Category: Travel 2017

Back on the boat, after our side trip to Florence, we headed 60 miles up the coast to Genoa, first leg of our return our Barcelona. This port city was very different than Florence as it was not dominated by a single family but many competing trading families who built magnificent palazzos. Clearly a city of great wealth.

While the waterfront was heavily damaged during the war, via Garibaldi was essentially untouched and it is beautiful. A visit to the aquarium was a treat with some new species we had never seen before.

On to Imperia, one of the newer mega yacht ports on the coast, then to Monaco where we spent a few days wandering around while Monaco prepared for their annual boat show. The aquarium in Monaco is one of the best in the world, what a treat. Great private auto collection, even visited the zoo. A tour of the famous Casino at Monte Carlo and a great lunch at Cafe de Paris.

Beaulieu was next and served as our base for a couple of road trips. One trip took us to some of the ‘hanging towns’ like Castallar. While there we asked why would this town have been established in the first place. “Well, the Saracens where raiding the coast, so everyone moved to the other side of mountain so they could not be seen. When the raiding stopped, they moved down here as there was no fresh water on the coast.” OK, but why build hanging on this mountainside? Who knows, but its really beautiful.

The gardens at Hanbury and Eze are magnificent, so often these great gardens are built by people who will never have the chance to see then mature. Back on the road, we headed to Cannes and Antibes. Lunch at Eden Rock cost more that a week of food in Spain, but the setting is pretttttty nice. On to pick up some of the wines of Provence before heading back to the boat. From Beaulieu we were within walking distance to the beautiful Cap Ferrat and took advantage of the pathway around the cape.

Next stop on the boat was Beautieu sur Mar next to Saint Tropez, a short bus ride away. On to Toulon that served as our base for a few days as the winds howled. Renting another car, our first stop was Marseillie to pick up Luke Yuan, Dan’s ‘grandson’ who would join us for five days. After a hike to the Basilique Notre Dame, we headed up to Aix-en-Provence with a few stops for wine tasting along the way. The next day we went the other direction and drove back to Saint Tropez.

Continuing east on the boat we next stopped at Port Saint Louis at the mouth of the Rhone River. Next summer our plan is to head up the Rhone to the interior of France to explore the rivers and canals. This gave us a chance to do a little exploring of the Rhone and the Petit Rhone passing thru a lock and looking at docking. While we planned to dock at Arles and get Luke on a train from there, the dockage there was non existent. Back down the Rhone, and on to Carnon that gave us access to the Montpellier train station. After dropping Luke at the train in another rental car, we headed on to Nimes, Arles and Avignon. This area really takes you back in time while standing in a Roman ampitheatre. We look forward to returning to Avignon in the spring. Back on the boat to Sete where we will enter the French river and canal system in the spring taking the Sete Canal to the Petit Rhone to the Rhone.

From Marseille to almost the Spanish border, the coast is a very flat delta and not at all interesting. However, this delta area has some of the largest marinas we have ever seen. Our stop at Gruissan was in a 1,600 boat marina others in the area were up to 3,000 boats. Our Florida marina at Dinner Key has 580 boats and is one of the largest on the east coast.

Back into Spain, our first stop was the town of Roses along the Costa Brava trail. The Costa Brava coastal trail is a series of paths, built by fishermen and the police force who patrolled the coast on the lookout for smugglers, that extend over 200 kilometers. We saw neither smuggler or Corsais but lots of hikers. While in Roses we did not visit the Castillo de la Trinidad but will try to so of that in the spring. Our last stop before Barcelona was Blanes, home of the Jardi Botanic Marimurtra. This was breathtaking beautiful along the lines of the Hanbury Garden. Definitely a stop in the spring.

Finally, back to Barcelona after 3,000 nautical miles and 48 ports of call. Here the boat will get its winter serving while docked at the Club Real Nautica de Barcelona. We did arrive the day before the independence vote in Catalonia and had a front row seat in the demonstrations.

Click on the photo to see the album of this trip

Wow, what a month this was. Leaving Corsica, we had a fine passage to La Spezia, Italy. We had arranged to get a replacement alternator here, a couple of hours after arrival we were good to go again. Our Italian friend, Allesandro acted as our guide while we visited the quarries of Carerra including the Cave di Marmo. On to Colonnata for lunch in the middle of the Lardo festival…yes, there is a festival for everything.

From La Spezia, we headed north up the coast along the Cinque Terre to Camolgia where we anchored up and took the tender in to explore this classic seaside town. That night we picked up a mooring at Cathedral at Fruttuoso. What a night as the wind came up broadside to the swell, like being in a washing machine. Daylight took up to Rapallo were we enjoyed a trip over to Portofino. Back to La Spezia where we dropped off Allesandro and now headed south along the coast.

From Marina de Pisa we took a bus into see the leaning tower, one of our few encounters with America tourists. On to Liverno where we found the most amazing little Cathedral, so many churches, so few parishioners. Moving down the coast, we jumped over to Elba where we enjoyed a night at anchor in Seagliari and a magnificent sunset. Back to the mainland, we headed down to Port Ercole about 70 miles north of Rome. This would be our southernmost port on the Italian coast.

On to the islands, first stop at Giglio, the site of the Costa Concordia shipwreck where the captain hit a reef showing his girlfriend where he grew up. Ten years later they are still cleaning up the mess. From Giglio it was on to Elba for a circumnavigation and a drive around the island. From the sea, the island looks sparsely populated, from the interior it is in fact very developed. Wonderful hikes in the national park and up and down the hills of the medival cities.

On the lovely little island of Capriaia where Marcia inquired about renting a car…..for the whole two miles of roads? A great dinner where we would all in blue.

Returning to the mainland, we stopped at de Medici then on to the boat building capital of Italy, Viareggio. Perini Navi, Codecasa, Benetti and many more mega yacht builders have their operations in this small city. This would be our base for a few days while we explored some inland cities in Tuscany.

Click on photo to see album of this trip.

Sardinia and Corsica are close neighbors but separate by language, Italian and French, and culture. We were lucky enough to have Marcia’s brother Tim and his family join us for part of this trip and our friend Alessandro from Florence also had a chance to spend a week with us.

Our cruising of Sardinia was intentionally limited to the north end of this very large island. If you look at our other posts you will see we took extensive road trips to the rest of the island. Our cruising of Corsica was limited to the west side of the island, where again we took a number of road trips.

The area between Sardinia and Corsica on the east side contains La Maddelena archipelago that is likely the most popular cruising ground in the western Mediterranean. This area including the port of Bonifacio on Corsica and the Costa Smeralda on the west side of Sardinia. It is also one of wealthiest places in the world. Megayachts crowd the waters, I mean 500′ plus yachts….150′ looks like a tender in these waters.

It was hot during our stay on the islands and we found the number of good anchorages for us to be limited by the winds and swells, often at odds with each other. Fortunately, we were able to find dockage when required without too much hassle.

Our observation is that there are few ‘cruising yachts’ in these waters and certainly no Americans. Most boats seem to select a ‘home base’ harbor and day trip or perhaps take a short ‘around the island’ type cruise. There is none of the warmth among boats that we are used to cruising the US and Canada, it’s hard to solicit a ‘bonjour or buongiorno’.

The waters are very salty, crystal clear and 75 degree warm. However, there is very little to see when snorkeling. Recreational fishing is almost unknown. Aqua-farming including mussels is quite extensive as are local gill nets, shrimp and lobster traps.

Most of the boats, outside of mega yacht haven are either sail boats, RIB outboards of every size or 12-20 meter power boats with only two speeds…off and full throttle. Boating etiquette is minimal with water skiing in mooring areas and power boat wakes without concern. Alternatively, they know how to anchor and dock their boats.

Click on photo to see album of this trip

Previously we have toured the main island of Mallorca by car and by boat. We are now returning to spend time on the smaller islands of Formentara, Ibiza and Menorca before heading east to Sardina.

While Mallorca was much like the coast of Spain with large settlements of British and Germans, each of the smaller islands has a unique personality.

Formentara is the smallest and has a  port at La Savina where ferries from Mallorca arrive every 10 minutes scooter rentals dominate the scene. The beaches are great as are the several anchorages.

Ibiza is party central. It’s all motor boats and booze in the larger cities of Ibiza and San Antonio. On advice from locals, we passed on both of these and spent our time in Santa Eulalia that we loved. Dockage was stern to the seawall right in the middle of town vs being on a pontoon is a monster marina. Walked and biked around the area that is kind of upscale with lovely small calas (bays) with crystal clear water.

On to Mallorca, we stopped again at Andraxt and enjoyed it as much as we did on previous visits. This place has to have the highest ratio of real estate agents to residents, storefronts or any measure you can imagine. Moving on up the north coast, we passed by Soller where we stayed last time and selected an anchorage in a the beautiful Sant Vincente.

On to Menorca, what a treat this place is. It is just the opposite from Ibiza – all sailboats vs all power boats, anchorages vs. marinas, beautiful small communities vs party all night cities. Port Ciutadell is a real treasure where we enjoyed several days. While we intended to go up the north coast, the weather suggested otherwise so it was east along the south coast. Beautiful anchorage as Galbana and and Cala Porte. On to Mahon where we planned to fuel up and make the 200 mile run to Sardina. A few days in town for the weather to calm down, a nice drive around the island….this island is as good as it gets.

Before heading to Sardina, we wanted to make sure all systems were go. Dan had been unhappy with the way the house electrical system had been acting and also unhappy with the water maker that kept shutting down. After a number of attempts to arrange assistance in Mahon – ‘no problem two weeks’ – we made the decision to head back to Barcelona where we could count on Jose to assemble a team for us. It was nice to be back to our second home in Barcelona, be welcome at the Real Club Nautico de Barcelona, and have Jose on the boat two hours after we arrived. It turns out there was no one piece of failed equipement, except for the washing machine. Every one of the problems had to do with a switch, a setting, a tightening, a purging…..no matter how well Dan thinks we knows this boat, it keeps coming up with surprises. Now we will sprint back to Mahon, 130 miles, and then on to Sardina, 200 miles.

Here is the link to Sailing Yacht A, pictured below. We ran across her anchored up in a cove on the south shore of Ibiza where she is in the midst of sea trials.

Click on photo to see the album for this trip

Our first month on True East in Europe has been completed without any major mishaps.True East was transported on a ship named Industrial Guide that left Ft Lauderdale May 12 and arrived in Palma on May 27.

She was unloaded on May 29 and we docked at the Pantalon Marina in the center of Palma. This is a megayacht marina but the only space we could arrange. We ended up between two sailboat – 120′ and and 160′. We could have been the tender for most of these yachts. This gave us a chance to try our Med mooring, look at the shore power and water connections, and figure out our arrangements to get on and off the boat. We determined that our pricey passarelle from Slovenia doesn’t work half as well as backing the tender up close to the dock and just walking across the seat!

We waited out the weather for a couple of days continuing our tour of Mallorca by land. On the 31st, we headed out with Port Andraxt as our designation. We had visited the Port by land, looked forward to returning and we not disappointed. We had made an on-line reservation and all went smoothly. Next stop was Soller, a port we had not visited by land. Again, a relatively high end resort community with lots of Germans and Brits. From there, a wonderfully smooth crossing to Barcelona where we moored at the Real Club Nautico de Barcelona where we are new members.

After a quick return to Miami to get our resident visas attached to our passports, we return to Barcelona where Carla will meet us and join us on the next leg of our travels that would take us south on the Spanish coast to Cartagna. Our ports of call along the coast included Tarragona, Vinaros, Valencia, Denia, Alicante, Cartagna and Moraira a distance of about 350 miles.

This area lies within the Costa del Azahar and Costa Blanca. The water front along these areas is heavy developed with mid rise residential properties catering to primarily British visitors and ex-pat residents. The cities are all very walkable with a zillion cafes with great food, wine and cana (a small beer). They range from quite upscale like Moraira to very budget conscious Denia for British and German visitors. Many have Roman ruins, great fortresses and cathedrals. Enjoy the pictures. We stumbled into one of the major festivals in this part of Spain when we arrived in Alicante, the Fogueres de Sant Joan. A week long celebration with several hundred thousand people eating, dressing up, drinking, dancing and building these amazing fantasy displays that are set on fire at the end of festival. Here is a separate set of photos of these amazing displays.

The marinas are primarily man made with massive breakwaters and hundreds of boats. So far, we have had not language problems with everyone being most helpful. This is not an area that cruiser seem to travel. The few cruising boat we have seen were primarily Brits coming in from Gibralter on their way to Greece. No-one seems particularly interested in who we are or what we are doing here, although we have meet a wonderful Belgian family and an Australian-Irish couple.

The weather has been generally hot and miserable if there is no shade or breeze. The winds tend to be from the east with calm nights and the wind coming up in the afternoon. On several occasions we have staying in port for 3-4 days waiting for the sea to calm down.

Fuel is expensive relative to current US prices, about $4.50/gallon but much better than it was when oil was $100/barrel. Dockage varies from very reasonable to very expensive. So far we have not had trouble finding dockage, a mooring ball or an good anchorage. Expect that will change as we head to the more popular areas and at the height of the summer boating season.

The last leg of this trip takes us back to the Baleric Islands with Ibiza as the first stop.

You can check our progress on AIS also, click on this link for the latest position.

Click on the photo to see the album of this trip