9th to 10th June - Campomoro to Bonifacio (Blog paranoia and another davit handle incident)

Bali Hai
Neal Stow
Wed 10 Jun 2009 08:12
We left the anchorage at Campomoro at about 9 in the morning.  Unfortunately there was very little wind and we had to motor all the way to Bonafacio (apart from a short spell to prove to Jackie and Ian that Bali Hai needs a little more wind than their Laser dinghies to move forward).
 
Bonafacio is a spectacular place, a natural harbour in a narrow, deep, fjord-like inlet with high almost vertical sides of white rock.  The medieval town and citadel sits on top of the cliff looking down over the harbour.  In high season the place is apparently really crowded but at this time of year it was not too difficult to find a spot.  For a Bali Hai docking it went reasonably smoothly, other than the fact that the lazarrete could not be opened and we had to hurriedly borrow a boat-hook from some friendly Hungarians on the next boat.  All five of their crew had lined up along their deck - I believed that this was just a friendly Hungarian welcome but others seemed to think that they were nervous and ready to fend us off.
 
The docking was however marred by another davit handle incident when one of the handles came apart when Ian was winching down the dinghy.  Fortunately, thanks to Cocktail John, I now carry a spare and it looks like I will giving another broken handle to Pete to take the Rolls Royce factory for repair.  A second unfortunate event, discovered later, was that dinghy was lowered into the water without the new drain plug having been screwed in!!!  And, with bad things coming in threes, the third was that we discovered that our shore power adapter was missing - it turned out that it had been handed back to the marina office in La Ciotat by mistake.
 
After an arrival drink we went to the "Kissing Pigs" restaurant for dinner (highly recommended) and then an early night.  The following day was sightseeing although we first had to properly secure the boat as the wind had picked up gusting strongly through the harbour.  Jackie and Ian went off in the morning while Emma did some work and I did some boat repairs (in between looking out for reckless behaviour by the large number of charter-hire yachts from Sardinia).  When Jackie and Ian came back we headed up into the old town on the cliff in the afternoon.  A great place with narrow windy streets and amazing views.
 
We returned to find that Jackie had polished the chrome and Ian had spliced some of my fraying fender ropes.  It turns out that Jackie is paranoid about what is written in the blog (no sooner had she found out that one entry was published she was on the phone to her son to find out what was said) and so is very keen have some nice things reported.  She need not have worried as both she and Ian have been fabulous so far.
 
The marina office forecast for the next day's 85 mile leg to Alghero was for winds increasing to Force 7 in the evening.  So we planned to leave at 6 in the morning and it was to be another early night.