Z 13

Vessel Name: Z 13
Vessel Make/Model: Alubat 435
Hailing Port: Brighton
Crew: Jon, Tina and Niamh
About: Jon is the captain, Tina and Niamh are the competent crew (just!)
Extra:
We are off on an adventure for a year, taking us through the Canal du Midi to the Med, and then on to Corsica, Sardinia, Scilliy, mainland Italy, Greece (and surrounding islands) and then possibly on to Turkey. If you see us come and say hello! Niamh is 9 (10 in February 2010) and would like to [...]
07 November 2009 | Foot of Napoleon's Statue
07 November 2009 | Foot of Napoleon's Statue
07 November 2009 | Near Propriano
07 November 2009 | Ajaccio Station
07 November 2009 | North of Ajaccio
07 November 2009 | Bonifacio
29 October 2009 | Palermo, Sicily
21 October 2009 | Hove!
22 September 2009 | La Ciotat
22 September 2009 | Calvi
22 September 2009 | In the rigging!
22 September 2009 | Toulon
22 September 2009 | Calvi
22 September 2009 | Porquerolles
22 September 2009 | Porquerolles
22 September 2009 | Porquerolles
22 September 2009 | Porquerolles
25 August 2009 | Canal du Midi
25 August 2009 | On deck
25 August 2009 | In the Canals (somewhere)
Recent Blog Posts
07 November 2009 | Foot of Napoleon's Statue

Mummy and Niamh

It's a wrap....as they say in the photographic world

07 November 2009 | Foot of Napoleon's Statue

Captain and 1st Mate

Life is good

07 November 2009 | Near Propriano

Which way?

Jon: "Niamh, which way to do you think we should go?"

07 November 2009 | Ajaccio Station

All aboard

Jon and Niamh.....need I say more?! Love 'em xx

07 November 2009 | North of Ajaccio

Mountain walk

We took the mountain train from Ajaccio which was quite an experience. As the train slowly climbed through the mountains the view was magnificent, but we were also able to see large areas that had been destroyed by the forest fires.

07 November 2009 | Bonifacio

Marina at Bonifacio

Aerial view of the marina at Bonifacio - probably our favourite place in Corsica.

Where we are now...

29 October 2009 | Palermo, Sicily
T-Shirt weather
Well, its been some time since we were able to update the blog. Our internet access since the start of the trip has been intermittent at best, and non-existent at worst! How niave we were to think that we would have free wi-fi in most marinas! Dream on... Anyway, we crossed from Bonifacio in Corsica to Sardinia on 11 October. The crossing was interesting in that our auto-pilot and navigation system failed as we left! At least we only had about 15km to go. We had to hand steer all the way in the wind and rain - not so pleasant. It turned out that we had dislodged the electrical connection due to all the clutter in the cupboard!! Well we have to have a glory hole somewhere on the boat!

Thanks to hand-held GPS we managed to arrive at St. Teresa, Sardinia, without incident. We met a very interesting Norwegian couple there who had spent 4 years sailing. They had crossed the Atlantic 3 times and circumnavigated the globe twice since retiring. What they didn't know about sailing and life aboard wasn't worth knowing. They gave us some good tips for places to winter, and pointed out the best of the Greek islands to visit.

Next stop was a small Marina - Port Rotondo, which had almost completely closed down for the winter, apart from a very expensive shop selling women's clothes (not the practical sailing type - more like flimsey silk skirts!) and ornate wine glasses - very handy for boat life (!), and one restaurant. We had 2 bowls of pasta and a pizza for the handsome price of 93 euros!!!!! Anyway, needless to say that it was a marina "to be seen" in during the high season, for the rich and famous. They probably would have moved us on if we had arrived in August! There were some lovely sailing boats there though, including a couple of old large wooden boats.

We experienced the full force of the severe Med winds here - 55 knots (90 to 100mph) in the marina itself. It was truly something else. More amazing than the wind strength though was that one boat actually left for a day's sailing in it! We all stood and watched them leave with mouths wide open - very fool-hardy. When they did come back they managed to hit 2 other boats trying to berth...some people hey!

On the whole we didn't really take to Sardinia. We much preferred Corsica. We've been amazed at the lack of English spoken generally since arriving in Italy and communication has been an issue. In one marina (Arbatax, Sardinia) as we were mooring in a cross-wind, the harbour master ran up to us and threw our ropes away from the pontoon as he was telling us to go somewhere else. Probably the rudest person we've met so far on the trip.

Weather in Sardinia was bad for much of the time....the hi-light for us was arriving at Cagliari and meeting a really lovely Dutch family with 3 kids, a Dutch retired couple (who were a mind of information) and an Irish couple doing the same trip as us. It was a great little community and Niamh really enjoyed having friends to play with. She learned a handful of Dutch words within the first day!

We left Sardinia for Sicily on 26 October. Unfortunately no wind and so apart from about an hours sailing, we had to motor all the way. 293km took us 28 hours.

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