Dearest Friends and Family,

I know, I know.... it's been almost 2 months since my last Chaligram written on Father's Day from lovely Menton, France. My my, where has the time gone?!

We are currently anchored in the bay at the town of Gaeta, which is about a 1 hour train ride south of Rome. We really liked this town when we were here back in 2006, and so we had established this place as our rendezvous point with my sister Jenny, who flew to Rome in order to visit us, after attending the London Olympics.

Gaeta happens to be the place where the flagship of the US NAVY's 6th fleet is moored. Can you imagine how surreal it is for us to wake up every morning to the "Star Spangled Banner"? The Italian national anthem follows. I chuckle every morning. Even though my sister has already come and gone, it seems as if we're going to be staying here for at least another 10 days to 2 weeks. There is a full-service, "all-repairs" boatyard here, and..... well...... we sustained some damages to our floating home that need repair. I guess I need to back up a bit.

After leaving France in June, we headed to San Remo, Italy and met up with our dear Dutch friends Ineke and Albert onboard s/y Joshua. We'd met them in 2010 in Crete, and again in 2011 in Sardinia and Barcelona. We cruised together up the western Italian Riviera and had a thoroughly enjoyable 10 days in Savona, Italy.... a surprisingly delightful town with a good, secure and strangely inexpensive marina. We should have stayed there much longer! But we didn't. After passing Genoa to the left, we sailed on to the itty bitty town of le Grazie in the nice, secure anchorage there. Secure that is, unless an unusual summer wind comes up from the northeast. For those of you who've ever been to Cinque Terre along the northern west coast of Italy, we were very close to that. We were happy to be at anchor in a little town that seemed to have most of what we needed.... (laundromat! grocery store, butcher, baker, veggy guy).... and a bus to the bigger town of La Spezia. While we were there, I received word that my dear brother-in-law, Bruce Pavlovsky, my sister Dori's husband, was in his last days of his 4 year battle with cancer. 5 TIMES he had various treatments, and 4 times he had complete remissions.....only to have that horrible and aggressive disease beat him in the end. Can you imagine the cruelty of that roller coaster ride? As recently as February, his CT scan indicated that he was clean. Bruce epitomized the "CAN DO", "WILL WIN" spirit. He was the ultimate 1970's,80's and 90's IBM salesman until he "took a package" and started his own TAKEOUT Taxi franchise. Big skiier, big hiker, big biker....Lance Armstrong was his hero. It was so very heartbreaking to lose him in the end. I managed to get to Knoxville, Tennessee just in time to say goodbye, with about 12 hours to spare.... and then I stayed on with my sister Dori through her first week without Bruce.

While I was gone, Chuck and Zoey were having their own nightmare. Ahhhhhh yes.....that sweet little secure anchorage in Le Grazie.... sure enough, an unusual summer northeast wind kicked up to about 35 knots and caused real havoc in the crowded anchorage. A neighboring Italian, who was anchored way too close under the circumstances, had his anchor drag -- at 4AM of course! -- and his heavy steel boat collided right into the bow of ChaliVentures. Not good. Howling wind, rough waves. Awful awful awful. Poor Chuck! He had to eventually leave the anchorage and go into a typical, outrageously priced marina in La Spezia..... let's see 110 euros/night was about $138/night. OUCH. (Just as a point of comparison, a night at the Cannes, France marina was 37 euros or about $47!!) I don't know how Italy gets away with it. Now you see why we like to find a good anchorage (free) instead of going into marinas in Italy! Upon my return from Knoxville, I joined Chuck while he was still at the marina in La Spezia, and then we went back to the anchorage in Le Grazie. The good news is that the colliding Italian was still in the anchorage and approached us knowing that he had caused us damage, and he provided us with his insurance info. Chuck was fairly confident that the damage was not structurally compromising, and that we could sail/motor south in time to meet Jenny near Rome. So.... we had a mostly pleasant 46 hour/260 mile passage to Gaeta under a full moon during the 2 nights at sea. In the 10 days that we've been here we've gotten an estimate of repairs from the boatyard; a marine surveyor has been by, and now we'll have to arrange to have the boat hauled out of the water and stored on land for about a week in order to get the repairs done. Not looking forward to that. But, oh well. At least we like this town. And after all, they play the Stars Spangled Banner every morning.... as long as the ship is in port, that is. They love Americans in this town. Everyone is very friendly, and the food is very good. We've indulged a couple of times in one of the local Gaetan specialties, "tiella," which is a savory pie/torte. Our favorite is Tiella di Polpo with octopus, tomatoe, olives, salt, olive oil, hot pepper, parsely and garlic. (Fresh) Buffalo mozzarella is another specialty we've indulged in, and of course with tomatos, fresh basil and olive oil makes a rather fabulous lunch! The anchorage is pretty clean, so on really hot windless days, we even go in for a swim. And..... there's a "self-serve laundromat" that really was full service, but for the same price! LOVE IT!!

We've had a number of challenges onboard with the fridge/freezer.... i BARELY have enough ice cubes for my afternoon scotch on the rocks or G&T. We're talking disaster here. As far as food goes, we can always buy what we need on a daily basis. After all, cheese and eggs don't need to be stored in super cold temps. Chuck has also had to replace the toilet's pump (his all-time LEAST FAVORITE job). I took notes while he was doing the repair and counted no less than 115 F**K's GD'its, and so on....rather boring dialogue!

We hope to get out of here, all repaired, by the end of August at the latest. We'll mosey on down the coast before hopping over to Sicily, and going down the east coast along the straits of Messina, then around the SE corner and eventually into our winter destination at Marina di Ragusa. We have LOTS of friends who are going to be there, so it'll be like old home week.

I hope that my next ChaliGram will have happier, better news. In the meantime, hope you're all having a great summer.

LINK to PHOTOS

https://picasaweb.google.com/109427354797294807716/ChaliGram125Italy?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJbd2sa_xaizbA&feat=directlink

Love, Alison, Chuck and Zoey