From Corsica to Italy
Altea
Wed 20 Aug 2014 07:23
4 August 2014
We weigh anchor at 10:15 with a longish overnight journey ahead of us. Depending on the wind we are aiming to make landfall just east of Genoa, at a place called Fruttuoso, which was one of the places visited by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in their latest series of "The Trip". They had spaghetti vongole at a beach-side restaurant as I remember it, and we fancy doing the same, although the bay looks very tight on the chart plotter.
We did a mini service before we set off. We checked the oil and belts, and changed the Racor fuel filter. We also installed our new Speedlife water pump cover plate. The impeller lives under this cover, and it is this which pumps sea water round the engine to cool it, its rubber blades deforming as they revolve within the asymmetrical pump housing. The idea of the new cover is that the impeller wears less as it runs round against a disc that spins with it, rather than against the static face of the old cover plate; and also that it is quicker and easier to change. As its rubber blades are repeatedly being deformed and straightened, the impeller is one of the few things that can fail and bring the engine to a halt, so I am keen to be able to check and change it as easily as possible. It seems an old technology for such a crucial role, but it is still the norm even in new engines.
It is a pleasant sail in 12 knots of wind, with time for knot tying practice and a bit of boat cleaning. I break my toe on the genoa track.
More domestic chores include a generator, water making and washing machine session. The opportunity is taken to use the electric oven (nice chicken and generator tomatoes - which are like sun dried tomatoes only quicker - left to shrivel in the cooling oven).
By the early evening the wind has come well behind the beam and we put up the gennaker for a couple of hours downwind sailing, getting a respectable 4.2 knots off 7.4 knots of wind. It is too big and tricky to handle to leave up after dark, so it comes down before dusk and we run on with the mainsail held out with a preventer, and genoa. There is a half moon and some faint lightning in the clouds ahead.
Predictably the wind drops from 8 knots at 23:00 to 1 knot at 04:30 in the morning, and we give up the struggle to maintain forward progress. There are a few ships around, and we need a bit of steerage. The engine goes on. Still, not bad, we have managed over 16 hours under sail.
There is some confusion at about 05:00 o'clock. It is still dark, and we are still a long way from land, but J and I can both hear chirruping off to port. We wonder if it is a following bird, or a developing engine fault. After crawling around on deck with my ear to the engine room air intake, I finally track it down to a large black and yellow cricket that has stowed away in one of the deck drains.
Sails go back up at 08:15 and we have a nice run up towards Fruttuoso, set into the cliffs. The sea seems very lively here. We see a shoal of fish, about a foot or so long, leaping in a circle off to starboard. We assume they are either hunting tiddlers or escaping from their own predators. We also see a black fin sticking 6 or 8 inches out of the water, and circling. After first thinking it is a shark, we subsequently see several more and they are clearly sunfish. These are a very strange prehistoric looking fish that paddle around with one fin at the top and one at the bottom, and in between an elongated sphere of a body, which can grow to the size of a VW beetle. These ones are only a few feet across, sunning themselves just below the surface.
There is also some debris in the water- branches and detritis - and we have to keep a look out. There is a small log that we definitely would not want to hit.
As we suspected from the charts, Fruttuoso is too small for us to get into, and after a view from the sea we motor round the corner to Portofino. We have some mild drama as we experiment trying to anchor with a line ashore from the stern. This is something we have done in Turkey before and the benefit is a more stable anchorage and less swing room in what is a very crowded spot. However, after S's successful swim ashore (we need to tie together a few ropes to get enough length) there is no secure place to tie off and, having entertained those around us for half an hour, we abort in favour of an anchorage round the corner with more room.
This turns out to be a great choice, as later in the evening there is a live band at the bar in the bay, playing Beatles covers until midnight. Sitting in the cockpit, we have front row seats for a very pleasant end to a good couple of days sailing.