Cruising progress 2017 (Click to enlarge)
Current location using Vessel Finder
30th June 2017
While in Bastia we visited the local museum which is housed in the former Genoese Governor's palace, located in the heart of the Citadel. There is an interesting exhibition dedicated to the city's history. Unfortunately the Cathedral Sainte-Marie of Bastia, also in the Citadel, was closed to the public, which was disappointing as the view from the doorway was very impressive. We cycled around the Old Port which is lined with bars and restaurants and where there is a very crowded and enclosed marina and were glad we'd chosen the one slightly further from the centre of town. This was as much sight-seeing as we were able to pack into one day.
The next morning we headed out of the marina in a flat calm and motored 41nm to Portoferraio on Elba, where we spent the next week catching up with a lot of the outstanding jobs on the to-do list. As we'd been here for a couple of weeks last year and had seen all the sights, we were quite happy to get on with the work, although we did manage to escape for lunch one day. Unfortunately the part ordered for the wind generator controller did not fix the problem so we're still on the temporary repair for the time being.
From Portoferraio we headed over to the Italian mainland and then started our journey south down the coast, anchoring in bays each night. Another consequence of our sail in the strong winds, as well as the wind generator problem, was damage to the bottom outside corner of the mainsail. Mike noticed that the webbing holding the fitting had frayed and one section had completely parted, which meant we couldn't use the sail until it was repaired. Not exactly what we'd expected from one year old sails!
We eventually anchored in Gaeta, where luckily we came across a fellow Scot who has lived there for over twenty years and was able to arrange for the sail to be repaired fairly quickly and delivered back to the boat, so hopefully this will be our last problem for a while. We stayed in Gaeta for ten days as it's a very well protected anchorage and we also discovered we could take the dinghy into the marina every day and fill up our water carriers to keep the tanks topped up. Very handy! One day we walked into the old town and wandered around the narrow streets which climbed up to the citadel and had lovely views out over the Med.
After leaving Gaeta we had a mixture of strong winds and flat calms as we proceeded southwards. Some bays were very pleasant but most gave poor shelter from the swell. The weather also became worse and we had light rain overnight which left everything covered in fine mud. We had hoped to stay in Salerno for a week but couldn't find any space when we arrived. Two French boats arrived at the same time and we criss-crossed the bay trying three different marinas before eventually giving up and heading for a new marina a few miles away, where we did get a berth. Mike fell and badly bruised his leg when getting ashore because the pontoon was covered in fine dried mud. The mud's colour matched the pontoon and it acted like a coating of ball-bearings. A long stay wasn't practical as the marina was in the middle of nowhere and also cost about 100 euros per night. We reluctantly shelved our plans to visit Pompeii and continued down the coast after just an overnight stop.
At least the sailing improved and we also saw a large fin whale close to our bows. Unfortunately its tail went up and it vanished before we could get a picture. Over the next couple of days we also had two sightings of a large turtle swimming past the boat. They were both about 1m long but vanished in our wake before the camera was out.
We are staying in the bay at Sapri for a few days as shelter is reasonable. Unfortunately, the wind switches direction a couple of times every day and we have to move from one side of the bay to the other and back again. A bit of a nuisance but it does keep us away from the worst of the swell.
