Saturday night showed both the ups and downs of Le Grazie, which has this pretty, understated waterfront. This week sees their festival, the Sagre del Pulpo - a celebration of octopus. There have been many events, including local art exhibitions and a special Mass. Saturday night's for dancing, and the Italians do love a dance. They flock out, many of them very expert, to cha-cha-cha, foxtrot and waltz to local bands singing all sorts of songs in Italian and English. The funniest dance of the night was a very enthusiastic YMCA, but the big crowds flocked the floor for My Way and a mix of Italian faves.
We motored ashore and enjoyed a dish of octopus and a couple of glasses of wine, in a lovely cool evening. About midnight we confessed ourselves beaten and returned to Roaring Girl.
Here the anchoring dance began: just off our stern two little motorboats (maybe 7m long) had anchored absolutely next to each other, and then tied themselves together. With the (well forecast) wind shift to the north east, they were right under our stern. We scrambled aboard and started our engine, getting ourselves away from them. We then had a complicated and noisy discussion. They argued that our 40m scope was too big (in 11m of water). We pointed out that reducing it to 33m, the minimum 3:1 with which we are comfortable, would not make any difference. We took in that 7m, and indeed we were right.
Oh well, they told us, we'd be perfectly safe with 25m of chain out. No way, we asserted, not in a 13ton boat, with the forecast F4 to F6. In fact, not ever! By now we had our engine running continuously as we manoeuvred to keep clear of them. They let out a little more chain, but would not even start their engines. Despite the fact we had been there for two days, and were well-ensconced when they showed up, these guys were not going anywhere.
In all our years of sailing we have never encountered such un-seamanlike rudeness from another boat in an anchorage.
But is was obviously unsafe to stay where we were, so we hoiked our anchor up (covered in thick mud) and moved out to the mouth of the little bay - only 15m deep but much less protected from the coming breeze. We got our anchor well dug in and sat in the cockpit (it now being about 0100) to unwind. Good thing we did.
A blue yacht had been anchored not far from us (just far enough not to be a serious problem, and certainly clear of our problematic neighbours). For no obvious reason he had upped sticks and come out here. He chose to re-drop his anchor not far away. Heigh ho: we sat and watched him for a long time, looking to see if we had similar swinging action in the increasing gusts, and whether he was going to drag. Pip went to bed. At 0300, Sarah decided this was probably ok and went below, finally turning out her light at 0330.
At 0335, she heard an engine close by and extra wave motion hitting the hull. She shot up on deck, and lo! The blue yacht had dragged and was about 2m away! Aiyai, yai, yai. Fortunately, her crew were all on deck and their engine on, but it was a high adrenaline moment!
He motored around in a small circle and then headed back into the bay, from whence he had come. Sarah, of course, was now wide awake again, and sat up another half hour, watching the large motor yacht to leeward gradually shift backwards. It's a big, crewed vessel, and eventually they woke up and moved themselves back into safety.
What a night! This is written the following morning, in a gusty F5. We're doing various jobs aboard, unwilling to leave the boat until the wind, as forecast, decreases this afternoon. Lunch-stop anchoring techniques are simply not enough in these conditions, though we are forced to note that the two tied-together motor-boats are still where they were, occupying our nice spot.