Tag Archives: harbour

Welcome to Italy

Posted on by
Reply

It had been a long day, but Italy was in sight at last. I weaved across the deck to start securing the fenders, ready for our final approach into the harbour of Chioggia. I could see the first green light marking the outer harbour wall, and a pale pink was starting to spread across the blue clouds on the horizon.

As I gazed around the line of breakwaters ahead, I noticed a fast launch speeding out through the entrance and turning in our direction. I bent my head to tie the fender, and glanced up again, expecting the boat to have turned to pass us. It hadn’t and it was speeding fast directly towards us, pounding the waves at it gathered speed. I glanced back at the helm. Hadn’t they seen us? We were hard to miss!

“Is it a police boat?” came the call from the helm. It didn’t look like one to me, I stared harder and saw grey and yellow, but no blue flashing lights, so I shook my head.

“Looks ordinary to me!”

A minute later, as we started to turn a little out of its path, it was even closer and suddenly there were blue lights flashing and shouts and gestures from the approaching boat. They were motioning us to move across away from the harbour entrance. I hurried to attach more fenders as the boat swung alongside us. The crew had ropes ready and obviously intended to come onboard or something. What had we done wrong? We’d only sailed 10 hours straight from Croatia, and it’s also in the EU… what was their problem?

Thankfully there were no guns being thrown around and after a rather bumpy hurried procedure, as the police launch attached itself to us, we became a floating raft, while they ‘politely demanded’ passports and papers and asked where we had come from. 

Then after the skipper handed over the documents, we waited and watched them flick through passports, scan them into their onboard computers and scrutinise papers… We all wondered what was next – would they need to search the boat for drugs or illegal immigrants? It seemed to be taking a long time and through the tinted glass of their cabin we could see them holding up passports and tapping in numbers on screens… all while we bumped and bobbed beside them in the waves.

One of the police crew members left to supervise the fenders and ropes and stop us all drifting onto the rocks beside the harbour wall, made conversation with the skipper, who luckily spoke a little Italian. Meanwhile, our crew members attempted to take surreptitious photos of the situation without getting arrested!

Half an hour later, the chief appeared from below and said all was in order and we could go. One of his crew looked up at the pink sky and said, “It’s beautiful!” I agreed, but thought, “Yes it is, but now please let us find the marina and get sorted before it’s dark!”

One positive from the surprise customs ‘check-in’ was that the police (who became friendly once they saw we weren’t smugglers) could point out exactly where to go to tie up in Chioggia and told us we didn’t need to go anywhere else to report our presence, it was all sorted and we were legally allowed to enter Italy.

At last, Venice was just around the corner…

 

Into the deep

Posted on by
2

What are you scared of? I guess we don’t know the answer until we’re faced with something that makes our stomach turn upside down.

I love swimming but a few days ago we tied up in a little harbour after a long sail and walked along the quay to the beach. The water was crisp and clear and you could see right down to the sloping white sand below. We both plunged in to cool off.

“Wow!” came the exclamation, “that’s deep!” The skipper a few metres further out than me, pointed below. I stuck my head down and saw a steep bank of sand disappearing into blue and deeper blue and more blue! The steeply shelving beach had the feeling of stepping off a precipice. My stomach did a tumble as I back paddled away.

We can both swim well and in deep water, but there was something different about this, like standing close to a cliff, as if I was suspended above the drop. Neither of us felt keen to venture over the drop which we called “the deep”. It was quite ridiculous considering we’ve jumped into the sea mid sail hundreds of times in much deeper water and felt fine.

After our trip to the beach we met a Greek sailor who told us some of the secrets of this hidden harbour on the south of Halkidiki’s middle peninsula.

He told us it had been a secret submarine base during the Second World War. The deep natural harbour with its hidden entrance between the cliffs had even had a metal net across the entrance to stop enemy boats getting in. All around the surrounding hills had been huge canons standing watch. He said one of these now lay on the sea bed below.

The story of the submarines somehow confirmed my deepest fears of something unknown lurking unseen below, a bit like the Loch Ness monster!

After a few days sailing around the peninsulas, we returned to Porto Koufo yesterday and went back to the beach.

“Let’s go into the deep,” I said.

“Do you want to?”

“Yes we have to face our fears!”

We laughed and both put our heads down and headed out. Through my goggles I could see the sand slipping away and the blue below becoming bluer. We both looked up and trod water – no giant squids snapped at our toes, no monsters bared their teeth below us. We were still OK. Nothing to be afraid of really! Still after a few minutes we headed back to the safety of the sand and enjoyed the feel of something solid between our toes.

Last night in the restaurant we heard more stories from would-be psychology student, 17-year-old Nicole, our waitress for the evening. Her grandfather had set up the first Taverna here after the war. There were tales of bombs being made in a cellar and tunnels in the hillside where you can still see the remains of the Nazi control rooms.

This is a place of history and beauty. We love the ramshackle quay, with its huge metal bollards for ropes, the fishermen waiting patiently all night by their rods and feeding stray cats with the unwanted catches.

Tomorrow we will leave Porto Koufo and “the deep” behind us to make the passage back to the Sporades islands. We will be heading into another kind of “deep” hoping for fair winds. The unknown is always a little scary, whether it’s new places or fresh challenges. I get a little nervous each time we come into a new anchorage or port, uncertain how we’ll do tying up or getting our anchor set. But each time we swim over the edge and face the fear we get a little bolder and braver, hopefully!

Although facing my fears doesn’t help me being rubbish at lassoing ropes over bollards ( Thank you to the old sailor who helped us tie up yesterday, reassuring me as I ‘misthrew’ the rope yet again, by saying, “Slow, slow, slow, no rush – we sailors have all the time in the world”! ) I should have taken his advice this morning too as I rushed up the boat steps for the umpteenth time and tripped re grazing my shin, all before breakfast! My body is now tattooed with the stories from this trip, a selection of tell tale bruises, scars and mosquito bites.

Listening to the wind whistling through the mast today, I am sure there will be more to come!

All at sea

Posted on by
4

Have you ever been in one of those crisis moments when you say to yourself, we’ll look back on this tomorrow and think, ‘what a great adventure that was…’?

That was 24 hours ago…*

“I’ll just do it then, shall I?” It was one of those questions I didn’t need to ask, because there weren’t any other options left.
“Boom!”
Another huge waved crashed across the bows of the boat which were immediately rising to the crest of a second wave. I had butterflies in my stomach as I turned to inch my way along the deck, the lines of my safety harness scraping along the tape secured to the boat.
‘Be brave’ was the only thing I could think.
Half way along the deck I sat down gripping the metal stays with one hand as I unfastened and refastened the clip to the next set of tapes. My body was tense and my fingers trembled, mainly with cold. Up ahead at the bows the next wave was pounding down showering me with spray and I kept low edging my way towards the ‘pointy end’…

It had already been quite a day at sea. We’d set off, just the two of us, at 6am to catch the tidal stream. Daybreak sails are some of my favourite. As the sky begins to lighten and sun’s rays are soft and golden, full of unspoken promises of what lies ahead. The wind had been a bit stronger than forecast and we’d made good progress hoping to push through to Dartmouth – our final destination. But after a change in wind direction and with the tide turned against us, we decided to divert to Salcombe till later in the afternoon when the tides would be in our favour.

Always expect the unexpected in sailing. As we attempted to furl the genoa (pull in the sail at the front which wraps around a wire) the rope snapped. It wasn’t an easy fix, so sadly, we found ourselves returning to where we’d come from – more than three hours sail west. Four hours later, furling line temporarily fixed with a bit of help, we headed back to sea. We’d made reasonable time and decided to try and make Dartmouth that evening. The voyage took us through the notorious Start Point where the sea can be quite rough. Neither of us had sailed there before. We’d got into big waves about an hour earlier, but now they were getting higher and there were white horse breaking all around us.

We were more than two or three miles off shore, as we began to round the light house, and watched the blue curve of Start Bay emerge in the distance. 

“I don’t think we can make it…we’re going to have to turn back.”
It was one of those moments. You could call it mutiny.
Waves were breaking across the front of the boat. The sun would be setting in an hour. The wind was coming from where we needed to go. We’d been sailing pretty much non stop for more than 12 hours. But there was one other option… to me this was better than going back again.

This involved one of us going to the front of the pitching boat to fix the tangled line and help wind in the sail by hand. Meanwhile, the other steered the boat through the waves while juggling two other ropes to enable the awkward sail to be safely pulled in. We’d planned to be in calmer waters for this procedure, but we couldn’t risk the furling line breaking again.

So, there I was, kneeling at the front of the boat on the biggest and scariest white water roller coaster ride ever. In between each fresh wave, which broke across me, I attempted to untangle the rope, while the stressed skipper shouted instructions above the waves. Apart from being scared of slipping in, the biggest problem was my bobble hat which insisted on sliding down over my eyes. I thought the rope was untangled and then saw it wasn’t. As I gripped the metal stanchion to steady myself while the boat slammed down onto yet another wave, I did think, ‘Hopefully, we’ll be laughing about all this tomorrow.’

The best thing about moments like that may not be the moments themselves, but it’s the contrast of looking back and being glad you got through it.

An hour or so later as our little boat nudged its way between the rocks and the castle guarding the entrance to Dartmouth, the sun was beginning to sink behind the hills. A mooring buoy was beckoning and the boom of a canon up above at the Naval College signalled that the day was over. 

We both sighed and smiled. What a day it had been! Some 88 nautical miles travelled since first light. Now the dangers were past, we were in calm waters and a safe harbour for the night. There is no better feeling. And it’s one of the many reasons why I love sailing.

*at the time of writing