Day Six - Marciana Marina to San Vincenzo

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 crew are not always keen to embrace challenging weather and there was mutiny in the air! After an hour or so, I decided that the wind had moderated a little, so we hoisted the main with a reef and unfurled about half of the jib. This was ample for swift progress and we managed to sail the rest of the way back. As we neared San Vincenzo the wind dropped to a much more comfortable 10-15 knots and we were able to increase sail. 

Then we were into the last rites of a sailing holiday - a visit to the fuel dock and making contact with the charter company, nervously waiting to see in what kind of a state their pride and joy will return. We had only used about 23 euros of fuel, which shows just how much we were able to sail on this holiday. Andreas and the guys from the unpromisingly named Dufi Sail Charter looked mighty relieved when all appeared to be in one piece and there was much hand shaking and expansive gesturing. 

Sadly, the last act of the holiday was to endure another night from hell in the marina. San Vincenzo is easily the worst marina we have ever visited in terms of noise. The music and general partying goes on well past 3am and this time, to top things off, we had a full-on Italian screaming match at 4am just on the other side of the pontoon gate. I got up to see if any kind of intervention was possible (was reminded of Sergeant Wilson - "Do you think that's altogether wise Sir?") but the only thing to do was to wait for it to end, which it did, eventually. It seemed to us that the marina authorities really should do something to control the noise levels and move people on at a reasonable hour. Part of the issue is that the marina has been created by building an artificial breakwater and it is situated right in the middle of the town seafront. Often marinas are a little way out of town and that helps limit the late night action. So when the Dufi chaps were saying they hoped we would come back and charter again, this is the main reason why we probably won't. 

The Tuscan Islands are fabulous - well Elba is anyway. I wish we had time to see at least one of the others but they are all quite spread out. This time we were determined not to be too ambitious with the sailing distances and then have a frantic dash on the last day and a half to get back. We struck a slightly different balance between enjoying the places we visited and travelling between them - and I think we all felt it was an improvement.