Camilla Ransom
Sunday
Much of Sunday was spent cleaning the boat from top to bottom inside and out, and umming and ahing about whether we should spend a second night in the marina. Although the wind had dropped the sea in the bay was still very lumpy and we didn’t much fancy leaving the comfort of our berth to anchor. We came up with a dozen very convincing reasons as to why it was best we stay, and went to the marina to pay.
Monday & Tuesday
We had a wonderful nights sleep and woke up feeling very refreshed and ready for our 80 mile passage to La Spezia on the north west coast of Italy. We did a workout in the morning, had lunch, got the boat ready and at 15:00 set off; our ETA showing we should arrive at 09:30 on Tuesday morning. We had a lovely sail (albeit a motor sail – yet again) and 20 hours later we were anchored in the pretty bay of Portovenere, the so-called “jewel of Italy’s Bay Of Poets”. Although the water here is really clean it’s very murky (due to the bottom being sandy mud) so it was impossible to see the anchor. In fact, it was almost impossible to see my hand on an outstretched arm!
Not long after we settled in and got the sunshades up the wind increased up to a lively 20 knots, and remained that way for the rest of the day. Why oh why does it always pick up when we’re stationary?! In the afternoon over a glass of wine we sat down with the pilot book to do a plan for the next few weeks. Roughly the idea is we’ll spend five days in the Cinque Terre, then hop down to Rome via the islands in between the mainland and Corsica. Should be fun!
