Tuscany and then voyages to the Baliarics
Tuscany and then voyages to the Baliarics
Sitting here in Granny Valerie's garden in Tuscany, just had lunch, Johnie inside doing the washing up, girls playing babies in the tent, well 2 of them, Imy reading one of her new books! We have had a fabulous week here, couldn't have been better. Ben Libby and the cousins have been with us and the kids have played and played, making up for lost time over the past few months. The weather has been fabulous and the pool(s) and villas gorgious. Lots of wonderful food and wine, kids have been making pizzas with Granny in her huge kitchen and icecream, in between their swimming, fruit picking and adventure walks. Every day the kids would race to the chicken run to see if they had laid any eggs, on average there were about 3 eggs, freshly laid, but by the time they had got back to the kitchen only one egg was still unbroken. Tom and Tallulah spent a day making a nest and trying to make the egg hatch, they did everything except sit on it themselves. It couldn't be more different from our life on the boat (well, apart from the swimming of course). Sienna has just mastered swimming without armbands too which was inevitable because she was so ready, but I'm not sure she'll be ready to swim from the boat without them.
The things that I have appreciated so much about here have been the endless supply of water, being able to run the tap without thinking, making washing up a pleasure! The dishwasher of course has been great although after a week of about 12 of us I'm quite looking forward to seeing the back of it. The washing machine is the other thing, as we arrived here with bags and bags of laundry, due to no water maker for the past month and launderettes have been few and far between so I've been saving up the washing till be got here and I think finally after day 7 I have got to the end of it all!!
While we are here, only for a few more days, the boat is lying in a very smart new shi shi Italian marina, costing us about 100 euro a night, but as we didn't have to pay for any flights or accommodation it has been worth every penny.
It was great to see Ben (although he only could stay for a few nights) and Lib and the kids, really great to catch up. The girls had a great shopping spree in Lucca, resulting in Lib buying the inevitable handbag and me doing rather well with 4 bikinis and a pair of shoes (what else could I buy) the shops were full of winter coats and boots no summer clothes anywhere I was very lucky to find any bikinis. My last treat is to be Tuesday morning before we leave when I am getting my hair cut which seeing as it hasn't been done since May is rather needed.
Johnies aunty Becca and Rooc and Spike aso came out. They were great with the girls and as always it was absoluterly fabulous to see Becca.
10 days here has been lovely, we have all appreciated the lovely clean sheets, baths, running in the garden, spending time with family etc. etc. but I think we are nearly ready, can't believe I'm thinking this but we are ready to go back to our life of the boat. The school work has all been delivered and we have one very large box of files to take with us, and I don't know whether the girls feel the same but I'm quite looking forward to starting school. Imy is year 3 and Tallulah year 1 (I hope it's not too hard for me!!!) Johnie gets to do the tricky stuff with Imy. Tallulah surprisingly is the easy one to teach she is so enthusiastic and eager to please and usually gets it quite easily. Reading is getting there with her but she hasn't quite grasped it yet. Imy on the other hand can't stop reading, she litrally read every book on the boat. Granny fortunately bought plenty of books out with her which should keep her going for a bit.
Our plans from here are, to leave on Tuesday (after my hair appointment!) go back to the boat, where hopefully we find her with a working water maker and the other little electrical problems sorted out. Then we need to fill her up with food and shoot off. We are hoping Jeremy, Johnie's dad is going to join us for the leg accross to Majorca, whether he joins us in Italy or on our way through Corsica is not yet decided. But I very much want him to come as it will take us 2 days to get to Majorca, and 2 nights watch just Johnie and I will be hard work, possible but hard, especially when we have to entertain the girls all day, we can't just sleep, so having another bod aboard wil make a big difference.
Once in the Ballearics we hope to see a bit of it, hopefully a few people may catch up with us there, And then we must crack on past Spain, not stopping too much as we have to get to Gibralter and on before it gets too late. Dad is coming to help us do the next bit from Gib to Cannaries which is about 5 days. So lots of sailing ahead of us. All of which is fine as long as the weather is kind we like to pick our weather and go when its nice and light we don't like big seas and windy nights, we try to avoid them if we can. Johnie knows that if we have too much of the nasty stuff Sophie will be packing her bags and be on the next plane home, we have only had a few close calls so far but it won't take much more.
Italy to the Baliarics via, Elba and Corsica. Over 400 nm miles in a week.
We set ourselves quite a tight schedual to get out of italy and across to the Baliarics. Popops ( Johnies dad came to join the trip.) We had a pretty uneventful sail to elba, followed by the 93 nautical mile trip to South Corsica. We had very little wind for this section and as we motored along we saw a school of 20 Dolphin which instead of joining us for some fun, all suddenly jumped about three feet in the air and shot off. Sophie said something bigger must have caused it. We looked around and then saw a whale, spouting water. we got about 40 feet from it when we realized that it was about 30 feet long, there was great excitement on board as we spent quite abitof time cruising along with the whale. Imy identified it as a sperm Whale and we all looked up as much info about it as possible in the animal & sea books. The main point being that they were exptreamly rare in the area that we were in. It was such a high for all the girls and the grown ups too. It finally left us with a swish of its tale and we headed off to Corsica.
Once in Corsica, we went to Rondanara bay and met up with our friends from Lazy Otter, (by chance Jim and Graine Sophie parant were on a cruiser rally with the Lazy Otter parent in the Hamble on the same evening). We all wnet ashore for one of our most expensive nights out ever, as Dad left his wallet on the table stuffed with Cash. The next day the waiter swore he had put the wallet and cash into the bin, without realizing what it was. There followed and empting out of all the resturant bins in a huge skip, which was very smell and dirty in the heat. Funnily enough we didn't find the wallet or money. Some tip!!!!
We left Rondanara determind to got through the straights of Bonafacio and on to the Baliarics. However despite a smooth passage through Bonafacio (it normally blows like stink) we faced wind on the nose and big black clouds with thunder rummbling. We descided that we were fair weather sailors and put in to port Apollo to wait for a easterly wind to spirit us across the sea.
We set off from Corsica at 4 am, and arrived in the Baliarics 33 hrs later. We had a good passage and having dad on board was great as he did the grave yard slot. During day light we didn't see a single boat but at night the whole spanish amarda seemed to be out.
This was our first proper overnight and it wnet quite well although the kids did get a little bored and the adukts didn't feel like doing lessons in the lumpy seas.
We arived in rather rough sea in Port Mahon and were extreamly please to tie up to a mooring boy and go to sleep.
Port Mahon
. Johnie and the girls have gone on an "adventure" in the dinghy with Imy in Opi (rowing) to a little creek around the corner, they have taken home made chocolate crispies and lemon squash as a picnic. I'm sitting here running the washing machine, very exciting as we have a water pontoon just up the harbour where we can fill up. Poor Jeremy I kept teasing him about how much water he used to do the washing up in (in the end he gave in and let me do it). We did enjoy having him aboard and he really did help with the watches during the night and during the day. Not sure he was the most able seaman when it came to springing around the deck. His legs hurt him a lot and as for getting in and out of the dinghy - we thought he was as bad mum, onenight both him and Johnie ended up rolling around in the waves on the beach.
We are still in Mahon and planning to move off tomorrow morning down to the bottom of the island where they seem to have loads of different little Calas (inlets) we thought we would spend a few days down there.
In Mahon there are loads of English boats everywhere, very different to Corsica, and ofcourse everyone speeks English which is a refreshing change. We know absolutely no Spanish though, we need a phraise book. We are out of season though suddenly there are much less boats around and the weather is very different. Although it is boiling hot here, very humid and it keeps raining, in between blue skies. Last night was one of our first nights it was too hot to sleep under a duvet.
We have started school work again, which has been quite hard to get them back into it, however getting better every day. We have just completed week one (although it took us 10 days to do it in!) Working on route isn't as easy as we thought, it is much easier to let them read or watch a dvd than sit and study with them. It really does take both of us to sit down with them at the same time and get on with it. Sienna has started doing her letters and numbers with me, which she enjoys I think - we are doing Letterland.
Next steps
We are not hanging around now . Our rough plan is this week getting to Palma then maybe another week around there . Otherwise we will head on to Ibiza and then accross to the mainland and hop along there from the beginning of October. It all seems such a long way but we plan in doing it all in little bits. There seems to be plenty of places to stop along that coast. Quite how the girls and I are going to cope with 5 days or what ever it is down to the Canaries, from Gib.
Anyway, I think I can hear the dinghy coming back, my God it's 5.30 already I don't know where the days go. Probably something to do with the fact we don't get up till about 9.30 these days and the girls are going to bed so late (like 10 o clock - last night I think they were still awake even later). Sienna usually crashes during the day and Tallulah every now and again. Quite a Mediteranean way of living I guess.
P.S The advenuturers have returned with much excitement as they saw a real live octopus!!!
