A whale of a time!

24 Jul

Friday the 24th July 2020

You could say that our crossing (~ 250 M) between Santa Teresa Gallura, Sardinia and Port Napoléon near Marseille has been ‘uneventful’ because the wind which we were hoping for did not materialise. The weather forecast gave us a window of opportunity to cross without any Mistral from the NW.

Over the years we have accepted that Easy Rider doesn’t like beating its way to windward or, in other words as the saying has it, ‘gentlemen don’t beat’!

Leaving Sardinia

We left Santa Teresa on Monday morning early. We were very happy to be sailing again. The first hour in the Bonifacio Strait was the windiest of all the journey. Just F3 from the west, a perfect start. After that the wind became variable between 2-7knots, not enough to sail without a little help of the engine.

That didn’t trouble us too much because we were told by the haulier that Easy Rider had to get rid of the fuel for the transport. But, would we have enough fuel to get us to France? Our fuel gauge hasn’t worked for a while now, so it took Stephan some ‘exhaustive’ finely judged calculations underway looking in our log book to see when we had put diesel in the tank and how much. According to Stephan we had 190 l in our tank which gave us a maximum 52( +/- 4) engine hours at low revs while needing fuel for about 48 hrs.

crossing the border with France

It was very exciting to sail near the familiar Corsican coast, progressively losing it in the mist. After some hours, the only visible sign that remained were the clouds over the high mountains until these were also lost in the end. Towards sunset we were totally surrounded by the sea. the water was of a gorgeous kings blue hue. I had never seen it like this. In more northern latitudes it is greenish blue. In the Bay of Biscay it is more like indigo blue. In the anchorages in Corsica and Sardinia, the water is turquoise blue.

And then the sun set behind the horizon like a perfect glowing disc touching the horizon before sinking behind it in a matter of seconds. Since moving to London, I hadn’t had a chance to see a setting sun.

Stephan had the first watch from 10:00 pm to 01:00 am. When he woke me up with a cup of tea, the first thing I saw was the Milky Way and the millions of stars. It was a moon-less night, so the stars seemed to shine much brighter.

There were some cargo, passenger and fishing boats around, but only one did come very close and got in touch with us over the VHF. That was on the second evening during an amazing sunset.

crossing paths at sunset

I had been wondering before we left whether or not we would see any whales. The sea between Corsica and the southern coast of France is a cetacean marine reserve, so the chances were good. We saw some dolphins beside our boat during the first night, but the highlight of the trip was seeing a fin whale 50m or less away from us. It was spotted by Stephan who told me very calmly “quick, come and have a look”! The whale was a pale grey, blew water straight up, turned around (maybe my wishful thinking?) as if intending to come back, but disappeared as elusively as it appeared.

The second night we were entering the Golfe de Fos and approaching the fairway to Port Saint-Louis and Port Napoléon. It was probably the most confusing night approach we have ever had. It all looked very straightforward on the chart: a well buoyed compulsory channel with a small shallow approach channel branching off from the main one leading to Port Napoléon. So far so good. Port Saint-Louis has one of the biggest oil refineries in France and because of that, entering Golfe de Fos we were confronted with a myriad of lights from the refinery, blinking lights, red and green lights everywhere… the navigational lights were just dwarfed by them. On top of that, the cargo ships were leaving the docks and approached like ghosts in the fairway but could not be identified easily against the backdrop of the lights ashore. Other cargo ships were anchored outside of the fairway. It was very comforting to have our radar and wonderful plotter with AIS. Without it it would have been a nail biting experience!

We arrived at the entrance of the channel leading to Port Napoleon at 01:00am. We anchored there and waited until morning to enter the harbour.

mast ready for 'lift-off'

Port Napoléon is a huge boat storage facility and not much more! Thousands of boats are stored on the hard. All the repairs and maintenance can be done there. Boats are being lifted and launched constantly. All European countries are represented here: we have seen Swedish, Danish, Dutch, British, Swiss yachts here. We have spoken to a young Swiss crew who are hoping to sail around the world. Others have just had a month sailing and are flying home. Another couple brought their motorboat from Denmark through the French canals. Others are here to do much needed maintenance like our RCC friends Sally and John. Most people we spoke to drive here with their car.

But what about the hundreds of boats on the hard? A lot of them seemed abandoned. It almost looks like a graveyard of lost dreams…

To continue the description of our mission to get Easy Rider back to the Solent:

As soon as we arrived in the harbour we went to talk to the rigger who was going to unstep our mast. We thought that we would have a day at least to rest. An hour later we were told that the mast would be taken down the next morning and that Easy Rider would be loaded onto the lorry on Monday (27th)! We had to take down the sails immediately the same afternoon without a rest and without delay. All the work we had done preparing for the crossing had to be undone just a weeks later in just a few hours… we knew that, so we were mentally prepared. The team from Global Nautic were excellent and very professional. Initially we thought we could unstep and do all the required preparatory works for the road transport ourselves… but try to make a 12m boat ready for road transport. Don't even think about it without professional knowhow.

Now the mast is down and we have some room to breathe until Monday. Unfortunately Stephan developed a very painful bursitis in his elbow. It looked very spectacular yesterday and he could hardly use his right arm…but it is slowly improving.

I suppose that next time we update our blog will be in Lymington! This time we are travelling light because our luggage will be left on the boat.