Ciao Italia

Ciao Italia

Tuesday 3rd September... Busy bees again we were this morning. More laundry, shopping, deck cleaning, and dog walking all before noon so that we could depart for ITALY. As i said we're already on the borderline so as soon as we left the marina and the fenders were away we said Au Revoir to France, lowered the French ensign and raised the Italian one. How exciting. I've never been to Italy so it felt like entering into the unknown.

 Bonjourno Italia

One of the very many viaducts we saw today

We got a bit of slow sailing in for two hours, but we weren't in a rush anyway having already booked a berth at Porto Maurizio in Imperia. When we passed San Remo we were a couple of miles off shore and the rolly swell picked up. It wasn't bad but it was the worst we've seen for quite a while, and the wind wasn't enough to keep us sailing so we had to motor for the next couple of hours to get us to Imperia. It did feel like a bit of a trek at times but we were so thrilled when we arrived as the place looks beautiful. 

 Final approach into Imperia....excitement mounting

In the harbour we had to wait for a short while whilst the marineros berthed a classic yacht called Argyll. Dean had been watching it as we sailed along and the AIS showed it had sailed from Marseille this morning. We didn't know beforehand, but the harbour is just setting up for a Classic Boat Festival from 5th to 8th September and there are a number of classic boats here already. So it was our turn next and two marineros professionally helped us into our space on the concrete quayside. The quay is about four foot high and so we had to be careful not to bash the top of the hydrovane as we reversed in. Strangely there is a little bit of tide in this part of the med. Everything was fine and the evening views were just lovely. Hello Italy!

 Not a classic boat but definately in a world of its own

Thesee's view this evening across the harbour

Wednesday 4th September…  This morning we took a walk around the other side of the marina to look at the classic yachts that have already arrived. Dean was in his element, as he admired the good condition that most of them were in. From here we stopped for a lovely coffee and croissant at a nice place along the street. Then it was off to investigate the old town up on the hill via a road called Corso Saffi. There are three separate small funicular type railways that get you to the top without too much climbing. Once up there the views were wonderful. No one around the place only a few residents but we did find a lovely old church and a monastery, and in general just enjoyed exploring the old alleyways and buildings.

Chiesa Ava Maris Stella on the main street

 Ready for the show

  

 Wow, is this the boom?

Blue Bird of 1938 (London)

Bet this has been a few places

.... and this one

A lot of rigging up there

Saffi Street

The funicular railway part 3

Beautiful view of the Concattedrale de San Maurizio

Views from the top

A very old building here

Winding our way through the alleys

 

Now we find Oratorio di San Pietro 

Monastery sea views

Anybody at the monastery except Linda?

Nice patio down there

Corridor painting

Nearly back to where we started

It was a lazy afternoon really apart from Dean trying to thread a tube through a very tricky gap under the floor boards. This afternoon it turned pretty cloudy which kept the temperature down to a manageable pace. We’re going to stay a few more days as we like it, there’s things to do, and of course the Festival starts tomorrow, plus the next few days are going to be rather too blowy for sailing across to La Spezia.


Thursday 5th September…  The day started cloudy. I wanted to use up some eggs so made a cake at 8am this morning, then Dean got the bikes out and we took a ride into the Oneglia (that’s the other half of Imperia). It’s more industrial than Port Maurizio and rather scruffy really with a lot of litter about, but they did have a Lidl so it wasn’t all that bad. And Dean said the Chandlery on the quayside stocked everything you could think of. On the whole it was OK and we enjoy having a cycle about now and again. Though there isn’t really a cycle route so most of it is on the road.

The old pasta factory at Oneglia

Nice little coffee stop

Collegiata di San Giovanni Battista

It's hard work remembering these names!

Mural of Oneglia

Dean was itching to do his tube threading again under the floor after lunch, and this time he was successful. It’s the outlet for the fridge, so the new pipe will take the water straight into the bilge when we do defrosting next time. He also tightened up the lazy lines at the bow as we’re expecting some winds to come through during the night. 

The small tube is the new one fitted today

The last couple of days or so we’ve had to hose Saffy down as it’s been really warm.  Today wasn’t so bad, so she got away with it, but we did see the dog nextdoor having the works done. The Boat Festival starts today, and although we missed the opening ceremony we got to look around the place. It’s only on the quay so it’s not massive, but there are some truly wonderful boats to see and there were a lot of people about. Here's some pics

Jet-ski Polizia

Smaller classics

This one has a lot to be proud of

 

It's Blue Bird of London again

This one came in today

The boom is MASSIVE, overhangs the quay by miles!

 

Officers and Gentlemen

There's a lot of rigging up there

Lamborghini Polizia this time

.... and how it used to be

Friday 6th September... 11pm Thursday night the wind started blasting through here. All the boat crews (and us!) were up and trying to tighten lines, tie everything down, and generally stop their boats from being pushed backwards into the concrete pontoon. Our hydrovane on the aft of the boat squashed the hell out of the protective fender we use, so we had no choice but to put the engine on and in gear to keep us off the quay. Dean managed to winch the lazy lines tighter at the bow and it was only then we could switch off, and eventually go to bed about 1am.

Friday morning we thought it would be nice to have a little ride on the Tourist Train today to see the sights, only 3 euros each for a round trip. On we get and it only takes us along the exact routes we travelled yesterday on the bikes! Over to Oneglia and back again down the very same roads, and we didn't even see one tourist attraction. Bloody waste of 6 euros. After getting off the train 30 minutes later with sore bums from the crumbling and bumpy roads we walked West towards the back of the old town and along the coast road. It was very pleasant and so we stopped at a lovely cafe. 

Fishy views

Near the lovely cafe

.....with nice surroundings

Back on the main road

 Nearly lunchtime

Having done quite a lot of walking in this our first stop in Italy, we've realised that cars don't stop for you at the Zebra crossing until you actually start walking across it! Otherwise they just keep on driving. Scary sometimes. So back onboard it started to rain and it was quite blowy. The small dinghy racers started returning and congregating in our little area, most were paddling to get on dry land having dropped their sails. It was a bit chaotic at times.

 

Took this pic out of Thesee's rainy window

All directions here

When the weather dried up we went to watch the Jazz Trio on the quay, but they obviously hadn't even turned up yet so we watched some dancers on a big keyboard. Sorry no photo of dancing.... got distracted by one of the bigger classic boats that had snapped its mast off during the days races! Yikes

Setting up the dancing keyboard

Hard to see the snapped mast hanging down

The guy is trying to sort out the rigging

Now that's better...at least these guys are keeping us entertained

Lucky we brought along our own vino

Here's the other halves (and Oscar the Dog)

Dean was eager to eat out for dinner tonight. We'd had our eye on this place for a couple of days. They don't have a menu.... really. They just make pizzas and pastas, bring it to your table and if you like the look of it you accept it, if you don't want it they will bring you a different pizza or pasta. It's really quite unique and the place soon filled up and there was even a queue to get in later on. But by this time we were on today's second bottle of wine and everything started to get a bit blurry.

Dean choosing the wine

Linda drinking the wine

Not many tables left now

Saturday 7th September...  Feeling a little worse for wear today after our exciting night out last night, plus couldn't sleep. Passage planning is getting us down because weather is being naughty at the moment and well into next week. Therefore, we're still here in Imperia. No point moving on today as it won't really gain any advantage in crossing to La Spezia. Trying to look on the bright side and keep spirits up, after all we are.... 1.Living life on a boat in the Med. 2. We're in a nice town and marina. 3. It's the cheapest marina we've had in ages. So not a lot going on today except Dean fitted the second wheel cover, ok so that's a big job.  He's very good at cross stitch.

Little dinghys off out again

The marina motorway

Dean in action sewing his cross stitch on the second wheel cover

A quick peep over the breakwater

The yachts have just finished racing

Sunday 8th September... There was quite a lot going on around town last night. Really lively with a good atmosphere from what we could tell. This photo was taken from Thesee's cockpit of a live band that set up for the evening classic boat party. The music was great and very soothing, in fact we were both so tired we fell asleep listening in the cockpit. Not long after we dragged ourselves into bed, we couldn't even manage to stay awake to watch the big firework display at 10.45pm

Here's the live band

Thesee has prime position in the marina

This morning was the Classic Boat's Grand Parade. We kind of forgot it was happening, but we had a pretty good view from Thesee anyway. 

A proud Italian boat flying his huge ensign for the parade

(and playing the National Anthem)

The ceiling inside the harbour building where last night's party took place

 

How about this for a little runaround?

No doors, just a bit of rope

Wouldn't be much good in the UK weather

Talking of weather (for a change)

This is the stormy skies tonight

Monday 9th September... Onwards today across the Gulf of Genoa. We really want to get over the other side now, and if we didn't go for it today we would have had to wait for another week at least due to high winds. We left Imperia at 8.30am. It was going to be about a ten hour(ish) crossing for the 65 mile journey to Chiavari. So for the first 5 hours we motored into light winds and the swell was up, but it didn't feel too bad as we were going north east with it. A couple of hours in Dean was downstairs making a cuppa when something caught my eye about 100 metres off Thesee's port side. I thought i had missed a beacon or something, but soon realised that it was a big whale blowing a massive water spout into the air! My legs turned to jelly and i shouted Dean to come and look. There was a big splash too at some point but i can't remember what order it all came in, as it was over quite quickly before all we could see was the whale's back as he swam away. Eyes peeled now, i didn't want to run into one of them today for sure! 

Not long after leaving Imperia we saw snow capped mountains inland

Grabbing the camera quickly, we just got a snap of the whale 

before it swam away

Nice clouds but stay over there please

It was a very clear day and we were surprised that we could see the land all throughout the journey across the gulf. This is a long distance photo of Genoa.... birthplace of world famous Italian explorer Christopher Columbus!

Genoa

Chris Columbus

Our raymarine chartplotter showing we are half way across the gulf

The depths in the gulf are over 1000 metres, wow! Not like 20 metres back in the Solent. At some point we noticed that our chartplotter wasn't showing information and couldn't work out why or fix it. Fortunately Dean remembered that we had other Chartplotter cards and put the Central Mediterranean SD card into the plotter and it worked. Later on it became obvious that we had gone off the area covered by the West Med card. Haven't we travelled a long way?

So we sailed for the last 5 hours and nearing land it became a bit stressful with building swell and wind. We had only seen one boat in 60 miles until 'the one that is always coming out of the marina when you're heading in and trying to drop your mainsail at the same time'. We're going to head to La Spezia tomorrow.

This is the last blog post entitled 'Ciao Italia'

The next post will be called ' Southwards to Tuscany and Elba'