deva in paradise

We returned to Sicily in mid March after our 90 day mandatory absence from the EU. It was the first time in years that we had left Deva in the water while we returned to the states. Fortunately, the harbor of Licata was quite protected and no damage occurred to the boat, save the usual scuff marks on the rub rails from neighboring boats tied up Med-style next to ours

We rented an apartment in the old section of town for the month that we expected to be recommissioning, and to do some land touring to nearby Agrigento and to Malta by ferry. Our apartment was on Via Colegio, a narrow stone-paved corridor with buildings mostly several hundred years old... We had some difficulty contacting our landlord on check-in day, so we resorted to hailing her from the street to her apartment three levels up next to ours... two of the neighbors came out and helped us in this endeavor, so it seemed as if we were serenading Mrs Sorriso to come to her balcony. She eventually did, and not lg after we were admitted to our apartment, a little two bedroom with few windows and rattling floor tiles. Over a few days time we notice other details like a barely adequate heating system and lots of street noise coming form a bar across the street. We learned to ignore those details as it would be more trouble to find and move to another place...

Our adventure really started soon after our flight landed in Catania airport and we rented a car for the two hour journey to Licata. The car rental associate told us that Catania was known for car thefts and damage and strongly urged us to buy their insurance, which we did, even though it cost as much as the rental itself... Her advise proved true as within a few minutes of driving out of the airport area we heard a clunk on the right rear part of our car, and not long afterward a black beat-up looking BMW came alongside the drivers side with its driver frantically gesturing for us to pull over. With some hesitation, I looked for a spot to put over that was in full view of passers by, and parked. The driver who had waved us down was talking very hurriedly in Italian and gesturing' saying "Pagare, Pagare!!" which I understood to mean "pay me!" I got out of our car and asked him what exactly I was being asked to pay for, and he pointed to his drivers side outside rear view mirror, which was dangling from the side of his car. Then we walked around to the right rear of our car and he pointed to a black scuff mark on the door, where presumably his mirror struck. An argument ensued in my broken Italian and his gesturing and I asked how it happened since we never saw him at all and he was behind our car.. I then tarted thinking that if the police were called we might be detained for some time, and maybe a negotiated settlement was in order. I asked him how much he wanted, to which he replied "duo centos Euros", or two hundred Euros. Having just come from the airport and not having a single Euro in my pocket, I pulled out a US 20 dollar note and offered it to him. He seemed a little disappointed, but after a moment he offered to shake my hand and we parted company. I got back in the car and Debby asked "what was all THAT about? I explained as best I could and we took off driving towards Licata, a bit more cautiously than before...

We learned over the time we were in Sicily that the Mafia still had a presence, and there were certain things that once just accepted as business as usual. Garbage collection, for instance, was frequently affected by disputes and simply ignored. Even so, we found most Sicilians to be very friendly and particularly so towards Americans. We learned more later about why this is true.

A good part of staying in a community as long as we did in Licata is we would get to know more of the locals and develop relationships with them. One of our more interesting acquaintances was an elderly man named Alberto, who spoke little English, but picked up on my Hispano-Italian accent immediately and from that moment spoke Ital o-Spanish with us. Turned out he had lived in Cuba for some years and married a Cuban woman who he later brought home with him to Italy. He lamented that it was not a lasting marriage because she was mostly interested in Salsa dancing and sex... leaving us to surmise that he was interested in more than that. We walked quite a bit in Licata after dinner and in cool mornings just for exercise, and we frequently ran into Alberto, who was quite social at some to the coffeehouses and restaurants.

One of the occasions when we spent some time with Alberto was during the week of Easter parades. It started on Ash Wednesday, when a wooden statue of Jesus being tortured was carried by a throng of volunteers along a very elaborate parade route just a few feet from our apartment. A few days later it was Jesus on the cross, and later it was the Resurrection of Jesus, all represented by different wooden statues and similar throngs of people over the same route...

Operations Mincemeat and Husky

Alberto led us to the park in Licata dedicated to as he put it "The Americans". A bronze plaque described that Licata was the scene of the fist Invasion of Sicily by the Allied forces in July 1944, called "Operation Husky". American and British troops landed here in an amphibious assault that changed the course of World War Two. Licata was, according to Alberto, the fist Italian city liberated by the allied forces, which proceeded Northward into mainland Italy and drew the Nazis away from the more Northern battlefields. An interesting footnote to Operation Husky was that the campaign really started two months earlier with a deception operation, code named "Operation Mincemeat" by British espionage agents off the coast of Spain. A corpse was dropped into the sea, disguised as a British naval officer, with a briefcase full of "secret" documents describing plans for an Allied invasion of Greece in June. The papers were found by Spanish military forces, and passed on to the Nazis, who soon diverted their forces under Field Marshall Goring away from Sicily and into Greece. This set the stage for the successful invasion of Sicily by the Allies a few weeks later.

Our apartment in Licata was a former classroom for the Trinity College language school. It had a sign at the entrance that said Trinity College, and many posters inside the apartment of cartoon-like depictions of examples of lost-in-translation situations between Italians and English. We could easily relate as we found few Italians spoke any English, and we had many opportunities to learn a few words of their language.

A few doors down the street from our apartment was the El Diablo Restaurant, which became one of our favorite haunts. It had only 8 tables, inside a very old stone and cave-like building.. We became good friends of the owner Angelo, his wife Rosalba, and their son Elysio. Angelo and Elysio had the same long beard and tattoos, and could easily pass as bikers in our country. They had lived several years in Germany, and their restaurant was decorated with interesting antiquities like puppets and bronze mermaids and seahorses... The food they prepared was all in family style, with one fixed menu that was different every day. One pasta dish, one main course, usually fish, and one vegetable or salad. It was Elysio's job to come to each table as guests were seated, and explain in his very polite manner what was on the menu. He could do this in English, German, or Italian with equal grace. The house wine came in half or full liter carafes, red or white, and "spumante" or still. Every meal we had in their place was delightful and artistic in ways both simple and elaborate. It was tough saying goodbye to their charming family when our month long stay was ending...

The Valley of the Temples

A few miles West of Licata we visited the ancient Greco-Roman city of Agrigento, in what is now known as the Valley of the Temples. Still standing are massive stone columned temples of Concordia, Juno, Zeus and Vulcan. The area was thronged with tourists from all over the world. We walked more than a mile around the perimeter of the ancient city, marveling at the vast marble and sandstone structures and promenades. At one time, around 500 BC the area had been a agricultural center in ancient Greek and Roman empires. Some beautiful life-size marble statues, some discovered only in recent decades, demonstrated that the area is still an archaeological work in progress.. The museum exhibits included many artifacts rescued from tombs going back to 1000 years BC when the area was colonized by Minoans from the Eastern Mediterranean..

A visit to Malta

After a week we returned our rental car to Modica, a few miles East of Licata, from where we could take a catamaran ferry to Malta. We joined friends Barbara and Glen from Washington and Australia respectively for a few days escape from Sicily. Malta, just 50 miles away, is another country altogether, and one with centuries of history. We had learned earlier when we were in Rhodes that Malta was the place to where the Knights of Saint John were exiled in about 1550 when Rhodes was overtaken by the Ottoman General Suleiman the Magnificent. As could be expected, the fortifications built thereafter by the Knights are grand and still standing in various places on the island of Malta. In fact, there are more castles and fortifications per square mile on Malta than anywhere else on earth. This is because Malta besieged many times by many nations, owing to its strategic location in the mid Mediterranean and its excellent natural harbors. The most recent of many wars that Malta played a part was in 1944 when it was the staging point for the allied forces prior to the Invasion of Sicily, from when the allies continued their drive into central Europe and Germany. Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and other leaders met in Malta to plot and manage the war in one of the Maltese bunkers of Valletta. Besides the many fortifications and cannon emplacements that are left standing today, we saw some other interesting architectural features. One of them was in the form of rows and rows of stone cylindrical projections on the ground in all of the many plazas and squares, resembling the bases for columns. They are labeled on maps as "granaries", We had to read a bit to learn about them, as they are actually the tops of large cylindrical stone storage containers for grain, buried underground where they could sustain bombardment. Water was stored in similar fashion so that Malta could survive the months-long sieges that were carried out by invaders over many centuries.

Since Malta was occupied alternately by the French, the Italians, the Ottoman Turks, the British, and of course the catholic order of the Knights of Saint John, the language and culture of the island nation is a mix of all those cultures. Maltese language is part Arabic and part European. Christian churches dot the landscape, as do some mosques and synagogues.

As we rode a taxi from the ferry to our hotel, we asked the driver what dish would be a favorite for the Easter festival weekend., He replied "Savage Rabbit". Surely enough, we found rabbit on the menu at many of the local restaurants. Since the British were the most recent Europeans to occupy Malta before its independence in the late 20th century, English is spoken by nearly everyone. This made communication easier for us than it was in nearby Italy.

Underway on the route of the Volcanoes

Once we returned to Licata from our four-day escape, we set to work on getting the boat hauled out and painted, and provisioned for the next leg of our voyage to France. Sailing towards the Strait of Messina again, we pulled into the now-familiar port of Syracusa, where we picked up our friends Barbara and Glen for three weeks of sailing Northward along the W coast of the boot of Italy. The Straits were relatively tame, with few of the legendary currents and whirlpools mentioned in Homers "Odyssey".
We anchored one night near Taormina, at the base of the mighty strato volcano of Aetna. Her snow-clad peak was a dramatic backdrop to the harbor which is frequently peppered with airborne ash. We got underway headed through the narrowest part of the Strait, and towards the Aeolian Islands, a chain of active volcanic islands just North of Sicily. For a week we hopped from Vulcan to Salinas, then Panarea, and finally to Stromboli. On Vulcan we hiked to the top edge of the crater and looked down into the steaming vents. We watched people bathing in the warm mud baths. Salinas was a good marina stop while we waited for strong winds to pass over, and once again enjoyed hiking along its Eastern shore. Panarea was more rugged, with few natural harbors or ports, so we anchored in a small cove surrounded by dramatic cliffs. Cala Junco, as its is called, is the site of a bronze age (1500 BC) archaeological discovery, a small village of Yert-like structures overlooking our anchorage. Stromboli, the last island we visited was also the most recently emerged from the sea, and by far the most active volcano, with frequent eruptions lighting up the sky. After a night spent on the lee side with little protection from swells, we sailed just outside the lava flows of the West side of the island, which is closed to navigation for a half mile offshore.

Onward to the mainland

A dawn-to-dusk motor sail brought us to the tiny harbor of Cetraro. It was the first of several breakwater harbors we would visit along the otherwise unprotected coast of Western Italy. With few natural bays or estuaries, the Italian and European Union governments constructed many breakwaters encircling small ports to support the commercial fishing and tourism economy. These harbors are typically clearly defined with separate areas for the "porto de pesca" and the "porto turistico". Since the fishing industry is typically subsidized, the fees for commercial boats are much less than for pleasure boats. Nonetheless we welcomed the shelter of the breakwater harbor for a peaceful nights rest. There was little else in Cetraro besides the breakwater and the office of the harbormaster. We walked about 5 kilometers into the nearest village for a meal, but there was no grocery store nearby.
The following day we motor sailed up the coast to the small but beautiful harbor of Maratea. It also was a breakwater port, but with a charming village adjacent to it and a magnificent mountain overlooking it with a giant monument to "Christ the Redeemer" on top, visible for miles around. We received a very friendly welcome from Mario the harbormaster and his son Sabiel.

When Mike brought his documents to Mario's office and discussed the details of the boat, he and Mario both realized they were struggling a bit with communication in Italian with a Spanish accent. After few sentences I asked him if we could simply speak Spanish, to which he smiled and gladly agreed. It turned out that Mario had lived in Panama and the Dominican Republic, two of Mikes childhood homes, and that he had married a Dominican woman. His son Sabiel, eighteen, dark skinned, tall and handsome, showed his obvious Dominican lineage, though he was brought up in Italy. With that introduction, we then spent several days touring the area with the charming Mario as our guide. He drove us up the winding road to the top of the 1000 meter mountain where we saw the enormous statue of Christ and the nearby ruins of the ancient city of Maratea, which was plundered by pirates in the 16th century. Later he drove us to the newer city of Maratea, nestled in a alpine valley above the harbor, out of sight from sea to avoid any further marauding pirates. We learned that nearly all of the villages along this coast where at one time or another raided and plundered by pirates from Turkey and Africa and even from Northern Europe.

A lesson in Italian gestures

We found a lovely little waterfront restaurant in Maratea where the four of us had two wonderful meals.
One of them was a luncheon, with the afternoon's entertainment consisting of a young man having a conversation on his cellphone in front of the restaurant. Dressed stylishly in a two-piece suit, slightly short and tight, and with no socks. For at least a half hour he strutted back and forth along the seaway gesturing with one and sometimes both hands, the other party obviously missing out on much of the communication. During this display we learned at least a dozen different hand gestures that seem to be the essence of Italian discussion. One is is with the middle two fingers of the hand curled inward, (like a bulls horns) the other is with the two hands held as if in prayer, but thrusting up and down for emphasis, yet another is with two index fingers placed side by side, also up and down for emphasis. Another with the index finger pointed high like John Travolta in a dance pose. Lastly, there was also a fair amount of crotch grabbing with one hand while holding the phone with the other. Many of the gestures require the phone to be held between chin and shoulder...The entire discussion was conducted while pacing back and forth about 50 feet along the seawall... We were left wishing we had video-recorded the whole thing as it was very entertaining and educational. It was all we could do to keep from laughing out loud.

Agropoli and Paestum

A passing storm whipped up 3 meter waves outside the breakwater, keeping us in Maratea for an otherwise pleasant 4 days. From there we sailed up the coast to the ancient port city of Agropoli, near the historic Greek-Roman Temples of Paestum. We had heard that Paestum, formerly known as Poseidonia in the time of the Magna Graecia was the first attraction in the area, so we wasted no time hiring a taxi to go there for a day. Surely enough, Paestum was a magnificent site, encircled by stone walls that once stood on the shore of the Tyrrenian sea, now almost a mile away due to changes in the sea level. The three principal structures in Paestum are the enormous temples of Hera (two different buildings) and Athena. Like the city of Agrigento that we visited in Sicily, they were constructed in the 6th and 7th centuries BC, a time when Polytheism was common in the Mediterranean region. The three main temples are on the order of 100 meters long and 50 meters wide, each over the size of a football field. Surrounding the temples were many smaller public buildings like circular theaters and baths, similar to ones we have seen in Greece and Turkey. The construction of the time shows that the ancient Greeks and Romans knew much about running water and how to build lasting structures in a region known for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. When we returned to Agropoli, we spent much of the following day exploring the castle and the old city overlooking the harbor.

Amalfi and Capri

From Agropoli we sailed across the Gulf of Salerno to the Amalfi coast. Steep and rugged, Amalfi is covered with several villages of Venetian-era construction, and the scene of vast modern tourism.
We entered the tiny harbor of Amalfi fortunate to be able to get into a slip where larger boats could not. This we would find in several places to be an advantage of having a smaller boat. Amalfi was crowded with throngs of tourists that had been bused from Naples. We walked into the central Piazza where a bronze statue is dominant of Flavio Gioa, the marine pilot from ancient times who is said to have invented the magnetic compass with a fleur de Lys card showing North. The cathedral of Saint Andrew is also in the piazza, with a steep and side stone stairway leading up to it. Not far from Amalfi, we sailed past the Galli Islands, the fabled spot in Homer's Oddysey where Circe instructed the Commander to put bees wax into the ears of his sailors and to tie themselves to the masts so they would not be tempted by the beautiful voices of the sirens or mermaids. Many a sailor was doomed according to the legend, by the allure of those mermaids, later to find themselves drowning on the rocks of Galli islands. To be safe, Glen and I tied ourselves up to the mainmast as we sailed by...

Our next landfall was the equally steep and precipitous off-lying island of Capri. As we approached it resembled Santorini in Greece, with all the villages and buildings perched on the top of the island, and only a few structures on the shore. We spent our first night anchored off the cliffs on the Eastern shore. Many caves led into the side of the cliffs, which made for some interesting dinghy exploration. Tall cigar-shaped islets called the Faraglioni, one of which has a tunnel through it, are among the most photographed spots of Capri. We sailed around the South shore to get a closer look the following day. Then we entered the marina of Capri proper, with ferries arriving and departing at seemingly every moment. At first contact the marina control informed us by radio that there was no space for us and we would have to lay offshore. We weren't thrilled by that idea as the wakes from all the ferries and tour boats made the area resemble a big washing machine. Within minutes the voice on the radio called back and invited us to come in and tie up. We knew we were not going to stay for more than a 24 hour visit when we were advised that it would cost 155 Euros (about $180 a night). We made the most of our stay by walking and taking the cable car to the top of the island and mixing with several thousand tourists, mostly American, on the waterfront. Later we wondered what all the fuss was about as Capri was certainly no more attractive or interesting than many other islands on the Italian coast.

Across the Bay of Naples

It took a day to sail across the Bay of Naples, with Mount Vesuvius in the distance, to the offlying islands of Ischia and Procida. Ischia had a very protected harbor in the lee of a spectacular castle from the time of the Kingdom of Aragon. We spent the better part of the next day walking all over the castle with its many towers. There were two interesting exhibits. One was the museum of torture, where every device every invented for the sole purpose of inflicting pain on people was on display. The other unique exhibit was the Hall of the Departed Nuns from the Poor Clares Convent . In that hall the bodies of the deceased nuns were kept seated in special stone chairs with drainage bowls designed to catch the bodily fluids (also known from the time of Hippocrates as "humours") as they drained out of the bodies as they decomposed. It was believed that the bodies of people were simply containers for their spirits...and those spirits were collected in urns and saved while the skeletons were later put in an Ossuary. This practice was carried on from the late 16th century until early nineteenth.

It was just a short 5 miles from Ischia to neighboring Procida Island. Procida had a calm anchorage next to its Venetian era village. We dinghied into its tiny fishing harbor, where we walked the island and then had lunch in a waterfront "ristorante". The host was the charming Giovanni who had worked on tankers to Alaska before coming back to his home island. He spoke pretty fair English and the Calamari and chips were delicious. He gave us a souvenir of his island in the form of three tiny lures for fishing in the harbor.

From Procida it was another all day sail to the Bay of Gaeta. In Gaeta we ties up to on e of the nicest marinas we visited in Italy. Run by a family, it also had a fine dining area adjacent to the marina, which we happily indulged in. We wandered the town from its waterfront Angevin-Aragonese castle up to the top of a hill where a majestic gothic cathedral dominates the skyline. Gaeta has a history of many battles fought over centuries owing to its very protected and strategic natural harbor, It dates to Roman times, later taken by the French, the Saracen Pirates, as well as the Spanish. In 1849 The US ship of the line Constitution was anchored in Gaeta and hosted a visit by King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies and Pope Pius IX. (Italy was not a unified country until 1861). This is thought to be the first visit by a Pope to a United States possession. More recently, Gaeta was made home port to the US Navy sixth fleet and the NATO command port when the British left Malta.

Our next stop on the coast was the breakwater port of Nettuno, near Anzio. We were nearly turned away by the harbor authority when they told us they had no space. After putting our lines up near the entrance by a fuel dock for a few minutes we were given the go ahead to proceed into the inner harbor.
Nettuno is a large public project harbor managed by five different concessionaires and occupied mostly by local boats. The result being that each of the five businesses that operate their part of the harbor have different procedures for the rare visiting yacht. We were told to tie up in a certain space and then check in at an agency near the harbor. We were told where the bathrooms and showers were, but we did not use them as they were extremely dirty. Otherwise the port was suitable for a few days while we provisioned and prepared the boat. Nettuno was also the place where we would say a warm goodbye to Barbara and Glen as they made their way back home after about three weeks aboard Deva. While in Nettuno we visited the American cemetery where 7800 US servicemen and women are buried dating from the 1944-45 Invasion of Italy by allied forces, many of whom died at nearby Anzio beach in one of the bloodiest battles of WWII. The cemetery was a very impressive and well maintained facility with informative modern exhibits memorializing the sacrifices made by Americans in World War Two. It was especially touching for Barbara as she served in the US Army during Desert Storm. Mike could relate as well as his father also served in the US Army during WW II in France and Germany.

Civitaveccia and Giglio Island

A days sail brought us into the large industrial harbor of Civitaveccia. As the closest large harbor to Rome, it is a busy commercial harbor for cargo and passenger ships of all sizes. Its entrance is guarded by a fort designed in the 15th century by Michelangelo. We visited the local Coast Guard office to revise our documents reflecting our crew change, something the authorities previously told us was important. This office told us that it was not necessary, a further indication of the inconsistencies of Italian bureaucracy. No matter, we shopped for a few groceries and set sail for a tiny island a day hop away... Giglio Island, one of seven in the Tuscany archipelago, was made famous in 2012 when it was the scene of the grounding of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, with a loss of 32 lives. We anchored just a few yards from the actual grounding site, off a residential cove. There was not a trace of the ship or any equipment, reflecting the massive three-year effort that cost over a billion dollars to remove and dismantle the 900 foot long ship. The captain is still serving a 16 year prison sentence in Rome for negligence.

Our guidebook warned that the residents of Giglio were proud of the peaceful serenity of their island, and any noisemakers would not be welcome. Taking this advise to heart, we spent a very quiet night at anchor. The next morning we entered the tiny breakwater of Giglio, but were told by the harbormaster there was no space for us. This was regrettable because the island was very picturesque and we looked forward to a visit ashore. Our other choice was to sail on to Elba, some 30 miles away. We went past the dark and steep MonteCristo Island on our way. Made famous by the 19th century novelist Alexandre Dumas in his"The Count of Montecristo", it now is practically forbidden to enter as a nature preserve, and has a reported population of 2 people.

Elbe, a Jewel of Tuscany

Making up for the disappointment, our next visit started with a night t anchor in the lee of the castle at Porto Azurro on the East side of Elba. With clear water and a nice beach nearby, we knew this was a place we could linger awhile. In the morning we entered the little harbor and tied up next to a row of small ristorantes. Despite its obvious attractions to tourism, we found the little port and its village to be quiet and charming and surprisingly cleaner than many other harbors we have visited. We walked around the castle and looked down on our anchorage, then spent a while laying on the beach. We enjoyed one of the waterfront bistros and later took a bus over the top of the island to the larger port and city of PortoFerraio, from where the large ferries run to Corsica and mainland Italy. Lots of well kept Venetian era buildings line its waterfront. Strangely enough, Elba did not seem to have the chaos of motorized traffic that we experienced in other places of coastal Italy. It seemed very civilized indeed. Elba has its own place in history, most remembered as the place where Napoleon was exiled after his forced abdication (something like an impeachment) from France in 1814. According to one account, he attempted suicide and then reached a settlement with the allied leaders from Europe in which he was granted exile, a two million Francs a year salary, and a royal title for his wife. A year later he escaped from Elba and returned to power in France.

We spent a few days enjoying Elba, and we would have stayed longer except for the knowledge that we needed a good weather window for our crossing to the mainland of France in a few days.

Bienvenue a Corse

Corsica, or Corse as it is known locally, is part of France. As such, we fully expected to check in with authorities in the port of Bastia. As we discovered recently in Italy, however, the authorities were not interested in us at all. We were turned away at the customs office and referred to The "Agency for Foreign Affairs". There, after consultations with two officials, we were told not to worry as not clearances were necessary as long as we traveled between countries in the EU. This contradicted what we had read about requirements for citizens of non-EU countries, but we felt we had done our part to report ourselves and called it good. We experienced a two day rainstorm in Bastia, while we walked and visited the markets and our first French restaurant in many years. We found Bastia to be grittier and less charming than Elba, so we made our way North to the best spot for staging the boat for the crossing to the mainland, the tiny harbor of Maccinaggio, so named after the Italian word for windmills common in the area.. There we anchored in lovely clear waters near a sandy beach. It was a delightful place for beach combing and hiking, we found.

We decided that in order to make our crossing to the mainland as short as possible, it would be advantageous to make landfall on the Italian side of the border, and later cross over to France. Knowing that the authorities did not seem to care about crossing the border, it was an easy choice.
It was a dawn to dusk passage of some 85 miles, in nearly calm weather, with a gentle Westerly to help us along. We had gotten used to motor sailing in the fickle Mediterranean. On this passage we encountered thousands of tiny floating jellyfish which we had not seen before. They were about one and half inches wide with an inflated crescent shaped sail, and very short tentacles. We did some reading and found they were called "Velella Velella", derived from the latin word for sail. One of natures more clever designs, they were able to sail vast distances over the sea, not just directly downwind, but sideways to the wind. We also learned that their short tentacles could pack a powerful sting, and that their species was propagating and increasing in all oceans to higher latitudes due to global warming. Mike used a kitchen strainer taped to the boathook to retrieve one from the sea so we could take a picture of it.

Landfall on the Azure Coast

Our first stop on the mainland this time was the little Italian port of Marina de la Aregai, East of San Remo. . A little breakwater port, but nicer and more organized than some others. We were welcomed in by a team of "marineros" who helped us tie up. We were now in that part of the Med that is known for casinos and five-star hotels and superyachts. It was short stopover as we were anxious to get into the French side. By morning we were on our way.
We sailed past San Remo and Menton, the border town in France, and onward towards MonteCarlo, the principality famous for its casino and auto racing and Prince Rainier and Princess Grace. On the approach to Montecarlo, more superyachts lined the shore. It was clear that there was a big attraction in the harbor. Mike was busy weaving between the many yachts at anchor as Debby called the harbor on the radio. Their reply was "Sorry Madame but this is the weekend of the Grand Prix, and there is no berthing available". As we should have known, Formula One racing is a very big deal in Monaco, and all of the worlds wealthiest yacht owners had brought their craft here for the event. There were at least 20 superyachts anchored offshore and two large cruise ships. The inner harbor was packed full of more yachts and its tiny entrance was a maelstrom of wakes from all the tenders going back and forth to their mother ships. We did not regret passing by, and instead looking for a nearby alternative.
We crossed the French border again only a few kilometers away, and called on the tiny harbor of Beaulieau Sur Le Mer. Its notable distinction is that the entrance is only about ten feet deep, and the largest yachts that can tie up are about 50 feet long. It was made to order for us. Nestled beneath a mountain backdrop, just a 15 minute ride on a bus or train to either Montecarlo or Nice, it was a perfect stop for us.

One of our first stops was a little restaurant in the marina, where we enjoyed more lovely French cuisine, and watched the steady stream of exotic cars driving past. There were more Ferraris, Bugattis, and Lamborghinis on the road than anywhere else we have been. We spent one day visiting Nice, and anoterh in MonteCarlo. In Montecarlo we visited the Palace and the Princes auto collection of some 200 cars. The palace, we learned is occupied by Prince Albert II, the son of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, and his wife Princess Charlene..

Onward to Saint Tropez

A day hop away brought us to another "tres chic" location, the famous harbor of Saint Tropez. In the 1960s it was a place where movie stars congregated. Brigitte Bardot was the native born blonde bombshell who still graces local murals and portraits by street artists. It is also a preferred parking spot for some of the worlds most beautiful yachts, but only ones that are less than about 200 feet. Many of the bistros and restaurants on the quay had live entertainment. We enjoyed walking the sea front promenade and taking in the sights.

A visit to the National Parks

Leaving Saint Tropez we sailed into the Iles du Levant National Park area consisting of three large islands, Levant, Cros, and Poquerolles. The French Navy was conducting an operation off Levant, so we sailed past it and anchored in clear waters off Poquerolles, with white sand beaches just a few yards from the boat. We dinghied ashore and hiked the entire shoreline including a small village where the ferries from the mainland port of Hyeres land thousands of tourists every day. There is little lodging on the island, so the majority of the visitors come in the morning and leave by 5 in the afternoon. The same was true in the anchorage as we found we had the bay to ourselves at dusk. The following morning we were visted by a French customs boat, which came alongside and requested our boat papers and passports showing our length of time in the EU. It was the first itme that we were checked by authorities on the water, and indication either that the French were more interested in compliance with the EU laws, or that there was a policy change about their enforcement.

From Poquerrolles we sailed West to the Calanques national park, a Grand Canyon-like setting on th emainland near Marseille. We chose to come because it looked like the anchorages would be scenic and protected, like desert fjiords. As we got closer we dsicovered that they were also very popular, with thousands of tourists climbing the cliffs, kayaking, scuba diving, and swimming. We had to be careful of the many people swimming far out in the open water. As in Poquerrolles, the crowds disappeared at nightfall and we had our anchorage very quiet with just a few sailboats near us.
Leaving the Calanques, we looked for a quiet anchorage without restrictions where we could do some maintenance on the boat that is hard to do in a marina. Mike used the dinghy to sand and varnish the railcaps and paint the rubrails, a job that took two days. We did this in a calm bay near a large power station outside of the industrial port of Marseille. Not the most aesthetically pleasant scenery, but which suited our purposes well. It also turned out to be a good swimming spot, with no boat traffic. It was also just a short hop away from our final destination on this season's cruising, Port Napoleon on the Rhone River.

At Port Napoleon we had a few days to clean and haul out the boat for storage. We also had time to do some bicycling to nearby Port Saint Louis du Rhone. At Port Saint Louis we watched a water jousting tournament. As the name would suggest, it is like horseback jousing of knights, only on boats with long bowsprits and the "knights" with their lances poised at the ends of the bowsprits. Two boats charge at each other and the jousting knights try to spear their opponent into the water... Of course it was the spectators having the most fun, sipping wine on the shore and cheering their favorite boat and knight.

At Port Saint Louis we were able to watch the first lock of the Rhone River system open and close for a few commercial vessels and a yacht. We were able to meet the Canadian couple on the yacht and learn a lot about traveling the canals into central Europe.