Volcanos, ripped sails and sinking feelings, and some good cruising
30/06/2006

We arrived in Fiumicino intending to stay for a week, to pick up Phoebes passport, and see some of Rome, before heading south before Italy got to expensive. Things don’t always go to plan, we finally left 7 weeks later. After getting through the bridges, we meet fellow cruisers who had come for a week and where now on their second year there, it obviously had something. May be it was due to the reasonable monthly rates, being an hour from the center of Rome by public transport, which depending on your choice of route cost from E1-00 to E15-00 per person, our usual was E2-60 if the ticket machine was working to allow you to buy tickets, more usually we ended up traveling for free, a choice of Supermarkets close and convenient, or large and a bus ride away at Parco Leonardo, or maybe its was because it was close to Fiumicino airport which was served by a free bus from directly opposite the boat yard entrance. Anna in the office was a lovely exuberant and friendly woman, who I will remember standing on the jetty wall under the bridge cheering louder than anyone else when the American Catamaran finally got out on their second attempt. They had tried once and been thwarted despite the full tanks and six additional bodies on board, they bounced twice and the bridge keeper lowered the bridge not waiting for a third attempt, when they returned to the quay, their stood a rather rotund Italian, bursting out of a faded boiler suit with a repaired windex in his hand, he looked at the boat, then back to the windex, which with a resigned shrug, he let slowly droop. The crew were only slightly disheartened, the level in the canal dropped towards evening and the next day the bridge opening was in the evening. For the second attempt, we were once more happy to lend ourselves as extra ballast, along with everyone else they managed to rope in, cruisers, yard workers, people walking past, I counted 22 people excluding children stood on the bridge deck as we bounced once, then slid under on the second attempt, to Anna`s cheers.
We visited Rome, were overawed by the size of the buildings and footprint of the ruins and the Pallentine hill, shocked by the crowds trying to get into the Colloseum, and generally enthralled by the history seeming round every corner. At the Trevi fountain we threw in our coins and Nick, although he was not to impressed about having his head dunked into the water, the clown in him reacted to all the people laughing, he waited until after we had left before he told me that he was cross with me. We made use of the airport for me to go back to the UK to see solicitors and doctors about the car accident, and seeing as it was Phoebes birthday, we all came back for a week, although my doctors appointment got changed and I ended up staying a bit longer. Grandma returned to Rome with Sara and the children, upon my return we visited the Vatican and ended up paying E60-00 for 3coffees and 3 ice creams, angry is not the right description, I should have sent the others away and brazened it out.
Ostia Antica, was a fantastic place to visit, it is the site of the old Roman harbour town, abandoned when in the 4th Century when Rome was sacked, and then the river flooded and its course changed, a new harbour was used and the site never reoccupied, plus the marble was allegedly plundered for churches and temples in Rome itself. The site is the same size as Pompei, but even in July it was empty, with lots of trees providing shade, and you can interact, explore the site at your leisure, with very little blocked off. Phoebe and Nick where fully engaged playing shop in the old Thermoplium, the Roman fast food establishments.
While in Fiumicino, we were hailed from the quay side by a man, demanding to know if we were English, and where we were going. This was Andre’ a Roman who owned a Hallberg Rassey Ketch moored a couple of boat lengths in front of us.

Rome and Home, June Trips to Rome, Phoebes birthday return to UK and grandma’s visit

Pirate beaches, marinas and wreckers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Things do get better but not always
27/03/2006 Girolata Corsica
We had arrived in Corsica, Girolata was a lovely quiet anchorage, with one other boat, anchored fore and aft, and obviously packed up for the winter, and a rib tied to the jetty at the head of the bay. In clear waters over a sandy bottom we dropped our 15kg Bruce, watching it drop to the bottom, I motored astern asking Sara to tell me if it was holding, she asked me how she would know. Although I had anchored before, even with Sara on board she had never been at the sharp end to see what happens. There followed a quick exchange of information, and I tried reverse once more. Yes its tight, I went forward and was told it came tight then went slack again, a further exchange of information. Sara went back to the helm, reversed, the chain started to come then went slack, a further exchange of information about giving it some berries when in reverse. At this stage a local in a rib came past and told us that the wind that night was forecast to be strong and coming from the South East, so we would need to relay our anchor. I pulled it up and we re-laid it. We were tired and it was unbelievably hot, our fleecies and sailor suites were removed and shorts and t-shirts were donned as the decks were sluiced with warm seawater. The children wanted to go to the beach which they could see less than 200 meters away, but that would involve getting the dinghy pumped up and in the water, and by the time we had tied up after our journey we were too tired. Instead we bobbed to our anchor and felt happy and watched the setting sun bring out the shadows and contrasts on the surrounding hills.

That night was a bit disturbed, as it was our first night at anchor, so both Sara and I kept waking up and taking turns to check how we were lying, which was rather difficult to gauge as there was no moon, and we were swinging on the anchor to the alternate forces of wind and the slight swell coming round the headland. Fortunately some of the houses on shore had lights on, and I could orientate myself by the castle on top of the hill silhouetted against the stars. Eventually I figured that the bottom was sandy if we did drag and touch it should not do too much harm, plus if while laying in my bunk I could feel the boat rocking we were not aground.

27/03/06 We woke up not too refreshed from our nights sleep, we examined our location, we appeared slightly further in than we had been, we decided we might have dragged slightly so re-laid the anchor at 11:00, although not convinced with its holding, by now the children really wanted to go to the beach, we promised to go after lunch. The lunchtime weather forecast promised strong winds in the afternoon, the beach run was cancelled. At 14:00 we concluded that we had moved, and once more re-laid the anchor. 16:00 despite having over 30 meters of anchor chain out we were still dragging, I undid the anchor chain from the warp, refastened the chain onto the 22kg delta anchor, retrieved the 15kg Bruce anchor and dropped the delta, this time there was no doubt, engine full astern the anchor chain rose out from the sea bed and stretched tight. Once more we sat in our boat watching the sun etc, but this time confident that the anchor was holding.

28/03/06 At last we went ashore, and went for a short walk to try and find a church we could see from the boat, we never did find the church, but we found a secluded beach, where the children swam,

29/03/06 We went for another walk this time towards the Scandola National park with Phoebe and Nick being excited about doing a real hike. As we walked surrounded by the perfumes released by sun warmed coastal plants, we had fantastic views down onto little sandy coves and back down the gulf towards the open sea. There were fascinating plants growing wild all around us, we brushed past curry plants growing wild, and stopped to crush leaves to let the children get the different smells. Sara saw a lizard which the children were fascinated by, Sara suggested I should try and catch it so that Phoebe and Nick could see it more clearly, while I was thinking about how this might be done, Sara pointed out the snake which was moving towards the lizard. It was an olive green colour, thinner than my little finger, and about 12 to 18 inches long. The lizard picked up the snakes presence and shot across the path between Phoebe and myself, I was worried that if the snake followed the lizard Phoebe might get a fright, and might fall off the path, I told Sara to move Phoebe back out of the way. Unfortunately the snake did not follow the lizard, and Phoebe did not see the snake. We crossed some streams and found Narniaesque overgrowth, and as you moved into the overgrowth the sounds of the sea and wind vanished to be replaced by bird calls and the sound of trickling streams. We placed a rock each on a cairn that had been started, and saw a bull on the other side of the gorge. Further progress got harder as Phoebes excellent imagination started playing up, the snake was now the size of a python, and the bull was a fighting bull that was bound to charge us. On the return to Dreamcatcher we watched a pair of large birds flying backwards and forwards, seeming to gather nest materials, Nicholas was certain they were Fish Eagles, so Fish Eagles they remain. We had put the outboard on ‘Bob’ before we left, so instead of going straight back to Dreamcatcher, we motored the dinghy round to our beach of yesterday, and discovered the problems of beaching a dinghy with small waves. The children stripped off and went playing in the sea. If getting onto the beach was awkward getting off was a tad more problematic. I got everyone into Bob more or less dry, then I pushed off out into deep water and started the outboard, then Phoebe pointed out the hats and shoes still on the beach. Returned to the beach, Sara jumped out and got wet, she got wetter still when she relaunched us, deep water engine on, Phoebe points out that there is still a least one shoe on the beach, repeat as above. Third time lucky all back on board Dreamcatcher, wet bottoms all round. Things must be getting better, Phoebe went to her cabin and presented me with a badge emblazoned with ‘Superstar’, it gave me a nice warm feeling.

30/03/06 I had been reading Famous Five to the kids, and Phoebe liked the sound of swimming from a boat, so we took Bob towards the beach to try. Phoebe didn’t like going over the side and clung fiercely on to the side in panic. After a bit of a paddle and swim in the shallows we had to take Nick back as he was getting too cold. I rigged the fishing rod, without much hope, as I had seen no signs of fish in the anchorage. The sweetcorn baited hook was dropped in the water, and bits of sweetcorn thrown in around it, and sat down to enjoy the sun shine, then I noticed the sweetcorn was disappearing, I reeled in we had a fish, which snapped the line. We spent the rest of the afternoon unsuccessfully trying to lure or see another fish.

01/04/06 Cargese Corsica
Recharged we decided to move on towards Cargese, the left over porridge was thrown into the sea, no sooner had it hit the surface when it was surrounded by about 20 meal size fish gulping it down greedily. The fishing rod had by now been packed away. 10:00 the anchor was broken out, it was buried up to its fluke, and we were off once more. Once more we were accompanied by dolphins, as we sailed down this magnificent coastline. Old semaphore towers on the headlands, step mountains and cliffs plunging into the sea, occasional off shore rocks breaking the surface serving as reminders not to be too lazy in navigation. Note from the log book:13:35 Rounding Punta Di Puntigliane snowcapped mountains behind forehills- Beautiful sight.
I still find it hard to believe that we are doing this, although it seems a natural thing to do, it is difficult to get to grips with the fact that we are sailing off Corsica being accompanied by dolphins with magnificent views.
On route we tried to explain about April Fools Day to the children, they are not really old enough, but we had an amusing journey. We arrive at Cargese at 15:00 to find the Harbourmaster had shut up for the weekend, we have our first and second attempt at mooring bows to picking up tailed lines, with only 2 people this needs more practice. Sara went ashore with the children while I tidied up the boat, Sara returned the shops were up the hill and the children were paddling in the harbour, so while I got the children out of the harbour, Sara went to find the shops. After spending some time on a beach next to the entrance to the small harbour, we started walking up the hill to try and find Sara, who then appeared in the passenger seat of a van, the supermarket did free delivery if you purchased more than 40 Euro’s, very easy to do when stocking a boat, but it is a service we will look out for in future, especially when buying tins or drinks.


02/04/06 Ajaccio Corsica
We walked round the town in the morning, the bakery had a promotion that involved children colouring in cardboard fishes in return for a prize. We bought some pencils and Phoebe conscientiously coloured hers in, Nick did his best, the prize was to have your colouring in displayed in the window, and a soft toy fish with fabric pens to colour that in for yourself, Phoebe’s was coloured in within 5 minutes of being back on board.
12:30 We slipped our lines and headed towards Ajaccio. We had a bit of wind aft but if we wanted to get anywhere before nightfall we needed to motor. As we cut through the passage inside of the Isle de Sanguinaires, we watched the depth gauge fall to 6 meters and then we were through, and got a good wind on the beam, Sails were raised and we briefly had 6 knots before dropping back to between 2 or 3 knots. We sailed the last bit slowly finally mooring up at 18:30, mooring onto a finger pontoon seemed hard work, dropping the anchor is a lot quicker and easier. In the harbour there was a fantastic looking red hulled boat, the following day we were invited aboard by the owner, she was a Hilas 46, absolutely beautiful to look at both inside and out, and according to the owner able to cruise at 8 to 9 knots, I went back onboard Dreamcatcher with a dreamy look, and spent most of the day commenting to Sara about just how lovely the boat was.

03/04/06 to 08/04/06 Our overnight stop got extended a bit, we felt we were close enough to Sardinia to do some essential maintenance work, we still had to fix the aft head, the outlet pipe of which had been blocked since the canals, and the World Rally Championship was due to roll in to town at the weekend, with the service area directly across the harbour from us, I felt Nick might like the spectacle, and I was sure the weather was going to be a bit worse than the forecasters were saying. The pipe was eventually cleared after dismantling the cupboard, the anti-siphon loop, and removing the baby wipe that had got jammed in the loop. In the process we discovered that the valve on the anti-siphon valve was blocked and hadn’t been working, which probably explained why the toilet would occasionally back flood. Most days we wondered round the WRC service area, and looked at the cars and got some posters, which the kids stuck up all over the inside of the boat. There are two mariners in Ajaccio, Port Charles Ornano, with harbour side restaurants and bars and large motor boats, and Port Tino Rossi next to the old part of town, and the market, we chose the later. The daily market in the car park at the entrance to the harbour, was fantastic, full of local specialties, with friendly stall holders who were happy for you to sample their foods. The children never went in without someone giving them biscuits or cakes to try. When we decided it was time to leave, Sara went to pay the bill which we expected to be about 140 Euros, and was shocked to asked for 228 Euros. The difference was told that the price we had seen did not include tax, this did not seem right. Sara went back to query and pay, and then came back, because the Harbour master did not have any change. I went back to pay the balance, and discovered that we had been looking at the wrong tariff, however the price for one week was only 222 Euros, I queried this with the harbourmaster, and was informed that the price was indeed 228 Euros for six nights, and I could not pay 222 Euros as I had only stayed for six days not for a week. When I informed him that in that case I would stay for an extra night, the bills was amended to 222 Euros, and we elected to stay one more night as we had not quite finished all our jobs, and there was going to be a firework display that night, although I was tempted to leave anyway and I can imagine him chasing after us demanding that we either have to stay one more night or that we pay him another 6 Euros, this is bureaucracy gone wrong. The firework display took place that night on a floating raft anchored up 100 meters from Dreamcatcher, it was fantastic having the fireworks going off apparently right overhead.

09/04/05 We refueled with 128 litres of Diesel, which was expensive at 1.28E/l, our fuel consumption since leaving the canals had risen to 2.8l/hr, which reflected the higher engine speed used on open water, but it was way down on what we had used before we entered the canals, which was due to our better understanding of getting the best out of the engine. We now operate the engine at between 1700 and 2000 rpm, which gives us between 5-5.5 knots, increasing the engine speed gives only marginal increases in speed, for a lot more noise and a heavier fuel consumption. We were heading towards Bonifacio which was going to be long day. All the guide books warned about the evil reputation of the Bonifacio Straits, the gap between Corsica and Sardinia which funnels the winds and increases their strength, and can make passages through dangerous. We had picked a good day there was hardly any wind and motoring was the order of the day. As we approached Point De Senetosa, the wind picked up quickly and we had large swells caused by the wind and a rapidly shelving bottom, the waves started getting foam crests. I could not tell if this was just local or continued all the way down to Bonifacio, as I kept staring forward the horizon changed from the occasional foam crest to a continuous line of foam crests, it was now 14:00, it was still another 4 to 5 hours until Bonifacio, it was time to turn around. We headed for the anchorage of Campomoro. We passed the rocks at the entrance and headed towards the anchorage. Trying to avoid getting too close to the shore we let the anchor go in 15 meters, it did not hold, with 30 meters of chain and the delta on, we could not recover the anchor. The windlass did not have a gypsy, and would not hold the chain, so we motored round the bay dragging our hook, trying to find shallower water, as we knew that we could recover it from depths of 10 meters or less. Two other boats came into the anchorage and anchored and watched us going back and forth, until we finally managed to retrieve our ground tackle, by which time I was exhausted, the seat on the dolphin nose had come loose with me sitting on it and it had jolted my back, I did not have enough energy left to recover the anchor again if it did not set, so we cut our losses and headed to the marina at Propriano. On leaving the anchorage we were joined briefly by three dolphins, their visits, no matter how brief, always bring a touch of excitement. As we got closer to the town, set against the hills, with sweeping deserted beaches, we could smell the scent of the plants on the shore. The town had an Italianesque look to its buildings, the marina side was crammed with Gelateria’s and the names above the shops seemed more Italian than French. We moored up at 19:00, alongside a floating raft, which was itself moored to the jetty, and was obviously half finished. Looking at the forecasts for the next day it was mixed weather, low winds in the morning and early afternoon, rising to strong winds in the evening, if we left early the next morning we should be in Bonifacio by 14:00.


10/04/06 Propriano Corsica
I woke up to a windless day, with mill pond seas, with Sara and the children
asleep, I cast off the lines and headed out of the harbour by 07:00.
08:00 we were off Campomoro, we were making good time and were on schedule, off Point De Senetosa, we were again confronted by swells on the starboard bow, which created an uncomfortable yawing. The weather forecasts started coming in over the VHF, they were forecasting Force 8 to 10, in the Bonifacio Straits that evening. We should be tucked up comfortably in Bonifacio by then, but it was concerning, looking at the GPS our ground speed had dropped from 5.6knots to 3.6. An expression came to mind “If in doubt, turn about” We headed back to Propriano, we had a good sail back with over 6 knots on the log at times. After circling the harbour, and going out a couple of times we finally moored up back where we had started from at 14:30. The harbour master who was now at work, made us move to another spot, and with the assistance of the harbour master and two other members of staff, we finally tied up stern to at 15:00. That evening and during the night the promised wind arrived, and we were harbour bound for the next two days, with spray from the waves coming over the top of the lighthouse.

11/04 to 12/04/06 We watched a couple of sailing boats go out, they were heeled right over as they left the harbour entrance with considerable lee way, and it seemed touch and go whether they would get out, but they did. We were visited by a rather officious group of customs officers, who despite being informed that we had been in France for eight months and had been visited by customs on four previous occasions, wanted to know what we were doing about schooling our children, how much money we had on board and if we had anything to declare. Bored customs officers have a high nuisance value, possibly the best course of action when you see them enter your area, is to get off your boat and go ashore, or make your boat look and sound as if no one is on board, as they seem to ignore you if it does not look like any one is onboard.

13/04/06 St Theresa di Gallura Sardinia
We set off once more this time towards either Bonifacio or Saint Teresa di Gallura which ever we could get to easiest dependent upon the wind and sea state. As we turned the corner and came out of the shelter of the breakwater at the entrance to the harbour, we began to encounter swells, not the usual small short swell that are the dominant swells in the Mediterranean, but large rolling swells, like folds in the earth, that rose above my head as I stood at the helm. The swells were coming in straight onto Dreamcatchers nose, and with no wind to talk of , we headed out rising and falling, as we rode over the tops, occasionally getting bounced by bigger waves coming at a different at a slightly different angle to the others. I kept looking at my crew for signs of sickness, or concern of which there were none. I was concerned that the swells might not die down and that we would struggle to turn the corner at the end of the bay, as it shallowed quickly from over 1000 meters to 40 meters, and we believed that this had contributed to the uncomfortable seas on the previous occasions when we had tried to head south. We had decided to head further off shore before we turned, four miles off shore the swells had shown no signs of abating, although by now I believed we should be able to turn and run before the swells, all the way down to Saint Teresa, I was struggling to find a smooth enough pattern to the waves, to allow us to turn without getting broadside to one of the bigger waves, eventually I saw a wave pattern that might allow enough time to turn, and with a call to everyone to hold tight, I hauled the wheel to port, and increased the engine revs. Anxiously I watched the next big wave coming as we started to turn, slowly initially then the bow started paying off more rapidly and we were through, with the next big wave giving Dreamcatcher with a big shove from behind, lifting her stern up and rolling away underneath us. With the waves now under our stern we headed towards Saint Teresa. Just before we made the turn a helicopter heading down the coast had spotted us out to sea, and had turned towards us and had come and hovered behind us, why they did this I do not know, if they thought we might be in distress the sight of two children wearing lifejackets and waving excitedly while playing with their toys in the cockpit, must have allayed their fears, as after a couple of minutes they turned and headed off towards Bonifacio. We finally passed pointe Aquila about one mile off, and found ourselves having to alter our course to a more southerly one putting the swells on to our starboard quarter in order to miss a cluster of rocks called les Moines which are two and half miles off shore. We got used to the feeling of being picked up and shoved forward, with our view changing between the mountains behind Capo Testo on Sardinina and sea as we alternately rose up on the waves then slid down into the troughs. The children played happily in the cockpit, and occasionally got too boisterous when we would stop them worried that they might get hurt if they fell. The children would stop listen then within five minutes would be doing the same thing all over again. Eventually Phoebe found the best and must fun place to sit was inside the ships bucket on the cockpit floor, where she would bounce around. When we were half way over, I took Phoebe out on to deck with me to do an important job, changing the courtesy ensign to the Italian one. After we had removed the French and hoisted our new host countries ensign, Phoebe and I remained sat on the coachroof, where I was giving a big cuddle from Phoebe. I asked her why I was getting such a big cuddle, and I was told that she had some big cuddles inside her, which she was keeping for special occasions, and this was one of those occasions. Before returning to the cockpit, I asked Phoebe if she wanted to stay on the deck or come back with me, she wanted to stay, so I left her on the coachroof, where she sat with a look about her that communicated her pleasure and pride in being treated like a responsible person. We left her on the coachroof for a while then Sara went forward for a cuddle and was joined by Nick, we then left the two children on the coachroof as we sailed in to Saint Teresa. We entered Saint Teresa trying to determine where we should moor, we had decided that after our last attempt at stern to mooring, and Dreamcatchers reluctance to respond to the helm in reverse unless a lot of way was built up, that we would moor bows to, however as we were heading down the moorings a young lad fishing on the pontoon waved us off, indicating that there was not enough depth further on, I stopped Dreamcatcher and due to the lack of room, I had to spin her about her keel, which brought us up six foot from the side of another boat, and our stern about eight feet from the pontoon, I changed the plan and we dropped back on to the pontoon, where the young lad stood with the tailed line in his hand, this time the stern to mooring was successful, and we were in Sardinia with one day to spare before Nana and Granddad arrived.

We hired a car to go to the airport to pick up our visitors, which gave us an opportunity to see bits of the inside of Sardinia, and possibly to pick up some stores for the boat. The plan was to let Jean and Michael have a day getting used to boat life and their grandchildren before we set off on Dreamcatcher slowly back towards Olbia, which the weather gods seemed to agree with as their first day there was a bit windy. We walked up the hill on the other side to Saint Teresa and watched the Moby lines ferry coming in to the narrow shallow entrance at great speed, once inside it put its helm full to starboard, and engines full astern, and the ferry slewed round with a lot of heel, the nautical equivalent to a handbrake turn, it was impressive to watch. There were a number of nicely blended into the landscape houses on this hill, any of which I would have loved to live in, all though there were my favorites.

17/04/06 Cala Lunga Isola Razzoli
The forecast was for gentle winds from the West swinging round to the East, perfect for a night at anchor in Cala Lunga, an inlet on Isola Razzoli, we sailed to the anchorage in overcast conditions, I was a bit anxious about the rocks in the entrance, when a pilot book warns of rocks I imagine sharp edges hiding just under the surface waiting to punch holes in your boat, but like must places, once you have got in, it as not a bad as expected, and the entrance was rather straight forward. We arrived and had the anchorage to ourselves we picked a spot and dropped the hook in 5 meters onto sand, where it dug in straight away. Due to miscommunication our stern ended up a bit closer to the rocks than I would have liked, but we were still in over 3.5 meters of water. The rocks round the anchorage had been sculpted by wind and rain into fantastic shapes While we were bobbing around having lunch a large catamaran came into the anchorage, hovered round us for a while then went round the corner into the other leg, being new to anchoring it is reassuring to have some one else anchor in the same spot, although they are probably taking their reassurance from you being there themselves.. The children wanted to go swimming off Dreamcatcher, so Bob got hauled off the foredeck, in case of difficulty, but I was not expecting the kids to have the courage to go swimming off the boat. Once the kids were on the beach they were happy playing and paddling, Michael rowed back for Jean and Sara, and my shoes so we could go exploring the island. The bit of the island we managed to see was covered with sharp rocks and scrubby bushes that made walking difficult. After standing at the top of a crest looking towards Deadman’s Reef Passage, a shoal area leading between the islands of Razzoli, Budelli and Santa Maria towards pink beach, where the clear waters changed colour to brilliant light blue over the shallows, and looking at the catamaran at rest in the middle of the wide inlet held on station by four long lines lead to shore, which blocked anyone else from using the inlet, they had strung fenders on the lines, which I presume was to try and prevent other boats from sailing into them, we returned to the beach, where Michael and the children built a hut, out off driftwood and a blanket. The overcast conditions deprived us of what we had been told is a highlight of being at Cala Lunga, a sunset playing onto the rocks. The wind which was meant to swing round to the East persisted in staying in the West, and blowing a small swell, into the anchorage all night.

18/04/06 Maddalena Island
We woke up to another overcast sky, and a forecast of increasing wind from the North. The previous day I had been informed by Michael that he can not swim, with the increasing wind and bouncy sea, I was more risk aware than I had been the previous day, and was a bit over forceful in trying to avoid an incident. We had decide to tow the dinghy round to Pink Beach in order for us to go ashore if the conditions were favourable. The approach to Pink Beach was exposed to the northerly winds that were been squeezed between the islands, I decided that going ashore was not an option, and we should bring the dinghy aboard, which was a bit tricky due to the wind and swell. We should have brought the dinghy on board at Cala Lunga, trying to save time had increased both risk and time taken to do the job, it is a mistake I hope not to make again. We raised the jib, and headed towards Isola Maddalena, an awkward swell made the crossing uncomfortable, we moored up bows to at 12:45. After lunch we went for a walk round the town of Maddalena, to find most of it closed until 17:30, so we had an ice-cream each, after all we were now in Italy. There is a large cross on top of a hill looking down onto the port, which appears to be made of strip lights that get lit up at night. The harbour seems to be constantly busy with ferries plying backwards and forwards to Sardinia, but they do not cause any problems in the yacht harbour.

19/04/06 In the afternoon we caught a bus and went to the north of the island to another inlet called Cala Lunga, where we sat on the beach while the children paddled and dug in the sand. Phoebe called back from the shoreline, where she was digging, saying she had found a fish, which we didn’t believe. Phoebe picked up her ‘Fish’ and brought it to us, it was a leaf. Phoebe went back to the shoreline, and once more said she had found a fish, and it had eyes. Michael walked down to join in the game, then declared that it was a fish, although on its last legs, and asked for a bucket to catch it. It turned out to be a healthy, but sleepy burrowing fish, which first burrowed into the sand, only to be dug back out again, then it swam off slowly into deeper water. After we returned to Maddalena we had what was the best ice-cream I can recall ever having at an American style cocktail bar. I suspected they might be good when I spotted two young men both well over six foot, with intense expressions on their faces as they licked their way round their three flavoured ice-cream cones.

20/04/06 Porto Rotundo Sardinia
We cast off at 10:00 and went through the 13 Foot passage, named after its minimum depth. Once through I passed the helm to Michael after the Jib and Mizzen had been raised, and he steered us past the American Nuclear Submarine base on Isola Saint Stefano, and on to Porto Cervo, the town and harbour which had been developed by the Aga Khan, where the rich and famous were reputed to hang out, although not in April. We tied up to the empty quay side, which was reserved for the large 100m yachts, and had lunch. After lunch we walked round the town of Porto Cervo, we had to have some ice-cream in order to do a comparison, Maddalena still out in front. After lunch we raised the jib and main and sailed off the quay, using springs would have helped the departure and stopped us heading backwards first. A slick tack with all hands working in concert enabled us to lay a course out of the entrance, and south towards Porto Rotondo. With Michael once more at the helm we passed inside Isola Nibani and outside of Isole della Roche, and were greated by our first sight of Isola Tavolara, a large island appearing to rise sheer straight out of the sea, to the south of the approaches to Olbia. With the late afternoon sun warming up the colours, and longer shadows giving definition to the islands of Poveri and Mortorio, we sailed down towards Porto Rotondo, while enjoying a beer in the cockpit. We were helped on to our berth by the marina attendants, two days before the start of Porto Rotondo’s yacht show. We spent the next day on the beach, and had a ringside seat as lovely motor boats arrived. I am not a stinkpotter, but there were a number of motor yachts that if I had the money I would have been tempted to buy, both modern and classic. Porto Rotondo is a large circular marina, reputed to being a Porto Cervo wannabe, however I found it a pleasant friendly place, albeit expensive, my fees for the night were approx E8-00 for the berth and E8-00 for electricity, but in August the mooring fees would have been E147-00. The local supermarket was expensive, and a couple we meet Julie and Ian, who had left their boat there for winter informed us that the supermarket had only opened two days earlier.

22/04/06 Baia Caddinas After a late start due to beach trips, and the need for supplies we set off at 11:30, we had removed the anchor off the bow roller to make getting on and off easier, and Michael and I replaced it, unfortunately it was not cleated on properly, and neither Sara nor I noticed it, in our predeparture checks. We set off in a light wind, which was pleasant for sailing, but we were not making enough progress, it was time for the engine to come on if we were to reach our anchorage at Porto della Taverna. With sails raised and the engine on we approached Capo Figari, and encountered bouncy seas, when suddenly there was a rattling from the bow. A wave had pulled the anchor off its roller and it was heading towards the sea bed, 50meters below, taking 30m of chain and 100m of brand new octoplait warp with it, and there was nothing we could do about it. I shouted for everyone to stay clear of the chain, I did not want anyone getting tangled up in it. I knew that we could not recover that much anchor and chain easily, and being in only 50 meters, there was a very real danger of the anchor setting. I then wondered if someone might be able to stand on the chain or warp as it came out of the hawsepipe, when suddenly with a bang it stopped. Michael and Sara went forward and told me that the join between the chain and warp had jammed in the hawsepipe. Thank goodness I had given up on trying to splice the warp to the chain, otherwise there would not have been a shackle to jam. We needed to find somewhere shallow to take the weight off the chain in order for us to retrieve it. Sara went below to the chart table to tell me about places we could stop on the otherside of Capo Figari, I also needed time to think about what to do and I was having opinions thrust at me, which I was rejecting, but having to explain why, this slows down my thought processes, this is when things went wrong, Sara wanted to drop the sails and head into a beach she could see, the anchor chain needed securing to prevent it coming loose, no one seemed to know how to do that so I went forward to tie it on, while Sara had the helm, as I was coming back into the cockpit Sara gybed and I got hit in the face by the boom, at this point the air got a bit colourful. I needed to get back in charge to prevent something else going wrong, people got shouted at. We dropped sails and motored round to a bay between Isola di Figarolo and Cap Figari, staying in 50 meters plus, as we came in to the shore I increased speed in the hope that the drag from the chain and anchor might raise it up a bit to stop it snagging, if there were any raised outcrops of rocks, I just had to hope we would miss them. As we came into 10m it was apparent that the anchor was now dragging as our boat speed had slowed down, and the anchor chain was pulling tighter. Michael and Sara were on the foredeck waiting to pull in the anchor, which they did, although it required tremendous effort, which was explained when up came the fishermans net, tangled in the anchor, with the minimal amount of cutting this was released, and we motored out of the bay. Porto Taverna got abandoned and we headed towards Baia Caddinas, which turned out to be a lovely stop. Standing in the cockpit we had a lovely view of Isola Tavolara, and right next to the marina was a beautiful sandy beach, with clear water, in which you could see the fish swimming, Sara, Phoebe, Nick and I joined them it had been a hard day.

23/04/2006 Olbia Sardinia
An early start, in order to give Jean and Michael, plenty of time to catch their plane, found us having breakfast while underway. The entrance to the harbour would be hard to spot in the rather featureless terrain, if someone had not built a very conspicuous lighthouse at the entrance, which guides you to the narrow channel. We tied up to the harbour wall, 58 miles after Jean and Michael had joined us, which for people who do not list sailing as a preferred activity, is probably quite far enough, with plenty of time for them to get to the airport. The weather had been good to us, there had been only two days of strong winds. Olbia itself has little to recommend it as a destination, apart from somewhere to change crews or provision, although it does apparently contain the best ice-cream shop in Sardinia, a fact we did not discover until after we had left. We spent the next three days tied up to the harbour wall for free, while we reflected on the last month, stocked up and decided where to go to next. There were a number of German registered boats sharing the wall with us, they all seemed to be charter boats, with crews changing regularly. We meet Denni, a retired New Zealander, who was looking after one of these boats. He was meant to have left the week before we got there, but due to problems with the boats engine the charter had been cancelled and he had no idea how long he was going to have to wait for things to get themselves sorted.

27/04/2006 Madallena Island
The day before I had contacted Topea, and discovered they were on Isola Razzoli, so I arranged to meet them tonight at Maddalena. We left at 08:30, and motored back round Cap Figari. At lunchtime we raised sails which I hung to doggedly, sailing past the entrance to Maddalena with all three sails set, not only to enjoy the sail, but to show off Dreamcatcher as I think she must look magnificent under sail, this point was confirmed by Eve and Gunner who had jumped up from their table at a Café, where they were having their first coffee of the year, when they saw us sailing past. Our plan had been to spend the night then head on off to Corsica, but we ended up staying four days. We meet another family Steven, Fiona and their children Morgan and Morwena from Penryn, who were just starting out for six months of sailing, plus there was some bad weather forecast which we watched stirring up the narrows between the islands from the comfort of the marina. It was not an incident free period however, we all got a great laugh from a boat crewed by a group of retired gentlemen, who after a particularly noisy and alcoholic lunch, slipped their lines having forgotten to pay, the Ormiggiori came running down the jetty demanding his fees, they slowed down a bit looked at their wallets, and decided that the skipper of a boat they had sailed in would pay for them, which he obligingly did. We put Bob in the water to try scrub our waterline, and Phoebe wearing her lifejacket leaned against the guardrail netting at the point where the gates are, it was not secure, and she disappeared head first into the harbour. On surfacing she did not panic but swum to the dinghy, grabbed hold, and then yelled. We fished her out, dried her off, and discussed the incident, in a positive and humorous way.

Next: Pirate beaches, and running aground.

The Med at last, or is this the last.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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