Fri 31 Aug

We didn’t much fancy forking out another 45 euros to visit the next Cinque Terre town so we decided to sail up to Corniglia (6NM away) which had mooring buoys for the boat. After doing a short workout on deck (not the easiest in a swell) we upped anchor (which got me covered in mud!) and motored out through the narrow passage between Porto Venere and its neighbouring island.

The forecast told of a calm sea and 10 knots of wind so we were looking forward to a nice sail. What greeted us though was a hefty 2.5 meter swell and zero wind. Sigh. We battled through the sea for about 15 minutes but were going nowhere so we decided to turn back and try again tomorrow. It’d take us hours and picking up a mooring would be difficult, to put it mildly.

We rocketed back through the passage and into the calm waters of the bay. On checking the forecast again we saw the wind was supposed to pick up from the NE for the remainder of the day and night, which would blow right into where we were. We thought we’d find better shelter on the opposite side of La Spezia so motored across to check the scene over there. It wasn’t any better; there was little wind but it was very rolly. Back across we went but this time headed for La Grazie, the anchorage next door to where we’d been. We anchored up, had lunch and went for a walk.

It’s a funny place this town. There are exactly two tourists (me and Tom), a lot of houses, a huge (deserted) boat yard, a few shops, two restaurants and three (constantly bickering) donkeys. As we walked along the road we saw a steep set of steps leading up onto the hillside. It looked like a pretty path so we headed up, still carrying our big blue bag of plastic which we’d failed so far to find a recycling bin for. The path went on and on and got steeper, narrower and rockier as we ascended. Would it ever end!? Eventually we reached the top, had a much needed sit down then started our descent. We stopped off for a beer at the bottom then staggered with Elvis legs back to the dinghy.

You know I said yesterday it seems like we can either choose a calm sea or a peaceful, quiet anchorage? Well tonight there’s veeeeeery loud live music onshore, but the water is like a mirror. 🙂 Oh, and there’s no wind.