Portovenere - ???

With some sadness to be leaving such a stunningly beautiful place, but with the excitement that always comes with pulling up the anchor setting the sails and heading off into parts unknown we find ourselves pulling up the anchor and heading out... to where?? We don't actually know. The general idea is to cruise the Tuscan islands, Elba, Pianosa and some of the others while making distance south to Ischia and Capri where we are to meet up with our friend Liz Danel.

We are anxious to get a look at our new mainsail that was installed this weekend and the wind is up. The problem is the Tuscan islands lie to the south of us and the wind is from the SSE. Motoring out of the anchorage we delay setting the sails for an hour to let the N wind die out and be replaced by the building SSE wind. The forecast is for 13-16 knots, perfect sailing breeze but tacking south will take forever. We don't mind sailing hard on the wind, but tacking upwind with a tacking angle of 120 degrees is really slow going. I'll take a look at the Corsica Waters Pilot to see if it's feasible to arrive at Cap Corse in the dark and find a suitable place to anchor as Corsica lies to the west and we may come close to laying it on one tack. I'm sure there is an anchorage just not sure I want to try to find it in the dark and with the forecast rain.

Cap Corse doesn't sound that inviting but we are determined to make use of the wind as it will not appear again for the next couple of days. The Co-Captain says let's go sailing so we hoist the sails and sail off in the general direction N of Cap Corse. If the wind doesn't die or radically change direction we will just have to tack our way south. It's not like we don't have the time, it just means sailing overnight. The small islands of Gorgona and Capraia lie on the route to Elba so we can stop if the approach looks ok.

Meanwhile we are very happy with our new mainsail. It is much lighter than our old sail making it easier to handle and less weight aloft which should help the sailing characteristics of the boat. Dealing with Giovanni Sanfelice the designer at North Sails, Italia has been a great experience. He has really gone the extra mile to allay my concerns stemming from the degradation of our previous mainsail. He has spent enough time on the boat to get the sail set up properly and he has also proven to be a much needed resource for other boat issues here in Italy. We originally planned to purchase the sail in the US and have it shipped over until we were informed of the customs hassles and the very real probability of having to pay the 22% Value Added Tax. Added to that the Euro is down to about $1.12 from a high of over $1.65 when Kellan was in school in Spain not that many years ago.