Up the Corsican Coast to Golfe de Pinarellu

So far in Sardinia, we have been holed up against the wind for 4 of the 7 days we've been here ... hmmmm. Two at La Maddelena and then we moved up the Corsican coast to get away from a 40 knot gale blowing through on Sunday. We had tried to get into the marina at Porto Vecchio but either my French wasn't good enough or there just wasn't any room at the inn. Anyway, we chose a 2 step voyage -- the first to have an afternoon in a beautiful swimming harbour called Rondinara -- the second to get to a safe anchorage a little further away from the storm centre, called Golfe de Pinarellu. Even 20 miles can have you escape 10 knots or so of wind -- 20 knots is comfortable at anchor, 30 knots not so much. Remember that wind strength increases at the square of its speed -- so 20 knots is 4x stronger than 10, and 30 is double the force of 20 and 9x that of a 10 knot breeze.

The water was soooo clear!

(Marina): Rondinara was amazing! I had chosen this bay as the "book" said "...an exquisitely beautiful bay...the water is so clear...", we had to see it for ourselves. True enough it was perfect, except the water was a little cooler than normal. Here are a few pics of our time in Rondinara on the way up (more to come on the way back).

Matt doing his laundry...no maid services on Tara.

The "would be maids" supervising the drying of the laundry. Matt doing the grandad-inspired "high pants" for the girls' amusement.

Life is so stressful....

The anchor chain you see on the bottom is over 5 meters down.

A "floaty toy" blew off the beach and we captured it...
finders keepers! 

As mentioned by Matt, we were running north from a system with a lot of wind so we made our way to Pinarellu and dropped the hook. (Back to Matt):
 Things were going swimmingly. We saw another Canadian boat, turns out it is from RVYC too -- they bought a First 47.7 in England now called Faem and they are planning on leaving the boat in Roma after the summer. Unfortunately by the time we had dinner made (me and Marina on dinner duty together) it was getting really late -- plus it was the first time in a long time that the kids weren't glued to technology. Hurray for small miracles.

Playing on beach at Pinarellu

New toy discovery...

The big wind was supposed to come in the morning and right on schedule at 9am we started to get the first big gusts of 20 knots, then 25, then close to 30. Meanwhile, another blue Beneteau First -- this one a 40.7 started dragging its anchor and eventually we were fending it off Tara with our biggest fenders.

It's dragging...

Their crew was ashore (the dad, alone with his kids, had put the kids on a surfboard and swam ashore). They were finally returning later in the day, but by the time they were close to the boat we had already decided to move, and had done so.

Marina at the ready with a big fender.

A Beneteau First is its racing class and they're not as well equipped for cruising -- that 40 footer doesn't have a windlass -- and he has about 15 meters of chain attached to a rope -- so when the wind hit 30 he was dragging and "sailing" at anchor. Tara, on the other hand carries 70+ meters of 3/4 inch chain and we aren't afraid to use it.

THIS is a little close!

We had 40+ meters out or about a metric ton of it and our 75 pound anchor -- so we weren't moving. Anyway, after watching him nearly hit Tara for about an hour we decided to lift anchor and reset. Thinking about the guy with 3 kids on board hand-lifting the anchor up in a 25 knot breeze makes me want to be as far away from him as humanly possible.

Hayden and Matt making sure he didn't hit us...
he would have without the fender there.

It took two tries to get our anchor to set but set well it did, then we let out 50 meters of chain in less than 5 meters of water so we felt pretty safe. I dove the anchor and it couldn't have been more perfectly set with 30-40 meters on the ground in clear sand, with the last 10-15 meters springing the boat off the bottom.

At around 7pm the guy in the blue boat hauled up anchor -- with a 7 year old kid at the helm (OMG!) who belted it in forward while the dad reefed the chain in by hand. The first attempt failed because the kid never took it out of gear so they were dragging the anchor forward at around 5 knots -- hard on the paint. The next try he pulled up the anchor -- 22 pulls or I'd guess around 20 meters, no rope. Then the bugger went back to his original spot and dropped the anchor again, put his 3 kids on the surfboard and started back to shore -- basically undoing the up, down, up, down of our anchor that we had spent the last couple of hours worrying about. They say God loves fools and drunks ... so while he was loving the blue-boat fool, we decided to drink some wine and have God love us too.

Cocktail hour...best part of the day!

At around 3 in the morning the wind stopped and then we were treated to an hour or so of lumpy slop where the boat rolled around a bit -- then at around 5am just before dawn the wind shifted 180 degrees and we were facing the waves -- a much more comfortable spot, and our friend in the blue boat had dragged quite a distance that night and was now a couple hundred meters away.

Evening Photos:

At around 8am we sparked up the engine and decided to head down to Rondinara again, starting our journey southward toward Sardinia and eventually Sicily. There was a reasonably nice wind and we pulled out our sails and headed down the coast. Since Pinarellu is only 8-10 miles away from Porto Vecchio we decided that we would visit the port and all go ashore to check out the old walled city and also provision up for the next couple of days.

Holed Up on La Maddalena

Marina is a great navigator and we are naturally cautious with our kids on board -- add Chelsea and Hayden and we are probably more so. We have internet so we can communicate back home (work beckons nearly every day) and also it lets us check the weather using a group of sites that have given us some pretty accurate wind and wave forecasting. Windfinder told us of two days of 35 knots of breeze coming in. Usually we're happy with 25 knots at anchor, but 35 is where we try to head to port and tuck into a nice snug mooring spot. Our slip was near the industrial part of the wharf -- with 3 or 4 ferries coming and going all day from 0700 to 2230 (they have 3 ferry berths and one was always waiting to get in). The good news is that we were only a few steps away from the centre of town and the action.

The view from Tara's berth...very busy!



Ferries contantly coming and going...interesting to watch.

We spent hours walking around La Maddelena -- those of us not glued to the video-screen, and found it a really cool place. It's funny the different mindsets adopted by the different crew members.



Happy girls!



Chelsea is really happy to be in town, shopping, checking out the architecture, soaking up culture, snapping lots of photos.

Marina is happy to be ashore -- real showers, real toilets, lots of grocery stores, some culture, restaurants and a place to buy a souvenir t-shirt or two. Jessie is interested in two things: Gelatto and bathing suit shopping -- though recently she also seems to be looking at cute boys too.
Matt likes the shower and toilets, but sees this as an opportunity to get some boat maintenance done and often spends hours repairing things when the others are off exploring.

Boys gaming...ick!



Tara would be berthed at the back right of this photo.

 Ross and Hayden video-game. If we don't threaten to take away all technology for a few days, they'll spend the entire day doing three things: eating, sleeping, and playing video games -- oh and they might watch a movie or two in that mix too. So we kick them off the boat.




Gelatto in Cala Gavetta



So here in Cala Gavetta on La Maddalena, for me this was the big opportunity to get the electronics straightened away. We already installed a new chartplotter, two new heads and a new transducer -- but we also needed to interface the chartplotter to the existing wind instruments and the VHF radio for AIS. Three or four hours of noodling, testing and finally installing got us to the point where we have operational systems for wind, depth, GPS, charts, and collision avoidance for the first time ever. We have two more installations to do: the new radar and the new mast-head light. Both require a fair amount of time up the mast so we're not really looking forward to it but, we will do what must be done! (Although not in 30+ knots of wind). By the time we head for Sicily I expect to at least have the mast-head lights installed and maybe the radar -- though we have an operational radar now so we can use the old one in a pinch.

To sum it up, one good meal out hosted by Hayden, a number of shopping excursions -- mostly for food and wine, and a long walk to the beach for Marina, Chelsea, Hayden and Ross, was basically all we accomplished in our two day stay at Porto Touristico Cala Gaveta. (Marina here regarding our beach excursion). 



It was about a 30 minute walk to our "beach".



A perfectly servicable beach for Marina and Chelsea

We went on a mission to A. get the boys off the boat and B. find a beach for Chelsea and me and C. find a spot where the boys could enjoy the wind and waves. We pretty much accomplished all that and went out for brushetta style pizza too.

Wind, waves...but a bit boring for the boys.

Pizza style bruschetta was excellent.

Jess helped Matt and lots got done in our absence. (Back to Matt) Charge-band 3-4 was 87 Euros a night for the boat -- can't wait to see what a charge-band 6 on Sicily will cost us ....



 

Cala Gavetta, La Maddalena

La Maddalena is a very nice old European town ... lots of restaurants and things to do. We got off the boat right away and explored the town ... I love walking streets and the sustainability of it all -- we need to do this in Vancouver. Anyway, we did some marketing, had Gelato, went back to the boat and got ready for dinner.

Matt and Chelsea trying Sardinian beer...
"not bad" they said.

Hayden, Ross' buddy along for the first month was on dinner duty with Marina -- and he decided to use up some of his "mad money" to treat us for dinner. We walked around looking for an appropriate restaurant (limited seafood plus Pizza) and sat down on a very busy walking street, had a leisurely dinner (delicious!) followed by Matt and Marina enjoying the last of the wine while the rest of the gang went walking (laps around the piazza with 10,000 other people) until almost midnight, and then back to the boat and to bed. Life is great.

Ross, Chelsea, Jessie, Hayden and Marina
on our way out for dinner.



Dining out in Cala Gavetta



Baia Raparata to Porto Pozzo to Cala Gavetta



Matt and Mrina working on the main sail furler.

 On the way from Raparata to Porto Pozzo we decided to unfurl the mainsail, but had forgotten we had tied a heavy line to the furling line -- and got it hopelessly tangled with about 1/3 of the mainsail out. Luckily there was virtually no wind and for the next three hours, Marina and I disassembled the mainsail furler, cut away the trapped line and rethreaded a new line that we had brought for that purpose anyway .... so we arrived at Porto Pozzo having spent several hours doing an impromptu repair.

 

Cockpit activities on the way...


Porto Pozzo is a very protected anchorage -- we dropped a hook and the kids and Marina headed to shore -- only to come back saying that they had encountered some weirdo at the dock that said they couldn't leave the dinghy there ... then they went shopping but there wasn't anything to buy -- so we turned on the generator and watched the Hangover -- for about the 30th time ... still funny, & the music is the bomb.

Heavy weather is on its way so it's time to find a marina for some shelter. Marina chose a place in La Maddalena at a marina called Cala Gavetta. We had a reasonably calm night and then the wind hit in the morning. Marina and I were sitting on deck in the morning and decided to fold up the Bimini (the sun cover that starts to rattle too much at 25 knots of wind). We were getting ready to go and I asked Marina -- are we dragging the anchor? She didn't think so because our neighbour was pulling up his anchor -- but then we realized that ... holy cow we are dragging our anchor -- and in about another hour we would be on the rocks on the other side -- "mud and weed -- suspect holding" it said in the pilot book -- maybe we should heed the advice a little more. We were just talking over breakfast how much we love the extra heavy chain on Tara and how we've had no problems anchoring when others really struggle -- hubris is a dangerous thing.

Marina and Ross



Anyway, no harm no foul -- except now it's blowing 30knots and we're heading downwind at 8+ knots with a half a jib out. We're continuing to bucket along when I realize that we'll have a number of new speed records on Tara as the new GPS updates speed every second instead of every 6 seconds -- so the 10.8knot record will fall soon enough. We pulled into Cala Gavetta in 25-30 knots of breeze -- tied up to the gas dock and spent a few hundred Euro -- at 1.78 Euro/liter for diesel -- don't complain about gas prices at home.




M & M & J

  The Ormeggiatore got us a place between a couple of 55 footers ... it took me a bit of a runway, once missed approach but we greased it without hitting either side, the back or running anything over ... docking a 50 footer in 25+ knots isn't for the feint of heart.


Cala Gavetta Marina



Isola Rossa to Baia Reparata

Isola Rossa Marina

Isola Rossa proved a bit harder to leave than we thought. The new chartplotter took more time than expected (no surprise there) installing -- so at around 2pm we decided we had worn out our welcome and we bugged out. (Marina here) HOWEVER...while Matt was working on the chart plotter, the crew enjoyed more of Isola Rossa...


Grocery shopping



Jess putting up the new Sardinian
courtesy flag under the Italian one.

Gelatto!!! YUM!

Once we left...(Matt's blogging again): No wind, the water was flat calm and we made our way to Baia Raparata -- a beautiful bay on the very north west tip of Sardinia, that we anchored in.

Jess on the bow pulpit enjoying the view.

Chelsea eating leftover pizza.

Marina opening the dodger for air.

(Marina again...sorry, can't help myself) With the warm water around here we have a vast playground and many water related activities carry on until cocktail hour, which starts around 6:30 or 7 pm.

Chelsea dumping Ross off his jolly jumper.

Dinner, in true European style, typically isn't presented until after 9 pm. By then we're all revenous and the food is always delicious. (Marina here by the way). Not sure if Matt mentioned but we have a rotating schedule for KP duty on board. Right now with 6 of us, 2 are on B&L duty (which is usually just dishes as B is every man for himself, and L is usually prepared by Marina and Chelsea), and 2 are in dinner duty (creating, making and cleaning up from), and 2 love their day off.

Jess BBQ'ing chicken.

Tonight, Jess was on duty with Marina. and spent the night. Then (Matt...) normal routine, got up early with Marina, joy bath, breakfast ... then the kids get up and do some swimming, get the boat ready and off to the next destination.

Isola Rossa

Our first night in Isola Rossa we spent on a hook. The entrance to Isola Rossa is between a big rock and the mainland. Our lack of a depth-sounder was beginning to wear on us ... but we went through s-l-o-w-l-y easily seeing the bottom ... the pucker factor was high.

We anchored kind of in the entrance to the harbour and went swimming. The water was crystal clear and quite warm.


The old-fashioned depth sounder (Marina throwing a weight down and pulling it up counting the approximate meters) showed about 7 meters of depth -- the kids dove the anchor and said it was in fine. The weather looked great so we went ashore. Marina and I spent an hour getting a new Vodaphone internet stick with 5 gigs of usage -- woo hoo -- we're in business again. We also arranged a car and a night at the marina to go pick up Chelsea at the airport. Later that night we went to the 'Spinnaker' bar and had Italian Pizza -- oh my goodness Italian Pizza -- wine, beer, isn't that the bomb.



OMG...the pizza was sooooo good!

 The next morning we moved the boat into the marina, filled up with water -- nearly 1000 litres as we were down to our last 1/4 tank, washed the boat, vacuumed for the first time and I tore the chart-table apart getting ready to install the new Chartplotter that Chelsea was bringing with her. Did I mention that I woke up the day we were leaving and decided that we needed the Garmin charts that I could download on the internet. I thought it would be a good idea to do it before I went -- but once I started the process it asked for the serial number of the device -- so I unpacked it, put it on the living room table, got the serial number and completed the download. As you might expect in my tired-ness I forgot to repack the chartplotter -- so when we got to France we had the RADAR, the depth-sounder transducer, the two new heads ... but no brain -- kind of like me at 2 in the morning in Vancouver.

Anyway, Chelsea was bringing it and we were sure looking forward to having a depth sounder .... oh yes ... Chelsea too. Her flight arrived at 18:30 and we got the rental car at around 11:00 -- a Fiat 500 that we nicknamed "Luigi".


Luigi getting fuel.

 At around 5pm Jessie and I set off to the Alghero airport -- 140 KMs away (Sardinia is a big island) and about 95 minutes according to the GPS. We went through the twisty bits as fast as little Luigi would go, then onto an Autostrade then to the airport arriving at 18:35 -- fortunately the flight was a bit late so Jess and I shared a piece of pizza and I had a beer. People started coming out ... we were very excited ... more people, then more, then more, then some unescorted kids, some nuns in a wheelchair ... we were getting worried that she wasn't on the flight (maybe she fell asleep in Rome and missed the flight) ... we were getting more and more concerned ... and then she came through the doors -- we burst out with "Chelsea!" and got a great big hug. She said how nice it was to have someone meet her at the airport -- and we were happy to see her.



Chelsea, Jess and Luigi



Jessie and Matt piled into Luigi and started back to Isola Rossa ... stopped along the way for gas (couldn't figure out how to buy it so we left) then stopped again (full service station -- not my problem .. hahahaha) and bought Chelsea a Heineken for her first beer in Italy.

The rest of the trip went pretty quick -- we had arranged to meet the fam at Spinnakers again so we drove up -- the girls hopped out & we had a great dinner of -- Italian Pizza. Marina, Ross and Jessie had the same meals they had the night before -- I made the big change -- pizza with sausage instead of ham .... thrill seeker I am.

We returned to Tara and got ready for our first day out at sea.

The pizza is amazing!