List of Flicka Blogs

Jul 29

Written by:
7/29/2009 1:31 PM 

I am now facing a big back-log of emails to read and reply to and a lot of work related problems and tasks to try and understand and fix so work on the Flicka site will be on the back burner for now.

We had a super cruise on the Italian coast which was lovely but difficult at times. Italy is not set up for cruising sailors in the way that France is. There is often no effort made to cater for passing small yachts. And it seems the Italians do no cruise as much as the French by any means. Often it is just weekenders and day sailors out there. Anchorages are often empty by nightfall which is rare in France.  Finding the internet in Italian marinas is practically impossible so my intention to blog regularly on route was scuppered from day one.  Marinas were often absurdly over-priced. For example, we paid one fee of €62 at Rapallo, two around €40 and many at €20-30. In each of these places there was nothing to warrant the price and often less for the money than at other cheaper places. For example, at Rapallo for €62 we got nothing apart from a berth with showers, electric and water, at Alassio we paid €13 and in Maccinagio on Corsica on the way home we paid €17 a night and got free wi-fi thrown in.  We concluded that it just came down to someone’s idea of what a berth was worth.

For us the highlights were Elba, the bay of poets (Portovenere, La Spezia and Lerici etc – where Shelley drowned on his way back from Livorno) and Genoa. The compensations were the very good value and excellent food, the cheap food in supermarkets and the lovely small towns with beautifully painted buildings. We also enjoyed Monaco, Menton and the two nights at Maccinagio waiting for a window to cross back to the mainland from Corsica. We had a lovely €15 set meal of soupe de poissions followed by entrecote cooked in local wild ‘maquis’ herbs followed by apple tart.

We also saw a lot of dolphins on route home. One pod playing with us for a good half an hour with one dolphin leaping out four times in a row.

When we arrived back in Cannes with a day to sort the boat out we expected that my reserved berth would be available to us but were told that they would never have promised us a berth in the high season!  Oh how I wished I’d got something in writing!  For me this was typical French high season behaviour and something I should have been better prepared for and expected. When things are quiet they are all smiles and can-do promises. When things are frantic (they forget this is coming in the spring) they become moody and unhelpful and disinterested and forget everything they said was ‘no problem’ in the low season.  We were told we had three nights and had to leave after that. We had a day to find a solution before we had to fly home. I spent all morning the next day calling other marinas and trying to find a berth. “C’est pas possible” was the immediate response from everywhere I tried.  Eventually we went back to the Cannes office and told them we were stuck and that it was their fault we were in this mess and they had to give us three weeks to find a solution.  Finally, when they realised we weren’t going anywhere they relented and ‘allowed’ us to stay until the 18th August. So I have to fly back and move her somewhere on that date.

This issue has not been a problem in the last few seasons as I have had a mooring in Fornells, Minorca kindly provided by friends at Minorca Sailing and other occasions I have been on board and able to keep moving. It’s no problem when you just want to stay a night and then go back out and anchor. But finding a berth for any period longer than a few days in the med is impossible in July and August.

This has started to force my hand on the idea of moving the boat back to the UK and then finding a new home for her; perhaps the Baltic. On this trip we put on over 100 hours on the engine but sailed only about 5 hours!  The med really is impossible in the summer and what’s more it’s ruined by power boats that create horrendous wash making sailing impossible and hideous and ruining the best anchorages with their pollution, noise and slop. There is also the blistering heat which we’ve had enough of. What’s the fun in motoring all day in blazing windless sunshine?  The anchorages may be lovely but with no sailing it’s pretty depressing cruising.  So this will probably be the last summer for the Caraway in the med. I am looking at haulage options and hope to have something sorted in the next few weeks.

More to follow when I have a little more time and have got through the back log.

Good to see the latest news though, Snookums arrived safely in Hawaii so congrats to Coby and a Flicka build kit will soon be available (more on this later) from a company in South Africa.

Web Captain