When did we get here? Two days ago?
The sail over here two and a half days ago we
were sailing along, all the things were great, life was good, and then we saw some
dolphins and we thought, "Hey, that's great. Good omen, dolphins" and then literally as
soon as the Sun set and the Dolphins said goodbye our davits broke. What just
happened? And then within 20 minutes we had a
dinghy that was upside down in the water and no outboard motor. Um, yeah.
All of our plans were now halted. Priority number one was to find an outboard engine.
We arrived on a S unday so we had a picnic and we went to see a flick at the world's oldest cinema.
Also, while we were in La Ciotat we need to find a welder to reattach and reinforce the davits to the
transom. Being in our first time in France and except for pleasantries none
of us speak French, Lise & Eric from Bon Fond, we're very gracious and helped us
find a welder so we met up with Julien and we attempted to communicate some sort of solution.
We visited a few different places looking for an outboard
motor and there was none to be found. One guy even told us that there are no
outboard motors within the area that were being sold and that instead we would
have to buy a new one and that it would take two weeks, but right next door we
found a store that was selling a refurbished 9.9 Yamaha outboard motor
and that was actually the only one being sold within a 20-mile radius. Wow, that
sounds so much better. Way quieter.
And there they go.
What happened? It stopped running. But it was going so well! Going over there to talk to the guy.
Apparently in France gazole is not petrol. It's diesel. SP 95 is petrol.
I put diesel in a petrol engine.
Understandably we had some miscommunications with
Julien and after a week of trying to dissolve a solution and us needing to be
on our way we just straight-up bolted the davits to the transom.
Only having 14 days left to exit the EU without violating the Schengen Agreement we had
almost 1,000 nautical miles to Albania. 1000 miles is near 10 days on the water.
We had a smooth sail to Corsica where we stopped for a day to film with Thibault and Jelena.
We sailed in the Gulf di Talabo and then sailed down around
Le Bocche and across all the way, there's Roma, that's where we are now.
We beat windward to exit the bay and headed south.
As we rounded the island beginning to pass through the Strait of Bonifacio we
read both pages with pretty much a straight shot to Rome.
The plan was that I was gonna man the helm until around 2 a.m. Just as the
forecast had suggested, as the Sun was beginning to set, off to the north east
about 15 miles I could see rain clouds developing, but I thought if those rain
clouds develop into a storm the wind is coming out of the due west so the storm
should stay to the north of us. But just around midnight as I was watching the
storm grow and it began to move south right in our path the decision was made that
we were to turn around and head back for Sardinia. We don't actually have any
footage of this because it was all hands on deck, midnight and hectic so this will stand in as Arianrhod.
With the wind blowing a 6 on the Buford wind scale we had to remove sail so we
could head back to Sardinia. We were able to furl in the jib with ease.
Though Sardinia lay off to our starboard quarter, we turned on the engine
and turned to port to spill the wind from the Genoa so that we can disconnect the
whisker pole and furl it in. It took all my effort to disconnect the whisker
pole and in the process the Genoa was luffing aggressively. Beating against the
pole the Genoa tore like it was confetti. With the whisker pole finally
stored, I crawled to the bow and furled in the Genoa by hand. The bow was heaving
at the crest and crashing into the troughs and I bear hugged the sail to
stay on the boat as I made incremental progress. After three hours of motoring
and a total of 15 hours on the water, we finally dropped anchor and rested for a few hours.
Midday we decided to head for open water and finish our sail to Rome.
Upon arrival in Italy we tried to lower the obliterated sail, but it was just too
windy so we secured it the best that we could because we only had a single day to visit Rome.
Decimated head sail. The boat looks fantastic right now.
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