Stramala - Italy 2017

After a nice quiet night at anchor we relayed into town for a look around and a coffee. We found a place that sold cooked food to take away - so we invested in some for lunch on the boat as we prepared for our voyage back to home base. Irritatingly, on the last dinghy voyage to pick up Peter from the quay, the outboard ran out of fuel. I had dispensed with the oars on the grounds that took up too much of what little space there is - and so was reduced to hanging over the front and paddling with my hands! Peter managed to persuade a nice fellow on the quay with a much larger dinghy to rescue me, which he duly did and then towed us back to Stramala. On the whole we intrepid sailors help each other out - but I am cross with myself. I do this every year and it is just laziness - not checking the fuel level in the morning. I resolve to iron out this tedious error!  We set off for San Vincenzo in a very fresh wind - too fresh to set sail immediately - gusting at 27 knots. The ...

Important to note that all these places called 'Marina' are not marinas as in places to keep boats - it is the equivalent of 'on sea' in Italy! Some of them have marinas - but not necessarily. All clear? Today is our 32nd wedding anniversary - so well done us. Because of the time of year, we have been away for a few anniversaries - but this has to be one of the best locations we can remember. It is an added bonus to be in the company of my oldest friend Peter and his lovely wife Lizzie. We have such a laugh together.  After a final coffee in M di C (at which we goofed by not realising that in Italy Latte is just hot milk - no cofffee!) we unhooked our electric cable, patronised the shower hut and departed. We set sail as soon as we were beyond the breakwater and headed for a small cove with a beach called Fetovaia. This is last place to stop on the South coast of the Island if you are going clockwise. Rod promised restaurants and bars - and that was good enough for ...

So we thought long and hard - and decided to stay and enjoy this place. We went ashore in the toy boat to negotiate with the port authorities. Here in Elba, the somewhat arrogant British assumption that everyone speaks our language has broken down. Here almost nobody speaks English - including the people on the other end of VHF Channel 9. No Italian, no berth - it's that simple. However, these guys seemed keen to help so after a bit of pointing at Google translate on i-Phone we were getting there - and then they spotted one of the restaurant owners on the quay who spoke English. The upshot was that there are five spots for visitors, stern on to the breakwater and three were already taken. So Peter and I beetled back to the boat in the pudding bowl and weighed anchor. With two crew members ashore to receive stern lines this was an easier operation than it sometimes is - but it left the local who earns tips from catching them a bit put out! We completed our business with t...

In the morning we headed back into town for an early lunch and a wander around. We found an interesting artisan pottery - but it's just too hard to get anything home safely. In the end we set off around 3pm to continue our clockwise circumnavigation of Elba. We set sail immediately upon weighing anchor - and apart from a moment heading out of the bay when the wind inexplicably dropped to 0.1 knots - we sailed all 17 nautical miles to Marina di Campo despite the wind being predominately against us. When we got out to see it was initially gusting at about 20 knots - but then settled down at around 10-12 - which made for perfect sailing, good progress without spilling the drinks!  I have to say, this was one of the best sails we have ever had on these holidays. The Sun Odyssey points well into the wind so you can actually make respectable progress over ground. I remember the ghastly Bavaria we had in Croatia one year when you really could not get anywhere at all against the win...

We had a fairly quiet night - the wind was gusting at over 20 knots in the evening but it soon dropped away. In the morning we discovered there was a route through to the road near the supermarket from a derelict site not far from our anchorage, so we mounted a couple of expeditions to the Coop for provisions. Portoferraio is a nice place and Rod (author of the pilot book) is a big fan - but the drawback is the smell from the ferry fumes. If you are downwind of the ferry terminal it really is quite unpleasant, which rather spoils a beautiful spot.  We set off late morning - motoring at first - because of a strong wind against us but more because of the numerous and very large ferries passing in both directions. That particular stretch of water on the approach to Portoferraio is worse than the Solent! The seas were quite heavy and we slamming through the swell. Once we rounded the headland we changed course and were able to get our sails up. The character of the sea seemed to c...

We flew out to Pisa on Friday night and stayed in a nice old fashioned hotel within walking distance of the centre. On Saturday morning we went off to do the obvious thing and check on the leaning tower. It was still leaning, so we adjourned for a long lunch! We had arranged a car to take us to San Vincenzo in the afternoon.  We duly arrived at the marina and took charge of Stramala - a fairly new Sun Odyssey 33i. It's a lot smaller than we usually go for -  but it has a good layout in that the aft cabin is the whole width of the boat as opposed to being divided into two. It was a bit of a struggle finding space for everything but gradually it was all absorbed. We went to buy provisions and had a meal in one of the marina restaurants which was packed out and the service was super slow. We realised that we had not yet got into holiday mode and were still living life against the clock! We went to bed - but Saturday night in a popular marina is not the place to be. The noise we...