As we were getting ready to set off from Genoa I met Dennis in the harbour whom we had seen before, he had just arrived and informed me 'Ooh there's a big sea running out there, I would stay another night if I were you.' Not what I wanted to hear when I knew there was no way we would be staying another night at those prices. Sure enough Dennis was right, there was a big sea running and no wind so we rolled around like a little toy boat the whole fifteen miles to our destination. It was the rolliest swell I think we have ever been out in without any wind, the boat was lurching violently through at least 65 - 70 degrees. I had to hold on to Kaylee and Alisha sat down in the cockpit to try and stay safe. Boy were we glad when we rounded this headland!
We were heading for an anchorage near Porto Fino so we nipped in there for a quick look around on the way in.
Porto Fino Harbour
We certainly weren't going to go for a berth there as we had just met a man in Genoa who had paid 128 Euros for a night in a boat smaller than ours. It is supposed to be an exclusive retreat of the rich and famous (Madonna, Sting and Elizabeth Taylor amongst others have all spent some time there) and I think they keep it exclusive by pricing the like of us out of the harbour!
Islay Mist anchored at Santa Margherita Ligure.
We were a bit worried about anchoring as we thought the swell would be rolling right into the place we had earmarked but they are extending the breakwater so it was lovely and calm, that night.....
The next day we went ashore for a little exploration. We stopped for a coffee in what we found to be the local fishermens cafe and we found them all to be having a glass of 'Frizzante' along with their coffees and thought we had better do likewise even though it was only 11 am, 'when in Rome' and all that!
Santa Margherita Harbour
Ali's perfect touristy day a new breakwater being constructed that he could inspect and criticise and look at all the machinery and........
The war memorial with a piece o an Italian war plane for added poignancy.
We found some old lanes to explore with the girls and they picked flowers to press.
One of the kirks with robed minister outside after a wedding.
With their flowers, all weeds which you can get back home but it keeps them happy.
In the old gardens behind the church. A very nice wee walk.
Old fort on the seafront.
Me on the internet after consuming some more 'Frizzante' with dinner. The worst part of that evening was the swell changed direction and started rolling into the harbour, Ali and I had consumed a little too much cheap fizzy wine to move the boat and so the end result was a feeling of sea sickness, not an awe inspiring Italian evening!
Needless to say the next day started a little slowly or so we thought. The little clock in our cabin said it was eleven o'clock before I finally roused myself to make the Sunday morning pancake batter with the girls. We were feeling like terribly bad parents as we had let them run riot around the boat until this point. We went into town and it was only when we got back at tea time that we realised someone had put the time on our bedroom clock back by three hours and I had gotten up at eight! What time the little rats were up I don't want to know. At least we could redeem ourselves in the parenting dept!
Some pics from that day...
There was some boat racing in the bay.
The welcome sign to Santa Margherita Ligure 'Environmentally Superior Quality Territory!' That is quite a statement and we wondered exactly what qualified the town to be able to make it, we did find grotty bits in amongst the general opulence!
We spent another night rolling around in the swell so it was definitly time to set off the next morning for Spezia bay. We circled the bay to say bye to Dennis and Sadie who had turned up at the anchorage the day before. Ali got the sails up and we tacked back and forth for about an hour and only having made about two miles progress in the direction we wanted the engine went on. Thank goodness or it would have taken all day and night to go the thirty or so miles.
The first thing we spotted was this plane doing practice runs for forest fire fighting.
Scooping up the water.
Then letting it go again. It was lucky they did this at least ten times as it took me that long to get even a half decent picture!
Lunch on deck.
Alisha's first top tooth came out that day, now she talks with a lisp and gets very annoyed if we take the mickey.
One of the villages in the famous 'Cinque Terre' region. This was also the day we saw the dead pig but I don't think you need to see another picture of that! We think he maybe fell from one of these high hillsides. The region is protected but apparently they Natural Heritage group that oversees it let people have a farm plot if they promise to tend the land the old fashioned way as it is all going to slip into the sea if the terraces aren't restored.
This is the entrance to Spezia between Porto Venere and an island, it doesn't look navigable from the outside and it does get very shallow at one point...
But as you can see it is quite OK looking from the other side. It is also a very pretty passage and it makes you realise how lucky you are to be able to sail (motor) under medieval castles through narrow passages that the like of Byron sailed.
That was Porto Venere we didn't stay there as the anchorage was too deep and the marina too expensive so we went across the bay to Lerici, a place famous for being where Lord Byron, Mary and Percy Shelley spent many holidays and it is also this harbour Percy Shelley set of on a doomed yacht trip from that led to his death.
Nowadays not being filled with aristocratic, womanising authors Lerici is a pleasant little harbour with lots of sporting type activity and cafes and restaurants.
Here is the water polo tam practising, a sport we had never seen live before. Looks like quite good fun.
We had a pretty bad night that night, we had anchored just outside of all the moored boats and it was fairly swelly. The swell died down a little at around 5am and after an hours blissful sleep we were awakened by two fishermen knocking on the boat telling us we were in a prohibited area. We hadn't realised the four tiny buoys were anything more than moorings or creels and we were well away from them, right in the middle... Anyway we re anchored a bit further out back in the swell again and tried to get a little more sleep. There was a knock on the boat about an hour later, two blokes in a boat again. What now? we wondered They had come to return our dinghy which they said had floated out nearly past the breakwater. We thanked them profusely and gave them a bottle of wine! Later we did wonder how it had escaped, luckily it wasn't me who had tied it up or there would have been no reason to suspect anything other than dodgy knot tying. It just all seemed a little suspect. Anyway it was a cheap bottle of wine and maybe one of Super Ali's knots had come undone but now we make sure the dinghy is very securely tied up at nights!
Lerici castle over looking the harbour.
The girls spent 5 minutes or (4 Euros) throwing themselves off the top of the bouncy slide.
Painting of the harbour in times gone by with fire breathing dragon on top of the castle!
The marina where we had decanted the boat to from the top of the castle.
Lerici turned out to be quite a nice place, nice atmosphere (except for one extremely rude barman, nasty nasty man but we will not waste time remembering him!) but we decided we had to leave the next morning as there is a schedule to stick to!
We got ready for an early start only to be delayed by an impromptu police check. Ali was getting a little annoyed as they kept going off to answer their phones I said, "don't get shirty it is the Italian police remember!" In the end they let us go off without finishing looking at everything so they couldn't have been that concerned.
Ali glaring at the policeman whilst his boss is on the phone again.
you can see pics of that next time!
We were heading for an anchorage near Porto Fino so we nipped in there for a quick look around on the way in.
Porto Fino Harbour
We certainly weren't going to go for a berth there as we had just met a man in Genoa who had paid 128 Euros for a night in a boat smaller than ours. It is supposed to be an exclusive retreat of the rich and famous (Madonna, Sting and Elizabeth Taylor amongst others have all spent some time there) and I think they keep it exclusive by pricing the like of us out of the harbour!
Islay Mist anchored at Santa Margherita Ligure.
We were a bit worried about anchoring as we thought the swell would be rolling right into the place we had earmarked but they are extending the breakwater so it was lovely and calm, that night.....
The next day we went ashore for a little exploration. We stopped for a coffee in what we found to be the local fishermens cafe and we found them all to be having a glass of 'Frizzante' along with their coffees and thought we had better do likewise even though it was only 11 am, 'when in Rome' and all that!
Santa Margherita Harbour
Ali's perfect touristy day a new breakwater being constructed that he could inspect and criticise and look at all the machinery and........
The war memorial with a piece o an Italian war plane for added poignancy.
We found some old lanes to explore with the girls and they picked flowers to press.
One of the kirks with robed minister outside after a wedding.
With their flowers, all weeds which you can get back home but it keeps them happy.
In the old gardens behind the church. A very nice wee walk.
Old fort on the seafront.
Me on the internet after consuming some more 'Frizzante' with dinner. The worst part of that evening was the swell changed direction and started rolling into the harbour, Ali and I had consumed a little too much cheap fizzy wine to move the boat and so the end result was a feeling of sea sickness, not an awe inspiring Italian evening!
Needless to say the next day started a little slowly or so we thought. The little clock in our cabin said it was eleven o'clock before I finally roused myself to make the Sunday morning pancake batter with the girls. We were feeling like terribly bad parents as we had let them run riot around the boat until this point. We went into town and it was only when we got back at tea time that we realised someone had put the time on our bedroom clock back by three hours and I had gotten up at eight! What time the little rats were up I don't want to know. At least we could redeem ourselves in the parenting dept!
Some pics from that day...
There was some boat racing in the bay.
The welcome sign to Santa Margherita Ligure 'Environmentally Superior Quality Territory!' That is quite a statement and we wondered exactly what qualified the town to be able to make it, we did find grotty bits in amongst the general opulence!
We spent another night rolling around in the swell so it was definitly time to set off the next morning for Spezia bay. We circled the bay to say bye to Dennis and Sadie who had turned up at the anchorage the day before. Ali got the sails up and we tacked back and forth for about an hour and only having made about two miles progress in the direction we wanted the engine went on. Thank goodness or it would have taken all day and night to go the thirty or so miles.
The first thing we spotted was this plane doing practice runs for forest fire fighting.
Scooping up the water.
Then letting it go again. It was lucky they did this at least ten times as it took me that long to get even a half decent picture!
Lunch on deck.
Alisha's first top tooth came out that day, now she talks with a lisp and gets very annoyed if we take the mickey.
One of the villages in the famous 'Cinque Terre' region. This was also the day we saw the dead pig but I don't think you need to see another picture of that! We think he maybe fell from one of these high hillsides. The region is protected but apparently they Natural Heritage group that oversees it let people have a farm plot if they promise to tend the land the old fashioned way as it is all going to slip into the sea if the terraces aren't restored.
This is the entrance to Spezia between Porto Venere and an island, it doesn't look navigable from the outside and it does get very shallow at one point...
But as you can see it is quite OK looking from the other side. It is also a very pretty passage and it makes you realise how lucky you are to be able to sail (motor) under medieval castles through narrow passages that the like of Byron sailed.
That was Porto Venere we didn't stay there as the anchorage was too deep and the marina too expensive so we went across the bay to Lerici, a place famous for being where Lord Byron, Mary and Percy Shelley spent many holidays and it is also this harbour Percy Shelley set of on a doomed yacht trip from that led to his death.
Nowadays not being filled with aristocratic, womanising authors Lerici is a pleasant little harbour with lots of sporting type activity and cafes and restaurants.
Here is the water polo tam practising, a sport we had never seen live before. Looks like quite good fun.
We had a pretty bad night that night, we had anchored just outside of all the moored boats and it was fairly swelly. The swell died down a little at around 5am and after an hours blissful sleep we were awakened by two fishermen knocking on the boat telling us we were in a prohibited area. We hadn't realised the four tiny buoys were anything more than moorings or creels and we were well away from them, right in the middle... Anyway we re anchored a bit further out back in the swell again and tried to get a little more sleep. There was a knock on the boat about an hour later, two blokes in a boat again. What now? we wondered They had come to return our dinghy which they said had floated out nearly past the breakwater. We thanked them profusely and gave them a bottle of wine! Later we did wonder how it had escaped, luckily it wasn't me who had tied it up or there would have been no reason to suspect anything other than dodgy knot tying. It just all seemed a little suspect. Anyway it was a cheap bottle of wine and maybe one of Super Ali's knots had come undone but now we make sure the dinghy is very securely tied up at nights!
Lerici castle over looking the harbour.
The girls spent 5 minutes or (4 Euros) throwing themselves off the top of the bouncy slide.
Painting of the harbour in times gone by with fire breathing dragon on top of the castle!
The marina where we had decanted the boat to from the top of the castle.
Lerici turned out to be quite a nice place, nice atmosphere (except for one extremely rude barman, nasty nasty man but we will not waste time remembering him!) but we decided we had to leave the next morning as there is a schedule to stick to!
We got ready for an early start only to be delayed by an impromptu police check. Ali was getting a little annoyed as they kept going off to answer their phones I said, "don't get shirty it is the Italian police remember!" In the end they let us go off without finishing looking at everything so they couldn't have been that concerned.
Ali glaring at the policeman whilst his boss is on the phone again.
you can see pics of that next time!
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