First year anniversary! and a Med wild life watch report!

Well that is a year past now, we set off from the Boating Club pontoon in Scalloway at 10am on Sunday May 31st 2009! We have made it as far as southern Corsica, would have been Sardinia but there has been a bit of a gale blowing here around for the last day or so. We are still loving most of it but it is lucky I am writing this now and not a lot earlier or I would have had a different take on things as today started rather badly really.....

We had a very rolly calm swelly day on the way down here on Thursday and Ali vowed that he was going to wait for decent wind to go to Sardinia as he was tired of rolling around in the swell, so we looked at the weather and it was changeable on Sat and a steady 15 to 25 knots of Westerly wind on Sunday. That was it we would wait for the sail of our lives on Sunday. I was as usual fretting a little as I generally think 15 knots is a perfect wind speed for me (fair weather sailor that I am and bane of Ali's life!) Anyway we woke at 7 on Sunday morning anchored as we had been quite happily in the bay outside of Porto Vecchio harbour for two nights as I was thinking it was time to get up and make the pancake batter the wind picked up. Then the wind picked up, oh yes and then it picked up just a little more! It wasn't westerly either as the reports had told us it was S-SW and would be right 'on the nose' most of the way to our planned port of La Maddalena. We decided to do some school after breakfast and then go out and see what was happening. Well needless to say the further we went out of the Voe the more antsy I got and when we turned the way we wanted to go and the waves were breaking over the boat I just said no way, I don't mind this if it isn't on the nose but it is and that's it we are going back. Now you can imagine the mood that quickly descended over the boat.... but as we were coming back to our anchorage we were recording 38 knots and climbing so I felt a bit better. By the time we got re anchored the wind was blowing constantly at 25 to 30 knots and still SW so even Skipper decided we were actually better off where we were, or so we thought!

We made roast chicken for dinner and it was just as darkness was falling and we were getting ready for bed that the wind really did pick up, even though it is a well protected anchorage we were swinging around like a cork on a float and I started to worry about anchor drag as the wind had changed and we would be shore bound if anything gave. By 11pm the wind was over 40 knots and even Captain was worried so he said he would stay up on the first anchor watch, something we have never done before so I now knew it was getting a little serious. Get some sleep were my orders as I would be on later but sleep was not forthcoming (obviously) and when Ali switched in the engine "just in case" sleep wasn't even a far off option! We had the GPS anchor alarm, the computer and depth gage on to cover all the bases. Amazingly enough this part of the tale ends very well if very sleepily, Ali stayed up until 3 and as the wind had dropped to a respectable 35 knots he got me 'up' for my stint. Having only managed to drowse since about 2.30am my watch consisted of turning the laptop towards the couch, and with every jerk of the boat waking up to see if we were still in enough water. Maybe not entirely under control I must admit. The anchor by some miracle held all night. We listened to the Italian weather forecast in the morning and it was predicting more fierce winds especially in the area we were, we had almost run out of water so we decided to head for the marina and this is where all the fun really began.

As we headed in there were numerous really strong gust and we prayed that we would manage to berth in a quiet lull, it was not to be. We headed over to the side of the marina with the most space but the attendant shouted us over to the tightest bit of the whole place we were crapping it, we were full fendered but it didn't look good, how right we were! We had to turn a tight corner into the wind then head into one spot and back at an angle across the wind into another. This really is the tightest marina we have been in yet and looking at it later there was no chance of success in those conditions. As we went astern I was getting orders to fend off one side then the other and then CRUNCH we hit someones anchor at the other side which pushed our stern anchor arrangement to scrape the boat we were trying to berth next to, unfortunately Italian. We were still trying to get in when the owner joined me on the deck and started shouting his head off at me to which obviously I said sorry a hell of a lot and he continued even though we still weren't completely in and could have done with a bit more help. I was trying to push fenders down between our boats and he says I bent his stanchion too (which I dispute as I am not that strong or he needs better stanchions!) Anyway it wasn't good, he shouted at me for a good five minutes whilst Ali was at the bow getting the mooring lines attached. You stupid woman etc etc you come in here like a destroyer and do not care you say you are sorry but you are not (actually I was but getting less so by the moment.) When Ali cam back aft he seemed to move away and calm down a little but I told Ali what had all gone on and he asked the bloke to show him the damage, which there was a 5cm by 1cm slight scrape. Ali said sorry too and that he had some gel coat onboard and he would fix it for him. OK - what after the bollocking I got typical! Will shout at a woman but not a man! Anyway he then proceeded to rave about how stupid ! was in near perfect English to the crew of the other Italian boat next door, obviously all for my benefit and he got his intended rise as I was nearly in tears by this point and they were all laughing. I decided to take the fight fire with fire route recommended to me by Mark Burgess (cheers mate, not!) I called him over and said that I was actually sorry whether he believed me or not and that we have been sailing for a year from our home port and his is the first boat we had ever damaged. He just started shouting more and Ali pulled me away. He kept on going to anyone who would listen outside loud enough for me to hear inside and I have to admit the tears started falling then after a night with no sleep it was inevitable really. He called Ali up on deck once again to complain about me (was I the only one there??) Lets just say it wasn't a pleasant morning and the real shame we thought was that they had two boys on board who were about ages with the girls, normally we would have been encouraging contact but Kaylee and Alisha were too scared of the nasty man to go anywhere near them.

Anyway the day passed, both boats sat out on deck for lunch but didn't look or speak to each other then the same at tea time but Ali and I had a glass of wine then decided to at least try and speak. We gave the girls some chocolate to take over to the boys which broke the ice then we invited the adults over for some Scotch, a sure fire winner. It turns out they were quite nice really, the kids at 4 and 7 speak perfect English! The girls were delighted and we adults all got on pretty well too. The old bloke is an ex 747 captain and has been sailing around for years so gave us lots of tips, he also said that I would have to get used to the impulsive nature of Italians. It is a wonder what a couple of glasses of whiskey can do for someone!

The night has ended as expected, they left, Ali followed, I cleared up and got the kids to bed then Ali came back for the rest of the bottle of whiskey. Someone came knocking me up to go over to another Italian boat they were all on, I got there, Ali fell asleep and asked to be taken home. We could have been in Gardie!

The wind is finally supposed to die down tomorrow so we can head southwards and hopefully to catch up with John and Shirley the American couple we met a few times last year. Most days are far, far better than this and it turned out pretty well in the end anyway so not too much to worry about. Apparently as the evening went on Ali discovered he isn't an airline pilot but actually some kind of owner and owns two private helicopters so a peerie scratch won't hurt too much!

Here is a picture of the girls taken in Bastia a few days ago they have fairly sprouted up over the last year, and are starting to brown and go blonde in the hot sun againno matter how much we keep them out of it.



Now for the Med wild life report.....

Last post I mentioned the crazy jelly fish, well every day we are out sailing we keep our eyes peeled for fish, dolphins, whales etc. Nearly every day we see absolutely zilch.

Birdlife -

We have been surprised with how little birds there are anywhere after you leave the British Isles the coast seem positively quiet without the squawking of scories.

Here is one little fellow that stopped for a lift in the Ligurian Sea a couple of weeks ago.



When we were anchored up the river Arno we saw a few of these guys hanging around the reed banks. We do see other birds but as they are so few and far between it is nigh impossible to get a picture. Saw a good few eagle types flying around the mountains in mid Corsica ans lots of swallows now wherever there is some kind of belfry.



Now for the sealife, we look and we look in vain for large sea animals, the last time we saw dolphins was in the middle of the gulf du Lyon and before that Gibraltar! No whales in the med we saw one in Southern Portugal last year, Shetland is far better for whale spotting I have never not seen a few whales when sailing around Shetland each year. We have seen a sunfish and Ali saw a flying fish the other day. Now here is what we managed to catch on camera.....

One day we were motoring along to Lerici and we saw a lump in the water, and turned around to investigate, no less than a dead pig. Poor little fellow.



The rest of that day the girls were on high alert for log watch (or wog watch as Kaylee who still can't pronounce l called it) as there seemed to be loads of substantial lumps of tree in our path.



The next sailing day brought even more horror as the only sea life we saw was this poor dolphin, whatever next we thought....



We thought this was a dead cow from a distance on the way to Elba but thankfully it turned out to be another log. It does almost look like ears sticking up though....



Then we spotted this turtle on the way to Corsica!



Finally on Thursday as we motored on down from Bastia we got a very brief glimpse of a few dolphins and this is the only photo I got, it is a dolphin, honest!



That's it! It is funny when you come from a place like Shetland you really take wildlife for granted, especially sea life, Orcas become a normal sight, dolphins regular sailing companions, minke whales almost commonplace, but they aren't and we should think ourselves lucky to live in such a place (especially as it has very few grumpy Italians too!)

That's it for now! The next report will come from Sardinia all going well.

The last of France, Monaco and 'The Saga of the By the Wind Sailor!'

A bit more on the Cannes storm.

When it had stopped raining and the wind had stopped blowing and the swell was really setting into the marina we decided to get off our swingy boat and go for a look. Ali posted a lot of pictures of the waves etc so I wont duplicate them! The pontoons aren't piled in Cannes marina and all the boats were swinging and bashing around, some had very little fenders and were smashing against the hard concrete. We felt very sorry for the people who owned them as it would be awful to be away from your boat in a storm and come back to it all bashed. We thought it was raining until we realised that it was spray coming over the harbour and across the town, we apparently had missed the worst of it waves had been coming in over the promenade about 30 feet high I say apparently again as someone told us that and you know how people like to exaggerate! There was a van which had been entirely lifted and thrown onto a fence so there must have been a fair bit of water!

Kaylee didn't have a hood so she used our shopping bag to keep her head dry.



We could only feel very very bad for the person who owned this catamaran anchored in the bay South of the marina. It was being lifted about 8 to 10 feet at times I certainly wouldn't have liked to be on it!



After a walk around we decided to eat out and got pulled into a restaurant called Fagricoule by this lady standing behind me. We generally try not to be pulled into places but she wasn't the kind of person you say no to! We were a little scared the food would be crap but it was really good, Ali and I had 3 course menu's for 16 Euros very reasonable for good food in France! She certainly entertained us the whole way through our meal, no matter what we said or asked she replied with"Your Welcome." Little monkey Kaylee was saying your welcome over and over by the time we left and I had to keep telling her not to be cheeky. At the end of the meal she came with a special shot for me and Ali, "a secret recipe with added ginseng to keep you going if you know what I mean!" It was a really good meal and since we only eat tea out occasionally a real treat.





Kaylee tried her hand at a little photography during the meal too.

The next day we headed in the opposite direction along the beach front to see what damage had been done and boy was the place wrecked..... which is bad enough but when you consider it was only a few days until the Cannes Film Festival and the whole place had been done up with stalls, beach landings for Super yachts, stages and they were nearly all smashed up!



There were lots of diggers trying to fix the beaches up and get rid of all the mud and weed the waves had washed up.



That is one big mound of muck!



This is one of the many beachfront restaurants/cafes/bars which had all entirely filled with dirty muddy sand. They were removing all the flooring, tables everything.



Don't think Mr Clooney will be coming ashore here unless some serious repairs are done!



Angelina Jolie?



Ali spotted this pair of sparkly cowboy boots that really appealed to him, shame about the price oh and the fact that they are ladies boots!




Even the bus station is cashing in on the festival.



This one must be a boat that never leaves the harbour there is so much stuff on deck, it is a wonder it all made it through the storm!

On our last day in Cannes we went up to the museum in the Fort which overlooks the town.
It had a display of musical instrument from all around the world which was the main reason but the whole place is certainly worth a visit.

Most of the permanent pieces in the museum are from one man's personal collection (can't remember his name) He travelled the world collecting tribal wear etc in the 19th century (or early 20th cant quite remember that either...) Any way here is a small selection of pics and you will see why it was a museum that actually held the girls interest for oh about 15 minutes rather than 10....









And now for some of the instruments.





Included in the ticket price was a trip to the top of the tower this is a picture off the harbour and the isles Honorat and St Margaret in the distance. They are supposed to be great for swimming in between as it is really sandy and shallow, loads of people recommended them but we weren't going to hang around for good weather so later that day we motored on past.




As we left the harbour we noticed the end of the breakwater had taken a fair old pounding too.



It looked like a flat calm day and we thought we would just motor on to Monaco or Menton, it was calm, not a breath of air would fill Ali's gennaker no matter which way he pointed the boat, but the sea well it was the rolliest swell we had encountered in a while (but seem to have encountered again a couple of times in the last few weeks) The girls called it spew calm....



We motored on as far as Monaco called them up to see if they had a place (depending on price) but they said no, we did wonder if they could see us and thought 'No way ees zat scruffy leetle yacht coming eento zees arbor' There were helicopters flying around to the helipads at the marina every few minutes and it was a bit of a relief really to have to carry on to Menton.

A couple of shots of Monaco from the sea.





Menton turned out to be a lovely town, we went into Menton Vieux Port saw no one so just tied up in front of the Capitanerie. The next day it took three attempts to get anyone to take any money from us and it turned out to be the cheapest place we had been in for a while and with free internet too. The girls were delighted to be able to get onto Barbie.com once more, and needless to say Ali and I were busy listening to Shetland Radio and blogging etc

Monaco

Whilst Menton is a lovely little town with an old quarter, the usual churches and shops etc we had a yearning to see Monaco. The buses all along the coast of France are only 1 Euro for each stage so we travelled in style!



The Monaco Grand Prix was taking place a week later so there were signs every where for it.



Ali and the girls in the gardens leading down to the casino.



Preparations for the grand prix being put into place right in front of the casino



The casino, obviously we weren't dressed to get in and kids aren't allowed.



Some of the posh cars outside the casino with lots of other tourists wandering around.



The casino from the other side, a very ornate building.



Close up of one of the panels on the building.



This statue is supposed to be Adam and Eve.



For the girls the best bit of Monaco was this grassy slope they found to roll down, only after they had finished did we notice the don't walk on the grass sign.



Even the shopping mall is a bit posh!



I don't think this one needs a caption.

We were going to leave the next day but we ran out of our cube gas nd it was Sunday so we had to stay, we met in with this nice couple Claude and Claude on their boat who actually gave Ali a lift to get some gas but by then the urge to sail had worn off plus they have kids who were playing with our girls and it would have been a shame to tear them away.





When the family had left to go up to their home in the mountains the girls decided to help ALi clean some things around the boat.



Kaylee set about cleaning the fenders whilst Alisha polished 'daddy's chimney.'



We went for a last walk around the promenade, the girls took their bikes, Kaylee got a few funny looks because she decided to cycle in a fairy dress.



The Saga of the By the Wind Sailors

On the day we sailed (motored slowly being thrown around by the swell) from Cannes to Menton it wasn't long until everyone had gone to sleep even Alistair as he gets so frustrated everytime we have to put the engine on he usually retreats to the cabin. At least he hasn't started drowning his sorrows yet as it seems we need the motor for a part of each day now.....

Anyway, I was hanging over the side with my eyes peeled looking for dolphins/sharks/anything at all really when I started seeing little things floating in the water and didn't know what they were. I thought they looked a little like condoms but obviously they couldn't be as there were thousands of them. After a while my curiosity got the better of them and I decided to catch one with the girls net. It was quite easy to reach the sea from the side of the boat as it was pitching and rolling so much in the swell every now and then I came quite close to the water. When I got one I stuck my hand in to get it and came across a rubbery feeling object which I obviously dropped immediately because of what I had origionally thought they were! After looking at it though I reassured myself it definitely was not a condom and had a closer look. It was a down the wind sailor which Ihad seen in one of the girls wildlife books. They are small jelly fish with a sail on top and small tentacles hanging down.

Now I was brimming with excitement of the new discovery and just had to wake up Kaylee to show her. She was as amazed as I and we spent an hour catching sailors, I would cach them then she would pick them out of the net. Kaylee was dying to show Alisha who was sleeping under the spray hood but Alisha just looked at the one being dangled inches from her face, turned over and went back to sleep. Kaylee then ventured down to our cabin with a juicy specimen to show Ali funnily enough he wasn't very impressed either especially when she dropped it..... I got out the pilot book as I remembered it had sealife information and was surprised that it said the tentacles of the by the wind sailor give you a nasty sting, the 'Collins Sea Spotter' hadn't mentioned this at all. I felt no stinging but Kaylee mysteriously started to feel it in her fingers after she heard about the stinging. The pilot book (by Rod Heikell - sailing guru and probable millionaire from pilot book authoring) also rather pretentiously says that these are his favourite floating jelly fish as the curved 'sail' enables them to sail a little up wind and not just be pushed around like all the others - deary me!




The expert jellyfisherwoman!



A closer look.



Another close up, unfortunately by the time we had extracted them from the net we had ripped most of the tentacles off......

A few days later we were travelling from Loano to Genoa we saw this small plane spraying the water.



Then we were motoring through millions of dead looking by the wind sailors.



Just one of the pools of dead jellyfish we ploughed through.

We think that the plane had been spraying the jelly fish to kill or just dissolve them and stop them coming ashore onto the riviera beaches. Jellyfishocide! Maybe they do sting after all.....



Since then we have found that they are just everywhere and would probably accumulate in their billions after a storm like the one there was in that area. Even if the Italians are killing them there is certainly no threat to the species! The girls are getting rather bored of spotting them now just like the swimming crabs of North Western Spain which only lasted as an amusement for about 2 days too! We are hoping to see more than just jelly fish on our travels around the Med!

We are currently in Corsica, Port Toga in Bastia and will be continuing to head South tomorrow.