Caught in a sudden storm.
36° 49’ 98.00’’ N, 30° 36’ 37.00” E
It starts with lightning, and then another. Then the wind arrives, howling, almost insane, whipping the sea into foam and creating high – disturbingly high – waves.
Then comes the rain, but mostly, we are preoccupied with the storm, tearing at the rigging and abruptly stopping Ronja’s progress as the bow is lifted high into the air and then hammered down into a wave trough, with water pouring over the deck, and the pitometer dropping from 6.5 to 1.2 knots.
It all happens so quickly that we barely have time to close the hatches. Just a moment ago, the wind gauge showed 0.0, and the wind direction indicator was spinning because it couldn’t find a clear wind direction. And now, the wind gauge shows 20, 30, 40, 50 knots, directly at us.
We are in the midst of a thunderstorm.
What do we do? Should we turn back? Seek shelter in a Turkish cove two nautical miles behind us?
We grit our teeth. Tell each other that this must be a passing storm. After all, the weather forecast promised good weather. Isn’t it also getting a bit brighter – just a little bit – far out to the right?
After an hour, it’s over. First, the wind subsides, then the rain stops, and after a few hours, the waves also calm down.
Ronja regains speed through the water. The rest of us relax.
Nafplio wins by closer acquaintance
37° 34′ 5.448” N 22° 48′ 31.1796” E
3th october
Seen from the sea, the old castle town of Nafplio does not look special at all. The three Venetian fortifications do make their marks on the city, but otherwise what we see is just huge parking lots around a harbor surrounded by wire fences and a harbor that is completely without amenities like electricity and water. A totally boring port.
However, when you move into the streets of the city, you are overwhelmed by the liveliness and the beautiful buildings – Venetian, Turkish, Greek – all built charmingly together with the Venetian fortifications. You sense the greatness of the past and you do understand that here is the leading city of the area, with a past as the capital of Greece for a few years in19th century.
But the port itself is probably the most boring and inhospitable port in all of The Saronic Sea, and after two nights we sail south again. The most exciting thing about the harbor is, that we – as apparently the only boat – are subjected to a thorough police inspection, where the officers are particularly interested, whether we have paid our sailing tax.
We have. And thus we have saved a fine of 500 Euro.
In Greece you are very serious on Covid-19
37° 29′ 50.3988” N 23° 27′ 29.322” E
September 8, 2020
We sail back to Poros, as it turns out that our consumer batteries are still not quite ok. A battery is replaced by our regular mechanic / electrician / specialist. It helps.
We spend a few days enjoying the excellent beaches of Poros and studying the city life of Poros town. It is interesting to see how consistently the Greeks handle the corona situation. In each of the city’s 65 cafés, staff wear facemasks and hand alcohol on the tables. If you walk into a store, you will be asked to put on a facemask, and on the beach you will be warned not to move your sunbed closer to your spouse. “One meters distance. Basta. ” But actually we do understand it. Nearly 20 percent of Greeks work in the tourism industry. A total shutdown will really hurt.
In the harbor we meet a Canadian couple who have been in self-selected corona quarantine on their sailboat for half a year. Food, drink and medicine are brought to the boat. The couple themselves spend time to feed the city’s cats and chase away other sailors, who are trying to berth their boats too close to their self-proclaimed quarantine station. They will continue to Tunisia, Gran Canaria and then across the Atlantic in November. “We’re leaving tomorrow,” they tell us every day throughout the week. When we ourselves leave Poros, they are still there.
We make an arrangement with our friend in Vikos Marineshop, that he will look after Ronja, while we are at home in Denmark for the next 10 days.
Close to falling in
37° 20′ 46.6044” N 23° 14′ 44.016” E
September 4, 2020
Happy that the hassle is over, we sail further south and call at Ermioni in the Peloponnese.
We are still not thrilled with the Greeks’ tradition of berthing “backwards” to the quay. Often the distance between the boat and the quay becomes too great, and when we went ashore in the evening, Kirsten’s jump only reaches half the distance (her dress was probably too tight :-). Fortunately, Per has a good grip on her arm and mitigates a fall into the water. Relieved and only slightly bruised, we continue up into the city.
Ermioni turns out to be a gem. We find a wonderful walk around a peninsula with beautiful views, cicadas and a massive scent of pine trees.
From Ermonia we take a water taxi to the island of Idrhá.
Idrhá is also a gem, but a very touristy and busy gem. We are glad, that we did not sail to the island ourselves, because the harbor is a huge chaos of water taxis, ferries, fisher boats and yachts, all of them trying to find space in the small overburdened harbor.
Idrhá is car-free, and the street scene is – in addition to tourists – characterized by donkeys dragging groceries home from the supermarket. Truly a beautiful and charming town.
Among pirates and violent offenders
41° 40′ 34.4028” N 8° 54′ 3.4524” E
Wednesday 21th of june to Sunday 25th of June
Fantastic sailing day! We set off from Cargése in the early morning and immediately set sail, even though the wind is weak, and now it’s time for morning coffee. The wind increases during the day, and eight hours later we reach Porto Pollo after an absolutely enchanting day at sea. Dolphins have played alongside the boat. One mountain scenery has replaced the next.
Dancing with Ronja. Five or seven dolphins (or porpoises?) kept dancing and playing around us for a quite a while.
Porto Pollo means “the troubled port”, and it got its name many years ago, when the city was a favourite target for pirates in the area. You don’t see many pirates these days, but the city is obviously preparing for a giant invasion of sailing tourists.
The town itself is small, almost dried up – and honestly quite boring – with its only 100 permanent inhabitants. On the other hand, it is blessed with mile-long beaches, and along these hundreds of buoys are laid out to welcome the invasion of sailors.
We are here outside high season, so less than every tenth buoy is occupied. The price for a buoy outside high season: 20 €.
Skippers wife is taking charge. Conquering the steering hand at the inflatable boat. It was bound to happen some day.
After two days of lazy life outside the Porto Pollo beach, we head for Propriano – a bigger city with a real port and 3200 inhabitants.
As always, we prepare ourselves for a new destination, and read in the guidebook, about a dynamic coastal city with a maritime atmosphere and great beach life. In our “bible” during the sailing trip – “Mediterranean France & Corsica Pilot” by Rod Heikell – we find a different and more interesting angle. He writes, that for decades Propriano has had a dubious reputation. In the 1950s, the city was referred to as a city to avoid, where innocent locals were being murdered, and a local fisherman killed the Coast Guard, when he was charged for fishing with dynamite.
Propriano apparently has a large catalogue of violent crimes. As late as april 1990, the liberation movement, FLNC, blew one of the city’s restaurants up.
We ourselves experienced the city as quite peaceful. Good restaurants. Nice beaches. And amiable Frenchmen.
Bonus info: Try eating at Tempi Fa, close to the harbour. It is – according to Tripadvisor – the 39th best of 2,192 restaurants in Corsica – if you rely on review sites like that. During the daytime Tempi Fa offers wine and tapas and in the evening solid Corsican dinner dishes far behind the wine cellar. Tempi Fa is build around a wine bar with exclusively Corsican wines. We had the best red wine so far on our entire time in Corsica. Granite is the name of the wine. Very complex. Full of character. It is an appellation Ajaccio Protégée, but it is produced close to Propriano, which does not have its own appellation. A votre santé!
Time for reflexion. A cellar full of only corsican wine. Some of them are thougt-provokingly good.
Love at first sight in Sanremo
43° 49′ 6.1788” N 7° 47′ 16.2168” E
September 22, 2016
The big topic of conversation among sailors arriving from France to italian Sanremo, is the exorbitant high port rates. “Horrible! It is twice as expensive to be in a port in Italy as in France! We did not expect this,” says Derek Williams in his boat, Red Rooster, from England. He and his wife, Claire, searches for alternatives and finds an unauthorized berth without water and electricity in Sanremos old municipal port. Here they moor for free in two days.
It’s a bit of a surprise to move from France and into Italy. Over the months we have been accustomed to a French price level, which essentially is 31-35 € for a night in all the old harbours of the major cities, when we arrive with an 11 meters long and 3.5 meters wide sailing-yacht. Only a few times the price has been higher like in St. Tropez and Porquerolles.
It does seem odd, that the price of in first italian city, we run into, is 66 € for a berth, that in many respects is inferior to many french harbours – much longer distance to the bathrooms. Noise on the quay in the evening. Quite a distance to the shops in the city. And a totally useless wifi.
€ 66! For what?
Nevertheless we stay another two days in Sanremo’s new port, Porto Sole, and we discovers that Sanremo is a truly fascinating, a really delightfull city.
The city mixes ancient grandeur and richness with modern shops, and yet we get the feeling, that here time stood still for a several decades. You buy milk and cheese in shops like dairy stores of the 1960’ties in Denmark, and there are so many more small specialty shops, than we are used to in our part of Europe.
A disused railway along the coast have been converted to 24 kilometers of beautiful bike path. We work the pedals of our sailing boat-bikes, and we have a wonderful trip out and a wonderful trip back.
After the bike ride, we find ourselves a large café in Sanremo, where we make observations about the differences between italian people and french people. It seems as if the italians are more happy, more unpretentious and more open than the french. Could this be prejudices? Perhaps. But it is like a great party to sit at the coffee shop in Sanremo. There are shouting and laughter and clashes on the shoulders and on the outermost rows of the café sits the old people of the town, watching the fun with a cup of coffee, that has to last half a day.
It may well be, that port dues are higher in Italy, but our impression is, that the prices for food and beverage in a supermarket or in a restaurant are quite a lot cheaper than in France. Our estimate is, that high harbour fees, are reasonable balanced by cheaper prices for food and beverages.
For us, Italy is love at the first sight.
Sanremo deserves more than the two days, we were able to spend in the city
Fun to look inside Monaco, but please do not make us stay there
43° 44′ 13.0308” N 7° 25′ 42.2004” E
September 20 – 2016
What do you do, when 40,000 inhabitants and a lot of tourists have to live in just 197 hectares? You stack them. You make sure that several basements are reserved for roads and parking lots. You make sure, that the next floors over the basement floors are reserved for shopping streets, and that the next 20-30 floors are residential areas.
It takes planning, and they are obviously good at that in Monaco. A bit like in Hong Kong. In Monaco however, they have even more Ferraris and Porches in the streets and even more marble tiles on the sidewalks.
We chose to ignore the tiny state as we passed it during our French-Italian Odysee. A few days later however we had a sneak peek at the small principality, when we were hiking there from our harbour in Menton.
It’s fun enough to visit Monaco. But it will never be a preferred target for us. Allready when you look at Monaco harbour, you get the same feeling as in St. Tropez – that everything is about looks, everything is about appearing as flashy as possible, the harbour is all about paying service to the multimillionaire yachts.
There is nothing wrong with that. Monaco sends a signal about how they want the port to be seen. Many people may like that. We do not.
Monaco seen from the sea. The European Manhattan somebody says. Well, probably they are not quite right.
Smart in Monaco. Man practices going on the water…
… It is of course not easy. Pride comes before a big splash :-
Seen from the sea Monaco is a charming blend of new and old
The golden capital in the land of lemons
43° 46′ 33.9024” N 7° 30′ 39.3444” E
September 19, 2016
The young clerk in lemon-shop is really angry, when he explains to a Russian tourist, that he must not use the same plastic fork to take samples of different glasses with lemon marmalade. “You need to take one sample with one fork. Then take another fork, if you want to taste one of the other glasses with jam, “said the clerk in English. His words were lost on the tourist, who continues his trip through the free tastings, while the clerk is getting more and more irritated.
We are in Menton – the city that makes the lemon to its characteristic with annual lemon festival and shops with everything in lemon flavor: Perfumes, spirits, soaps, oils, vinegar and jams.
Menton is a babylonian trainstation of cultures and nationalities, that are living together and occasionally – as in the lemon-shop – collide. The city is officially french, but with only one and a half kilometers from the Italian border it is as much Italian.
Other boats in the harbour carries both the French and Italian flag, and in the streets British, German, Russian, Belgian, Dutch and Scandinavian languages mix themselves catchy with French and Italian. Menton attracts anyone who loves a mild climate all year round. They settle. They visit. They taste. They enjoy.
Menton is a kind of mini-Nice. An old town at one end and at the other end a kilometer-long promenade, that stretches to the west. Restaurants, hotels, appartments, sunbeds, marketplace, beaches and freshwater showers. Everyone wants part in the sunny home of the lemon and its multicultural life.
Menton is itself and has its own charm with casino, nightclubs, cemeteries of the city’s most exquisite views and a few art museums. Compared to Nice missing the little wings, when it comes to history, art and architecture. Jean Cocteau, who in 2011 got his own art museum in the port of Menton, when an art collector, Severin Wunderman, donated 1,500 works to the city, do not compare with the Chagall- and Matisse-museums in Nice. No, not at all.
Multiculturalism in Menton also appears, when we arrive first in Menton Vielle Port and the day after in Menton Garavan. We call on VHF channel 9 and ask hopefully: “Parlez vous anglais?”
“No, mais nous parlons francais an Italian …”
Excellent. Finally, we are in a bilingual area. Just pity that the one language we do not master very good, and the second we do not understand at all.
Bonusinfo: If you are in Menton – or Monaco – do not miss the breathtaking hike around Cap Martin between Menton and Monaco. The trip takes a few hours and requires a large bottle of water each way. But hours and water is really worth the trip .
Another info: Forget your fold-out cycle in the bench of your boat! Traffic and steep roads make cycling to a dubious and dangerous pleasure. Only aging men in tricot on racing bikes defies the cyclist-hostile environment of southern France.
The walk between Menton and Monaco is no less than fantastic. Try it!
The two cemeteries of Menton are placed on hill-tops. Fantastic view over the sea. A beautiful place to be dead
Biggest joke in the Mediterranean: Yes, we have Internet
43 ° 42 ‘31.1184’ ‘N 7 ° 20 ‘14.6688’ ‘E
September 17 – 2016
“Do you have wifi“? (Remember in France it is pronounced not waifai but weefee).
“Yes, we have wifi. And occasionally it even works,” answers the port captain in Beaulieu-sur-mer, France, when we ask to his wifi, and that answer, we have heard also from other truthful port captains.
The less truthful port captains – and they are in the majority – just print with usual self-importance a code for the internet. “Here You are, sir. This is your special password to the Internet“.
This is the biggest joke in the Mediterranean. French harbours have no wifi. And the same goes with a lot of italian harbours.
It is “The emperor’s new clothes” – the fairytale of the Danish writer, Hans Christian Andersen, in which two crooks sell the emperor a set of new clothes, that are so unique, that only those who do well in their jobs, can see the clothes, while those who are not good at their job, will not see it.
No one dares to admit, that they can not see the clothes, because then they would indeed be stupid, so everyone claps his hands and says, that the emperor’s new clothes are fantastic. It is all revealed, when the Emperor shows up his new clothes during a procession through the town, and a little boy says “Hey, he has nothing on at all!”
French and Italian wifi i harbours are made of the same substance.
You rush around the harbour with your computer or your mobile phone. You sit at the port office doorstep. Either there is nothing at all. Or it is so weak, that it is good for nothing.
Right now we can only think of two harbours, where there has been a well-functioning wifi. In Nice, France, and Loano, Italy. Respect to Nice and Loano.
What is it with the French? And the Italians? Come into the current century. Establish a wifi that works! You can get wifi in an airplane ten kilometers above the earth’s surface. You can get wifi in a train. You can get wifi at a cafe. Should you not be able to establish wifi in a harbour?
Come on. We pay 30, 40 € – or in Italy even twice – for one night including wifi. Make it work! Thanks.
Advice wanted: Is there anyone who, while waiting for the French and Italian harbours to realize, that they are involved in a huge scam, can give me some advice on how I get a steady connection to the Internet? Is there a gadget, that I can buy for my ship, which makes me independent of the harbour? I have asked the company Orange, and they sold me a subscription with access to all the company’s own hotspots. It was’nt worth much.
Response awaited with gratitude.
Mine is bigger than yours
43° 35′ 12.462” N 7° 7′ 42.8952” E
September 12, 2016
Hold on, that is big! Absolutely incomprehensibly big.
Last time we were in Antibes – a month ago – we were fascinated by the port’s then largest yacht, “Katara”, owned by the Emir of Qatar. Hey: It was 126 meters, had a permanent crew of 60 people, helicopter on the aft deck and was lit at night as a dance temple.
Today Katara is gone, and the first berth in the so-called billionaires quay in Port Vauban has been taken over by an even larger yacht. An incomprehensible large yacht.
She is called “Dilbar”, was launched four months ago and is owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov.
Dilbar is cream colored with details highlighted in bronze. She is matchless.
Listen: She is 156 meters long (for comparison our sailing yacht, “Ronja”, is 10 meters and 65 centimeters). Dilbar has space for 80 crew members and 40 overnight guests. She has reportedly cost four billion danish kroner.
Measured by gross registered tons Dilbar is the world’s largest private yacht. In terms of length, she is the fourth largest. At the same time, she has the most powerful engine and the largest swimming pool ever seen on a private yacht. Where this pool is only known by a selected few. It is not on the top sundeck, that deck is reserved for two helicopter platforms.
Alisher Usmanov has since 2008 had another yacht named Dilbar. It is a paltry of 110 meters, is now renamed Ona and still has Usmanov as owner. His wealth comes from russian mining industry and from shares in russian internet and telecom plus Facebook, Twitter, Alibaba and a large stake in Arsenal football club.
What is it about older men and their boats? 63-year-old Usmanov built a boat that is 46 meters longer, than the one he already had. In Denmark late shipping magnate in AP Møller Mærsk, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, in 2009 bought – when he was 95 years – a Swan yacht, that was three meters longer, than the yacht he already had. It must be called vitality. Imagine if you – at the age of 95 years – were concerned with getting a boat three meters longer, than the one you already have …
What drives these billionaires to wish for still bigger boats? Prestige? A signal of their own, their company or their nation’s role? Or simply a desire to flash a piece of equipment, that is larger than others? The ways of the super-rich are difficult to understand. I give up.
P.S: Did I mention, that I myself occasionally dream of Ronja being one meter … no, by the way let us say one and a half meter or actually rather two, longer than she is?
Dilbar was secretly built by the german shipbuilder, Lürssen. The building time was 52 months
Even at the billionaires quai at Port Vauban Dilbar looks much bigger than the rest. Dilbar is named after the mother of the owner
This is not Dilbar, but a detail seen at another mega-cruiser. What is a yacht without its own fitness-center?