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.
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