles, with a big finger off rock sticking up out of the sea, approximately half way between the two and about 1.6miles off the rhumb line, we missed it by about three hundred meters. I learnt two things today, when you lay off a rhumb line on a large scale chart, you need to go to a smaller scale and just follow up on your course to make sure you have identified any hazards, and when sailing in a featureless sea, if you see an object and keep looking at it, that is where you end up going. For those that are interested Scio Della Butte lies at 40N50’40 013E06’16, it is nice looking lump of rock, very solid. We arrived at Ventotena at 15:15, the concrete harbour was empty, a chap in scruffy shorts appeared and waved us to a spot, after taking our lines he asked for E20-00, Ventotena is a free harbour, so I argued that E10-00 would cover, his time, this was not possible as the small boat next to us had paid E10-00, and this would cause him problems, therefore we settled on E11-00, not bad considering he spoke no English. While Sara and Phoebe stayed on board, Nick and I went off exploring. The first thing we came across was the old Roman harbour, carved out of the Tufa, which is still in use today, mainly by small fishing and day trip boats, but is had its fill of Motor Boats. Although the water level has risen, so that the base of some of the stores are now covered in water, you can feel the history and imagine what is would have been like as a busy port. Further round we found a passage under the headland leading to a beach consisting of lots of broken black Tufa, small stones and sun bathing Romans. We went back to fetch Phoebe and Sara, and all went back to the beach to go swimming. This was the first time Phoebe tried swimming without her armbands. Nick not to be out done spent his time diving off a rock, without his armbands on. We arrived back at the harbour to find it had filled up in our absence, and the scruffy boat boy, was now walking round with his colleges in smart matching Chinos, polo shirts with badges and deck shoes. The empty harbour was now full of large crewed motor yachts, you could spot the clients they were the ones walking round arrogantly, getting in the way, with cigars in their mouths, the owners were the same except they kept constantly fiddling and telling the crew how to do things. The crews professionalism shown threw in the way they efficiently did their jobs and didn’t get annoyed with the owners interfering. While on Ventotena we discovered another phenomenon Italians all leave the harbour during the day, when they take their boats out to an anchorage, sometimes only 600 meters from the harbour, then at about 17:00, they all come charging back, in order to be seen and to go to restaurants, even the big MOBO’s with cook on board, in their case it seems they need to be seen on their boats by as many people as possible, and the only way to do this is in harbour. One of our neighbours had slipped off during the day, but had tried to reserve their spot by leaving their lines on the dock, they got a surprise when they came back, not only had their spot been filled, but they now had no lines, as the boat in their spot had used them for tying up with. The ensuing discussion was wonderful to behold, and conducted at high volume with a lot of arm waving. Just after the boats started arriving for the night a Guarda Costeria, rib turned up, who was going up and down the harbour stopping boats entering and turning them around, this seemed to be in order to keep the hydrofoil berth spot free, and to stop boats getting in the way of the hydrofoil as it arrived and departed, the arrogance of some of the skippers was a joy to behold, it seemed that they had booked a space so they were coming in no matter what, eventually the man at the helm lost it, and he started jumping up and down waving his arms about, I did at one stage think, he was going to draw his firearm and shoot the skipper of one boat, and I do not think anyone would have blamed him, it was all vastly entertaining as seen from our cockpit, one of the best shows ever, and it got repeated each night we were their.
There seemed to be another tradition on the island, as the late afternoon Hydrofoil was preparing to leave a vast quantity of teenagers some with parents strolled down to the end of the breakwater, then as the hydrofoil containing their friends left, they all jumped off the sea wall down 10/12 feet into the sea, then swam back into the harbour to get out. This looked fun the first day, but on the second day, there were strong winds and big swells, it changed from fun to rather dangerous as they negotiated the gap between the harbour wall and wildly swinging boats.
Ventotena derives its name from the Italian word for wind, and during the period we were there we found out why, we had strong winds on two days. Apparently the Italian government made it into a penal colony, where the prisoners were allowed a certain amount of freedom, while the real bad boys were imprisoned on the nearby island of San Stefano where the huge former prison still stands. It appears a little ironic that the Italians are now escaping from Naples and Rome to the form penal colony. It had the feel of a happy friendly island, and certainly all the people in the main piazza in the evening all seemed to know each other, there was an open air cinema, and a town museum, that did opened at nine o’clock at night. Ventotena is an island I would recommend visiting, although how long it will remain a free harbour is doubtful, as while we were there a group of boats doing some sort of rally would pass across E50-00 each to the Ormigigotti every day.
16/07/06 the morning started off with strong winds and lumpy seas, so we went off to the beach for the morning, during the day the winds died down, so at 15:00 we slipped our lines and headed off towards Ischia. It was another uneventful sail, and at 20:30 we dropped anchor in the little bay behind Castello Di Ischia. Time to swim and watch the world go by. That night we were treated to a roving firework and band display, as a procession seemed to be making its way round the town stopping in places to let off fireworks. During the night the wind picked up and the anchorage was subject to a bit of swell, went round checking all ok at 02:00 then finally fell asleep, the next morning everyone was tired, so we took ‘Bob’ for a spin. There is a causeway linking the monastery to the town, with a small bridge, the kids loved going under the bridge. We then took ‘Bob’ into town, the slipway was covered in slime, requiring careful placement of our feet as we lifted ‘Bob’ out. Ponte Ischia was used as a location during the filming of ‘The Fabulous Mr Ripley’, and there is an olive press with a plaque on to inform passers-by. We did not get to fully explore Ischia, as Sara was complaining about the bouncy anchorage, plus she was getting anxious about getting to Salina, so we elected to push on the following day.
18/07/06 An early start saw us raising the anchor at 09:30, and heading off towards Salerno, on the way we were going to pass Capri, which we had been warned was an expensive place to stop, and we were not aware of any anchorages on the island, although there was meant to be one in a cove on the mainland, which we would look at and decide if we stay. The day was a mix of wind strengths and directions, making it necessary to constantly keep trimming sails. The history and legend surrounding Capri, would make it an interesting island to visit, however as we got closer the view of cruise ships and large boats crowding round the harbour, did not inspire us to stop, instead we contented our selves passing under the cliffs of Mont Tiberio, telling the children grizzly tales about the alleged evil emperor having his enemies thrown off the cliffs on their way home after visiting him. Aren’t children gruesome creatures? The seas got very lumpy and confused in vicinity of the harbour, which seemed to be caused by the wash from ferries and MOBO’s moving at speed, and we had to alter course as a sailing boat coming up from behind seemed intent on ramming us. As they went past, we could just see a head in the cockpit, they probably hadn’t seen us.
We spent a pleasant afternoon running down the rugged Mali coast, looking at the famous coast road, and imagining what it would be like to drive down it on a motorbike, or in an open topped car. The entered the harbour and had tied up in the marina, when we were informed we could only stay one night, and what the charge should be, I had been lead to believe that this was a free harbour. Apparently the free harbour was on the other side of the breakwater, if they had any spaces available, we untied and motor round. The free berths were right up at the top, and were full. We tied up on the end of the pontoon at 19:00 and reluctantly parted with E50-00 for the night. That night we watched helicopters dumping water on a forest fire that had been burning for two days. The wind picked up a bit during the night, but the mooring was largely free of swell.
19/07/06 Sara woke up full of energy after her night of peaceful sleep, so the E50-00 had not been wasted. After breakfast we set off to go see Pompei, we were so close it seemed silly not to go, even though we knew we have to pay for another night. Pompei seems to be a victim of its own success, full of tourist, expensive eateries on the outside, areas fenced off, Perspex over walls, security cameras, and a lack of drinking water once within the site, unless you go to the onsite Cafeteria. We emerged later that afternoon, hot tired, thirsty and somewhat disappointed, it had not lived up to the hype, but please that we had been and seen, otherwise we would have been left wondering if we had missed something spectacular.
However Salerno itself was a lovely town, it is separated from the sea by a large promenade lined with palm trees, and the town seems to be a mix of old and new, with lovely winding streets, turning and twisting to reveal new aspects. I really liked the ambiance of the town, we had stopped at a boat yard in the morning to enquire about the possibility of over wintering and repairing the engine. Various chaps had gone off to find someone who could speak English to help me. While I was standing around waiting for this man to arrive, a man from another part of the yard wonder past, and insisted on me joining them for a cup of coffee, its was the strongest sweetest cup of coffee I have ever had, Sara did comment on meeting me later that I seemed to be a bit bouncy. This appeared to epitomise the general impression we got of the people of Salerno, a town well worth a visit, I felt comfortable and at home in its streets.
20/07/07 We planned on sailing straight across to Salina, a distance of 130 miles, approximately 30 hours sailing, so we slipped our lines at 06:40 and headed South. This was going to be our longest passage by ourselves to date. The first part of the route was more or less parallel to the coast, so we had options to abort if things got too much. The day passed hot and uneventful, and as twilight approached at 20:25, we turned the nav lights on prepared for a night sail, with lifejackets, lifelines, hats, gloves and waterproof coats to fend off the cold. Phoebe went below to bed as Sara snuggled down in the cockpit, and Nick kept me company, while I waited for my first sight of an active volcano. 21:45 now 40 miles from land, still no sign of Stromboli, Nick still in the cockpit, helping to keep watch.
22:40 the anticipation is building but still no sign.
23:04 Top up the engine oil as Sara joins me on watch, I am determined to stay awake until Stromboli is sighted, Nick has by now gone to sleep, but he is still in the cockpit, on watch.
23:55 An orange glow spotted, bearing 160M, down to the chart plotter, checked the bearing, yes it is, Stromboli Sighted! My first active volcano, it is low down on the horizon, and it will not get any bigger on this heading. We are so close, and change of heading directly towards Stromboli, I went to overawed, overwhelmed by this massive natural phenomenon.
00:30 This is taking to long, down below to get the binoculars, I want to see more. Until this point in my life I had not realised that Volcanoes needed to carry Port and Starboard Navigation lights! We later course back to our original heading and carry on trying to spot volcanoes, as we move away from the motor yacht.
01:15 We seem to be at a Maritime cross roads, as we thread a circuitous route through the passing ships, we have a modification to the Col Regs for vessels that are bigger than us, We have seen them, we can not be sure if they have seen us, and if things do go wrong, we will definitely come off worse, therefore just stay out of their way.
01:30 Stromboli Sighted, there is no doubt this time, as the sky lights up with bursts of deep red colour, which dies down, only to be repeated again. Sometimes they seem to follow seemingly one straight after another after another, and at others there are long pauses, when you begin to wonder if you are looking in the right direction, when suddenly you see the lava bursting into the sky. Was it worth waiting for? Oh yes. I wanted to wake Phoebe and Nick up to see a volcano, but Sara pointed out it would still be there in the morning.
I finally went off watch still buzzing about seeing my first active volcano, and feeling slightly insignificant knowing that this force has been blowing bits of molten earth up into the sky for thousands of years. Nick remained in the cockpit cuddled up in his duvet, fast asleep, but on watch.
Up just after sunrise still excited to get another view of Stromboli, Sara had been joined by Phoebe in the cockpit, and they had the company of dolphins in the early light of morning. We were closer, much closer, and I now had to tip my head up to see the summit. During Sara’s watch some low cloud had moved over and she had lost sight of Stromboli, by the time the cloud had cleared Sara could no longer see the eruptions, and thought we had sailed past it. It was only when she stuck her head out from under the cockpit cover roof, that she realised that she had been looking at the wrong spot, Stromboli instead of being low on the horizon, was now above mast height as we passed 9 miles off.
10:20 We found a clear looking piece of bottom, dropped and set the hook in 5m of water in a little cove in front of the harbour at Santa Marina on Salina, got the cockpit, aft deck and fore deck tents rigged, and all went swimming. We spent the rest of the day, lazing at anchor, reading, sleeping and swimming.
After a couple more trips into Rome, where Nick got his head dunked into the Trevi fountain, by his horrible dad, and to make matters worse he didn’t know whether to be cross or not, as all the people round him, which on a summer day amounted to a good 300 people, where laughing, although he did say to me quietly afterwards that it was not a nice thing to have done. In fairness I agree, he had gone in a bit further than I anticipated, but it did cool him down. A trip back to England for Phoebe's birthday, and to attend to some medical appointments, regarding our car accident. A visit out to us by Grandma, with a trip to Rome, which included a E60-00 bill for four ice creams and three coffees, I did think that when I left I should try taking the table with me, as I must have bought it for the price they charged us. Travel broadens the mind and flattens the wallet. A trip to Ostia Antica, a fantastic place to visit, really hands on Roman ruins of a town abandoned by its inhabitants when the Goths invaded Rome. Only for a flood to them change the course of the river, leaving no reason for the town to be re-inhabited, although a lot of the marble got reclaimed, and had been taken into Rome for inclusion in Temples and churches over the years. It lay abandoned covered in earth until Victorian archaeologists rediscovered it, and started excavating the site and planting trees to provide shade, it is hardly visited by tourists, as it appears not to be on Tour Guides schedules. We engaged the services of a guide, a German lady who had been studying the site for many years, she pitched the tour at the kids at our request, and seemed generally impressed by Phoebes level of knowledge, stating she knew more about the Romans than a lot of adults she had shown round the site. Mosaics laid in the floors of the old market, depicting the trade of the stalls, fish, cereals, wine etc, bathhouses, Thermoplia it was all there, to be seen touched and experienced.
Watching Italy win the world cup, in a bar on the quayside with the kids sharing one of those enormous polystyrene hands, provided by John from a boat further up the quay. The party was almost instantaneous with parachute flares, foghorns searchlights from the coast Guard. Car horns, big flags and lots of noise from everyone else. Phoebe discovered that while walking back to Dreamcatcher, a simple wave of her enormous hand at the passing cars, would inject renewed vigour into its inhabitants whose noise levels would rise further. The party carried on until after we went to bed at 02:00.
11/07/06 We had slowly been moving in towards the quayside, so when it was our time to leave we where against the wall with two yachts to our outside, fortunately there was an open space in front of us, and we were pointing into the stream. After saying goodbye to new friends, and with a fair bit of line juggling we moved into the gap, we were now able to use the stream to ferry glide slowly out of the gap, being constantly alert to any increase current as we headed into midstream. We had been planning on leaving a couple of days earlier, but Michaeli the owner of the yard had asked us if we could wait as he was going away for the weekend, and he wanted to be there to assist in our smooth exit, so we had waited and used the time to bring trolley loads of bottled water and provisions back to the boat. We were a bit early, for the bridge opening, so we took the time to tidy up lines and fenders, and get familiar with the controls and the feel of movement once more. Without incident or mishap we passed the end of the breakwater at 10:30. At 11:20 we turned the engine off, at 11:30 it came back on, as we were wallowing along at 1.5 knots, the engine finally got turned off at 12:30 as the wind began to fill in, at 16:00 the mizzen was dropped as we ran before the wind, we negotiated the tricky entrance into Anzio, missing the apparently ever changing sandbar, and did our first stern-to mooring since Corsica, all squared away by 18:00, 32 miles in a little over 7 hours.
The biggest problem of going stern-to, is getting off, the shape off Dream catcher’s stern makes the step off the back a very long step, with the plank rigged, you have to take a couple of unsupported steps, a half swing half throw gets the kids off, Sara manages, but I struggle, possibly due to the lack of movement in my back, or the lack of confidence to jump, knowing that if it goes wrong and I land awkwardly, I am going to be in a world of pain, and then not able to get back on board, we managed somehow, it was not elegant.
We had only just left Fiumicino, but once more we off shopping for provisions. Whilst having ice creams, a convertible F350 Ferrari, in red, well this is Italy, parked outside, Nick displayed his petrol head credentials, by having his jaw drop and issuing an appreciative noise. We arrived in the main plaza as the sun was setting. A beautiful place, we felt guilty about not having left Fiumicino earlier, while my mother was with us, as she would have loved this town. We didn’t get to the war memorial which was the other side of the bay, and was probably only of interest to me.
12/07/06 Anchor broken out, covered in mud, at 08:30, as we set off towards Ponza, trying to get some miles in before the heat of the day. The children were being a bit grumpy this morning, partly due to a late night, and Phoebe and Nick didn’t want to leave so many Gelateria. A rather uneventful day, with some good sailing towards the end. We lost the wind as came under the lee of Ponza, so motored towards Ponza Town, we had been warned that the harbour was expensive, and judging by the size of the motor boats tied up, it would be, however there is an unofficial anchorage just outside the harbour, we found our spot among the boats and dropped the hook at 18:00. We were all hot and sticky it was time to cool down, the kids donned their lifejackets and we all went swimming off the back of the boat, in the ‘Big Sea’. The water was clear and warm, one of the reasons we came down to the Med. Bucket showers rounded off the day.
It was a beautiful spot, sheltered from the wind, with occasional wash from the big motorboats that seemed to charge into the harbour, without any consideration for their wash. We found we were one of the smaller boats in the anchorage, with a large proportion of ketch’s. While at anchor we saw something at a distance in the water, we couldn’t make out what it was, but it seemed to be moving purposely towards the shore, when it emerged it turned out to be dog that had jumped off one of the boats and had swum over 300 meters to shore. There was boat between us and the shore with a beautiful seemingly constantly topless woman onboard, who seemed to be joined regularly by a procession of different boats, maybe it was imagination, but they appeared to be redefining the term ‘swinging at anchor.’
The plan had been to take ‘Bob’ into the harbour, and wander round the town, but we, spent the whole of the next day at anchor, reading and jumping into the sea. Nick plucked up his courage and jumped off the side, he got so confident doing it, that sometimes he was jumping before Sara or myself was there to assist him.
14/07/06 09:00 anchor weighed, and off we went towards Ventotena, no wind motored all day. While on passage we experienced an interesting phenomenon, the magnetic attraction objects exert on boats, the rhumb line between the two islands is 23 miles, with a big finger off rock sticking up out of the sea, approximately half way between the two and about 1.6miles off the rhumb line, we missed it by about three hundred meters. I learnt two things today, when you lay off a rhumb line on a large scale chart, you need to go to a smaller scale and just follow up on your course to make sure you have identified any hazards, and when sailing in a featureless sea, if you see an object and keep looking at it, that is where you end up going. For those that are interested Scio Della Butte lies at 40N50’40 013E06’16, it is nice looking lump of rock, very solid. We arrived at Ventotena at 15:15, the concrete harbour was empty, a chap in scruffy shorts appeared and waved us to a spot, after taking our lines he asked for E20-00, Ventotena is a free harbour, so I argued that E10-00 would cover, his time, this was not possible as the small boat next to us had paid E10-00, and this would cause him problems, therefore we settled on E11-00, not bad considering he spoke no English. While Sara and Phoebe stayed on board, Nick and I went off exploring. The first thing we came across was the old Roman harbour, carved out of the Tufa, which is still in use today, mainly by small fishing and day trip boats, but is had its fill of Motor Boats. Although the water level has risen, so that the base of some of the stores are now covered in water, you can feel the history and imagine what is would have been like as a busy port. Further round we found a passage under the headland leading to a beach consisting of lots of broken black Tufa, small stones and sun bathing Romans. We went back to fetch Phoebe and Sara, and all went back to the beach to go swimming. This was the first time Phoebe tried swimming without her armbands. Nick not to be out done spent his time diving off a rock, without his armbands on. We arrived back at the harbour to find it had filled up in our absence, and the scruffy boat boy, was now walking round with his colleges in smart matching Chinos, polo shirts with badges and deck shoes. The empty harbour was now full of large crewed motor yachts, you could spot the clients they were the ones walking round arrogantly, getting in the way, with cigars in their mouths, the owners were the same except they kept constantly fiddling and telling the crew how to do things. The crews professionalism shown threw in the way they efficiently did their jobs and didn’t get annoyed with the owners interfering. While on Ventotena we discovered another phenomenon Italians all leave the harbour during the day, when they take their boats out to an anchorage, sometimes only 600 meters from the harbour, then at about 17:00, they all come charging back, in order to be seen and to go to restaurants, even the big MOBO’s with cook on board, in their case it seems they need to be seen on their boats by as many people as possible, and the only way to do this is in harbour. One of our neighbours had slipped off during the day, but had tried to reserve their spot by leaving their lines on the dock, they got a surprise when they came back, not only had their spot been filled, but they now had no lines, as the boat in their spot had used them for tying up with. The ensuing discussion was wonderful to behold, and conducted at high volume with a lot of arm waving. Just after the boats started arriving for the night a Guarda Costeria, rib turned up, who was going up and down the harbour stopping boats entering and turning them around, this seemed to be in order to keep the hydrofoil berth spot free, and to stop boats getting in the way of the hydrofoil as it arrived and departed, the arrogance of some of the skippers was a joy to behold, it seemed that they had booked a space so they were coming in no matter what, eventually the man at the helm lost it, and he started jumping up and down waving his arms about, I did at one stage think, he was going to draw his firearm and shoot the skipper of one boat, and I do not think anyone would have blamed him, it was all vastly entertaining as seen from our cockpit, one of the best shows ever, and it got repeated each night we were their.
There seemed to be another tradition on the island, as the late afternoon Hydrofoil was preparing to leave a vast quantity of teenagers some with parents strolled down to the end of the breakwater, then as the hydrofoil containing their friends left, they all jumped off the sea wall down 10/12 feet into the sea, then swam back into the harbour to get out. This looked fun the first day, but on the second day, there were strong winds and big swells, it changed from fun to rather dangerous as they negotiated the gap between the harbour wall and wildly swinging boats.
Ventotena derives its name from the Italian word for wind, and during the period we were there we found out why, we had strong winds on two days. Apparently the Italian government made it into a penal colony, where the prisoners were allowed a certain amount of freedom, while the real bad boys were imprisoned on the nearby island of San Stefano where the huge former prison still stands. It appears a little ironic that the Italians are now escaping from Naples and Rome to the form penal colony. It had the feel of a happy friendly island, and certainly all the people in the main piazza in the evening all seemed to know each other, there was an open air cinema, and a town museum, that did opened at nine o’clock at night. Ventotena is an island I would recommend visiting, although how long it will remain a free harbour is doubtful, as while we were there a group of boats doing some sort of rally would pass across E50-00 each to the Ormigigotti every day.
16/07/06 the morning started off with strong winds and lumpy seas, so we went off to the beach for the morning, during the day the winds died down, so at 15:00 we slipped our lines and headed off towards Ischia. It was another uneventful sail, and at 20:30 we dropped anchor in the little bay behind Castello Di Ischia. Time to swim and watch the world go by. That night we were treated to a roving firework and band display, as a procession seemed to be making its way round the town stopping in places to let off fireworks. During the night the wind picked up and the anchorage was subject to a bit of swell, went round checking all ok at 02:00 then finally fell asleep, the next morning everyone was tired, so we took ‘Bob’ for a spin. There is a causeway linking the monastery to the town, with a small bridge, the kids loved going under the bridge. We then took ‘Bob’ into town, the slipway was covered in slime, requiring careful placement of our feet as we lifted ‘Bob’ out. Ponte Ischia was used as a location during the filming of ‘The Fabulous Mr Ripley’, and there is an olive press with a plaque on to inform passers-by. We did not get to fully explore Ischia, as Sara was complaining about the bouncy anchorage, plus she was getting anxious about getting to Salina, so we elected to push on the following day.
18/07/06 An early start saw us raising the anchor at 09:30, and heading off towards Salerno, on the way we were going to pass Capri, which we had been warned was an expensive place to stop, and we were not aware of any anchorages on the island, although there was meant to be one in a cove on the mainland, which we would look at and decide if we stay. The day was a mix of wind strengths and directions, making it necessary to constantly keep trimming sails. The history and legend surrounding Capri, would make it an interesting island to visit, however as we got closer the view of cruise ships and large boats crowding round the harbour, did not inspire us to stop, instead we contented our selves passing under the cliffs of Mont Tiberio, telling the children grizzly tales about the alleged evil emperor having his enemies thrown off the cliffs on their way home after visiting him. Aren’t children gruesome creatures? The seas got very lumpy and confused in vicinity of the harbour, which seemed to be caused by the wash from ferries and MOBO’s moving at speed, and we had to alter course as a sailing boat coming up from behind seemed intent on ramming us. As they went past, we could just see a head in the cockpit, they probably hadn’t seen us.
We spent a pleasant afternoon running down the rugged Mali coast, looking at the famous coast road, and imagining what it would be like to drive down it on a motorbike, or in an open topped car. The entered the harbour and had tied up in the marina, when we were informed we could only stay one night, and what the charge should be, I had been lead to believe that this was a free harbour. Apparently the free harbour was on the other side of the breakwater, if they had any spaces available, we untied and motor round. The free berths were right up at the top, and were full. We tied up on the end of the pontoon at 19:00 and reluctantly parted with E50-00 for the night. That night we watched helicopters dumping water on a forest fire that had been burning for two days. The wind picked up a bit during the night, but the mooring was largely free of swell.
19/07/06 Sara woke up full of energy after her night of peaceful sleep, so the E50-00 had not been wasted. After breakfast we set off to go see Pompei, we were so close it seemed silly not to go, even though we knew we have to pay for another night. Pompei seems to be a victim of its own success, full of tourist, expensive eateries on the outside, areas fenced off, Perspex over walls, security cameras, and a lack of drinking water once within the site, unless you go to the onsite Cafeteria. We emerged later that afternoon, hot tired, thirsty and somewhat disappointed, it had not lived up to the hype, but please that we had been and seen, otherwise we would have been left wondering if we had missed something spectacular.
However Salerno itself was a lovely town, it is separated from the sea by a large promenade lined with palm trees, and the town seems to be a mix of old and new, with lovely winding streets, turning and twisting to reveal new aspects. I really liked the ambiance of the town, we had stopped at a boat yard in the morning to enquire about the possibility of over wintering and repairing the engine. Various chaps had gone off to find someone who could speak English to help me. While I was standing around waiting for this man to arrive, a man from another part of the yard wonder past, and insisted on me joining them for a cup of coffee, its was the strongest sweetest cup of coffee I have ever had, Sara did comment on meeting me later that I seemed to be a bit bouncy. This appeared to epitomise the general impression we got of the people of Salerno, a town well worth a visit, I felt comfortable and at home in its streets.
20/07/07 We planned on sailing straight across to Salina, a distance of 130 miles, approximately 30 hours sailing, so we slipped our lines at 06:40 and headed South. This was going to be our longest passage by ourselves to date. The first part of the route was more or less parallel to the coast, so we had options to abort if things got too much. The day passed hot and uneventful, and as twilight approached at 20:25, we turned the nav lights on prepared for a night sail, with lifejackets, lifelines, hats, gloves and waterproof coats to fend off the cold. Phoebe went below to bed as Sara snuggled down in the cockpit, and Nick kept me company, while I waited for my first sight of an active volcano. 21:45 now 40 miles from land, still no sign of Stromboli, Nick still in the cockpit, helping to keep watch.
22:40 the anticipation is building but still no sign.
23:04 Top up the engine oil as Sara joins me on watch, I am determined to stay awake until Stromboli is sighted, Nick has by now gone to sleep, but he is still in the cockpit, on watch.
23:55 An orange glow spotted, bearing 160M, down to the chart plotter, checked the bearing, yes it is, Stromboli Sighted! My first active volcano, it is low down on the horizon, and it will not get any bigger on this heading. We are so close, and change of heading directly towards Stromboli, I went to overawed, overwhelmed by this massive natural phenomenon.
00:30 This is taking to long, down below to get the binoculars, I want to see more. Until this point in my life I had not realised that Volcanoes needed to carry Port and Starboard Navigation lights! We later course back to our original heading and carry on trying to spot volcanoes, as we move away from the motor yacht.
01:15 We seem to be at a Maritime cross roads, as we thread a circuitous route through the passing ships, we have a modification to the Col Regs for vessels that are bigger than us, We have seen them, we can not be sure if they have seen us, and if things do go wrong, we will definitely come off worse, therefore just stay out of their way.
01:30 Stromboli Sighted, there is no doubt this time, as the sky lights up with bursts of deep red colour, which dies down, only to be repeated again. Sometimes they seem to follow seemingly one straight after another after another, and at others there are long pauses, when you begin to wonder if you are looking in the right direction, when suddenly you see the lava bursting into the sky. Was it worth waiting for? Oh yes. I wanted to wake Phoebe and Nick up to see a volcano, but Sara pointed out it would still be there in the morning.
I finally went off watch still buzzing about seeing my first active volcano, and feeling slightly insignificant knowing that this force has been blowing bits of molten earth up into the sky for thousands of years. Nick remained in the cockpit cuddled up in his duvet, fast asleep, but on watch.
Up just after sunrise still excited to get another view of Stromboli, Sara had been joined by Phoebe in the cockpit, and they had the company of dolphins in the early light of morning. We were closer, much closer, and I now had to tip my head up to see the summit. During Sara’s watch some low cloud had moved over and she had lost sight of Stromboli, by the time the cloud had cleared Sara could no longer see the eruptions, and thought we had sailed past it. It was only when she stuck her head out from under the cockpit cover roof, that she realised that she had been looking at the wrong spot, Stromboli instead of being low on the horizon, was now above mast height as we passed 9 miles off.
10:20 We found a clear looking piece of bottom, dropped and set the hook in 5m of water in a little cove in front of the harbour at Santa Marina on Salina, got the cockpit, aft deck and fore deck tents rigged, and all went swimming. We spent the rest of the day, lazing at anchor, reading, sleeping and swimming.
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