Day 1
Well, the day finally arrived… Tuesday, April 17 and we are off to deliver the sailing ship to Slovenia (Because the ship is not owned by us I cannot mention the name of it in this diary or include any photos of it in the galleries). This ship is a sailing yacht, 44ft, immaculate design in the traditional Greek sailing ship style with modern fittings. We are delivering it through shipment from Slovenia… this means a trip for us up and across the Adriatic… something I’ve never done, obviously, and something I am looking forward to.
In preparation we have placed provisions on board, registered the trip with the Corfu Port Authority with me identified as crew…well.. actually that should be interesting. . I hope I can be of some help as I have never sailed on a sailboat before, but I do have my basic recreational seamanship training with charting and safety and minor maintenance. The Canadian recreational boating card comes in handy for registration .
As it turns out Captain K has told them I am a friend of the owner and wanted to sail the Adriatic so am coming along as crew. Their response was.. “with you?! Well, he’ll be calling for a helicopter pretty quickly!!” Hah!
Anyhow, to get back to the thrill of the day arriving!! K and I awoke to the sound of thunder and lightening and rain… so much for that early morning departure…
Noon arrived and it appeared dry enough so off we went to the boat…
The owner’s instructions read, “Be sure to open both seacocks before going anywhere.” Guess what!! The seacock in the head broke off in the Captain’s hand… and I know from personal experience that his touch is too sensitive and gentle to have broken off a solid seacock handle…!!
This meant a three hour delay for maintenance, but being the total professional we were going nowhere with even a minor leak, so repair it he did. During the liftout that was required for the repair the captain was asked if I am the new owner.. and replied, “no… he’s a friend of the owner who is coming along just to drive me crazy!” I love the way he is having fun with my presence. It makes the trip so much more interesting and just shows what a great peson I’ve been lucky enough to have as a present and future life partner.
Fi nally the boat is repaired and instead of returning to the slip we decided to just head out to sea… finally we are off!!!
The beginning of the sail went along nicely, … and it seemed it was going to be a nice evening … a perfect night for sailing although it was a little damp and misty…
On the first leg of our journey we are heading to Bari, Italy… crossing the Adriatic and heading North West rather than going straight up the coast by Croatia… this trip straight up the coast would have brought us past Albania, Croatia and into Slovenia… it might have been the shorter route but it means we would have to move from Schengen Agreement territory into non-schengen territory… a move which would be more costly for mooring and which we felt we would rather not make… so off to Bari we went…
As we approached the open seas where the Adriatic opens into the Mediterranea n we lost any form of stabilizing wind and instead came across rolling seas heading mostly northwest, although coming from about two different directions most of the way…
As the ship rolled from port to starboard all evening from about 8pm to 3am I said a couple of prayers and tried to get some sleep.. but it took me until about 2am before I realized that sleeping abeam was far more reasonable than sleeping bow to stern… in retrospect one wants to say, “Like, duh!!” The rolling and the tossing never caused any form of medical upset, but I do remember thinking on a couple of particularly deep rolls that my imagination was taking me to scary places I didn’t want to go but if the captain didn’t ask me to put on a life jacket then it couldn’t be THAT bad..
The seas calmed at 3am and I managed to get some sleep but was of absolutely no use to the captain all night.. he kept watch alone most of the night and got us through the rough ride. I, in the meantime, managed to gain a more serious appreciation for the life of a sailor…and I decided that if they smoke and drink and lead a life of debauchery then good for them… even though there are the calm relaxing contemplativ e moments, life at sea is a roller coaster with mother nature playing the attendant… you either make it through the total ride or you get swallowed up along the way… I prayed that night that we would make it to the end of the ride, and we managed to do that…
When I set out on this trip of the Adriatic nations I wondered what it would all be like being in different lands and not speaking other languages… the captain speaks three languages fluently and that is saving my neck. I don’t feel as uncomfortabl e as I thought I might feel being in the different nations. Since I am from Toronto I find that the people don’t look unfamiliar to me.. just that there are more of them all of the same race at one location. It is definitely interesting seeing the biological nations versus my state nation background.
We made it to Bari at 5pm, and settled into a side mooring what really was supposed to be a stern mooring but the winds in the Marina were so bad that the Captain managed to negotiate the mooring we had. I think he probably told the marina crew that he had a total klutz on board who would never be able to help him leave the slip in the morning if we were in a standard stern mooring position… Ha !!
One of my responsibili ties is to keep in touch with my web clients while away, so I needed to find access to the internet… we ended up going into downtown Bari by bus and went to an internet café… an enjoyable experience if somewhat brief… I always like riding within a city by bus… did that for the first time on a trip to Nassau and found it so much more enjoyable than being isolated from the local inhabitants in a limousine or cab. As it happened the client had no work for me so it meant I could spend another evening and day at sea without any work to do… just enjoy…
We managed to have dinner at 9pm (NOTHING is open for restaurant food before 8pm.K suggested pizza.. and we went to a pizza restaurant… I commented that I would like to try Italian pizza, to see if it was similar to the Ristorante Pizzas sold by Oetker Industries… it was similar but it was even better.. but then it was made fresh, practically in front of us since our table had a view into the kitchen and the kitchen doors were kept open…. So, needless to say it was an enjoyable experience.
It’s now Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 3.24pm and I must say that the Captain’s patience far outweighs anything I’ve ever seen in my previous partners…. We’ve taken a lot of pictures but we haven’t taken the photos showing me screwing up…. When we landed at Bari in the high winds I must admit I felt totally useless, like rubber tires on a snow sled… but the captain took it all in good grace… However I have vowed that by the time this trip is over I will definitely know how to tie a fender line and a bowline… if nothing else.
I have already learned that boating in the Mediterranea n is nothing like boating in fresh water Ontario…
We spent a quiet evening in Bari, and a good night’s sleep… much appreciated by us both…..
Fri day
Heading out to points northwest…. Along the Italian shoreline… the evening went uneventfully .. the ride was quiet and comfortable with winds at 4knots and no sea swells to contend with… 11pm arose and I headed off to the cabin to sleep…. Slept right through the night, awakening about 8am and came out to the cockpit to find the Captain bleary eyed and exhausted… I don’t know why he pampers me so… but I do know he is nervous, or has been nervous ever since the little “I’m the boss fiasco”… I kinda slipped over that incident but will retell it now.
Captai n needed a break and asked me to take the watch for three hours… I really didn’t want to wake him at all during that period so I had a good look at the auto pilot and decided I would alter course slightly to bring us a bit further away from land… visibility wasn’t good and I didn’t want land to approach me before I knew I was approaching it. After about an hour and a half the Captain came out and noticed I had changed course…wasn’ t a smart move and we switched back.. no harm was done, but I had over-ridden his authority and set my own course and wasted fuel… this delivery is his responsibili ty and he has the weight of making sure not only is the yacht safely delivered to its destination, but so am I… my bad… big time… and I promised him it would never happen again..
At any rate he took another chance on me and decided to sleep for three hours… lo and behold I did my bit as a true crew member, kept us on course and didn’t hit any dolphins or sea birds along the way… and he got his three hour nap…. Kinda made my day actually, that I could finally give him a chance to rest.
We pulled into porto san Giorgio about 3pm and settled into a stern slip… had dinner, did some necessary interneting. . and slept the night away.. Porto San Giorgio looks like a recently developed tourist location… clean streets, quiet… good food… nice marina… but nothing to really identify it as a unique place in the overall scheme of Italian heritage. However, I liked it and remarked that it was reminiscent of Florida without the theme facades one sees on all the buildings in Florida.
Sa turday, 2pm
We headed out with a course a bit north on the coast and then headed at 355degrees to take us across the Adriatic to Croatia..
B oth in a good mood today… singing “Oh Susanah”… donning our sailor hats and looking like a couple of hillbillies. Although I didn’t think I would ever mention it I had my first experience at walking around nude on a yacht in the middle of the Sea… well not the middle, but at least in privacy… and it was kinda neat… not a bad little break from the normal stodgy guy I am. But with the sun beating down I figured about 10 minutes of that was enough…
The Captain is napping now and it is 6:45pm… if he isn’t a tad irritated with me he probably should be for I spotted a Cruise Ship crossing us from port side and figured we had plenty of clearance with no need for a change in speed… definitely no change in course… I learned that lesson yesterday…. However the cruise ship crossed us at about 300yards out and I think that might have been a tad close( I mean a really good sign was when one of the ship’s stewards reached across to our yacht and handed me a hot coffee) …as usual, when I woke the captain and said I think we have a bit of a wave to contend with here… he looked kinda startled at the closeness of the ship but said nothing other than that is the ship we will be taking back to Corfu.. He hasn’t yelled at me once with all the stupid things I’ve done. no wonder he is dearly loved down here as a Captain… handsome, professional at all times, and really nice in the way he handles crew…
Even when I goofed up badly the other day he took a moment to ask me my reasoning for my choices… and while he understood them he appreciated my apology and promise not to make the same mistake a second time… and I won’t..
I also won’t be so brave with cruise ships in the future…will slow down and let them pass at a much wider birth…
After taking a watch for a couple of hours I headed to bed… and the Captain took over… no one will ever fully understand how very greatful I was that he allowed me to sleep nights and not have to sit alone in the cockpit under the stars both contemplatin g my fate and trying to watch for denizens of the sea….
I awoke to a grumpy Captain today…. ‘You slept seven hours…” he barked quietly…. He never barks loudly and I have a feeling when we get back to Corfu he is going to let out one loud yelp that will be heard from one end of Corfu to the other…he hadn’t shaved for four days and I remarked that his beard was grey.. he replied “ It wasn’t when we left” and said that with a smile.
Fina lly he went below for some much needed rest… and I took watch.. it was daybreak and although the visibility wasn’t the 100miles I wished it could be, it was in fact about 8 miles and surely one can remain safe when seeing ships from 8 miles away… the next two hours went smoothly.. I saw all the moving vessels and a couple of the none moving vessels, although I thought they, too were moving… on one occasion I awoke the captain and asked for advice on how to manouver around an upcoming ship… he remarked that “just turn 3 degrees to starboard and don’t worry about him trying to find the right reckoning because that’s an oil rig… it doesn’t move!” hah… then he went back to sleep.. don’t know why he did that but maybe he figured that if I was going to get really cautious with none-moving objects that I would be safe to trust with moving objects.
Ev erything went quietly and after a two hour sleep the captain awoke… freshened up a bit and as he was getting dressed I shouted down to him “Hey.. are we supposed to see warships in these waters?”
“What?, “ he replied, “See what kind of ship?”
“Battleshi ps… navy ships? ”
“Well we could because there is a naval base somewhere around here.”
That made me feel much better as I was hoping I hadn’t steered us out into the middle of some internationa l crisis… I felt even better a bit later when the ‘warship’, ‘battleship’ , ‘navy ship’ turned out to be a ferry…. Like gee.. how am I supposed to know these things? I’m just an old man from Toronto, Canada who motored in Lake Simcoe for 5 years….
Onc e again I gotta say it… I hope I bring him some humour when he looks back on all the silly things that came from me….
Instea d of heading into a Croatian marina we decided to go straight through to Slovenia… our final destination and it is only 10 miles from the marina we were going to use in Croatia, so why not…. Besides Croatia is not a part of the European Union and the entry fees for the country together with the hassle regarding passports, etc, just wouldn’t really be worth it.
We arrived safely in Slovenia… and tonight we will tour the old town to which this marina is attached,… I think it is Koper or something…. Clean the yacht tomorrow and then head on to Venice by train…
I have promised to have a T-shirt made for the captain to wear that shows his name on the front and on the back it says.. “I was stuck with Mitchell as crew for an Adriatic crossing and came back alive”
