Day One - San Vincenzo to Portoferraio

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 went on until the small hours. This is not a great way to start the holiday but unfortunately it just wasn't practical to leave on Friday night. We were the first boat on the pontoon so the party-goers were literally about 20 feet away. 


On Sunday morning all was quiet so we set off - and were blessed with a favourable wind of force 3-4. We had a straight run to Elba on a broad reach with no need for any tacking or even a change of course! It was a beautiful day and a perfect sail to blow away the irritation of our disturbed night. We went into the harbour for a few hours to get something to eat and then headed out into the bay to anchor for the night. This not so much to avoid the charges as in hope of some peace and quiet. 



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