Lessons learned

We forgot to mention in our last posting that on the way from Ponza we saw two “flying inflatables” – and we hadn’t even had a rum ! These were conventional RIBs about 8ft long but instead of outboards they had high powered pusher prop type aero engines and a kind of hang glider wing mounted above. Well these things just took off and flew up a few hundred feet and then one buzzed us and the “pilot” waved to us. We were most impressed !
We had planned to anchor off Capri but that was not possible. Although the sea was calm – the depth was about 60m even about 30m off the island. There were also a lot of “no anchoring” signs around. We were running out of daylight so elected to head for Marina Grande.
The usual procedure at these marinas is you back up to a wall, you throw stern lines to a marinara, he throws you a light line which is attached to quite a heavy bow line, you pull up the bow line and make it fast (then you attach your heavy stern lines, water hose, power cable). Anyway we did all this and then the bow line snapped. Envoy is about 30 tonnes and there was a bit of surge caused by huge ferries coming and going. The boat started to veer off to leeward and come in towards the sea wall. Although panic was setting in we re started the engine and used the engine and the bow thruster to keep us off the wall. Di managed to find an alternate bow line and all was OK. The marina was very atmospheric and we had a nice meal ashore.
We didn’t have time this trip to go up the hillside to Capri township. On Thursday we made about 65 miles down the coast and anchored inside the seawall at Palinuro about 1730.
We planned to have dinner, get as few hours sleep and leave at 0300 to make Tropea the next day. We did leave on Friday at 0300 and it was fun doing our first night passage under radar and plotter and atching the night turn to dawn and seeing the sunrise. However by mid morning a gale warning was being broadcast and we still had about 8 hours to run.
The gale was forecast to be on our beam so we decided to turn to shelter at Cetraro, about 2 hours away. We duly arrived there and the marina was very primitive.
A guy (Franco) wandered down and directed us to berth alongside a wall. We were not happy about this but he assured us “no problemo” and asked us to pay him 40 Euros. By early evening the gale started to set in, the seas built and a surge started to build inside the marina.
We had fenders out of course but Envoy started to pound against the seawall. The seawall was concrete but very rough and we had real concerns the fenders would burst and lead to the hull grinding on the seawall. I went up to see the Coastguard to see if they could help.
They were friendly but little help – this is a “free marina”. I explained we had paid Franco 40 Euro and that got their attention. The wanted me to make some kind of statement about this but I advise I was only concerned about the safety of our vessel and not about recovering 40 Euros. To cut a long story short they were no help at all. Di meanwhile found some old tyres on the wharf so we borrowed 6 of those and made some makeshift additional fenders as an outer layer of protection, wooden planks between the tyres and the fenders and finally our fenders. This was all completed by 2300 and then we had some dinner and tried to get a little sleep. Sleep was difficult due to the noise of the tyres pounding and scraping the wall. We got up at 0400 and prepared for a departure at dawn as this was probably the worst and most worrying night we have ever spent on a boat (and all in a marina). Even thought there was still a gale warning in force, the wind was going to be on our starboard quarter and we liked our chances better at sea than pounding against a roughcast concrete wall. So by 0700 we were on our way heading South and covered about 60 miles to Vibo Valentia. The “gale” did not really happen – we only had about 20 knots of wind and 2-3 metre seas. In these conditions Envoy performed well with the stabilizers absorbing most of the roll and although there was more movement than we had seen to date we were still able to put our cups of tea safely on the table !
The lesson here was not to agree to lie against a jetty or seawall unless you are absolutely certain there’s not going to be any surge in the harbour. You are much better off with a bowline holding you off the wall and stern lines to the wall. The tyres were invaluable and without them we would have suffered damage, so we now have our own supply of 4 tyres. We are also going to source some heavy duty planks of wood.
The marina here at Vibo Valentia is great – very secure and well organized and we stayed two nights here getting reorganised. Tomorrow Monday 2 April we are going to refuel for the first time and head out towards Lipari, en route for Palermo.
Technical
For those interested in boat technicalities you all know that there’s always things needing fixing on boats ! Currently we have a toilet which will flush into the holding tank but not directly overboard – a blockage somewhere, a vhf radio which won’t power up, a bilge water high level alarm not working and a shower sump pump not pumping – all things to keep me amused !