So it’s been awhile since I’ve last written. Needless to say we’ve been busy and the last month is a blur so I’m just going to recap the last week or so. We are currently on charter for the boss who celebrates his birthday in three days. This charter was scheduled to begin on Friday and the plans were to travel down to Isola Elba in Italy and then travel north to the Cinque Terre area.
Supposedly Elba is lovely and most people who visit wind up wanting to buy property there so I was keen to have a look. The Cinque Terre area is a beautiful stretch of coast line which I visited on my backpacking trip and so I suggested we include that into the itinerary. The literal translation is “five lands” and not surprisingly is comprised of five small towns built along the terraced cliff sides overlooking the coast. Quaint towns with old world charm which until 1960 had no roads connecting them, but only the now infamous Cinque Terre Trail and the railroad. To this day most of the towns don’t allow automobile traffic.
I had scheduled our departure for early Wednesday morning so we would arrive in Livorno, Italy in the evening. I picked Livorno for two reasons: 1) It is very near to the Pisa airport and convenient for the guests. 2) The Benetti ship yard is in the area and so I could get them to come and do some warranty work on the boat.
So as of Tuesday morning all our reservations were set and we were taking on provisions for the trip. Tuesday afternoon I got the call saying that instead of Elba the boss would like to go to Portofino as well as still doing the Cinque Terre. The mad scramble was on to change the plans, cancel the reservations we had and make the new ones.
Portofino is a very desirable little marina about 25 miles west of La Spezia. It has only 8 berths for visitors and so it can be difficult to get a berth and in the summer damn near impossible. So I served up my volley of phone calls and got the ball rolling. We left port with no idea of whether or not it would be possible to berth there.
Our crossing to Italy went well. Low wind, calm seas, sun, blue skies, dolphins and I even spotted a small Sunfish. We made good time and arrived in Livorno by 7pm. I should have known that troubles laid ahead by the arrival form I had to send ahead to the port. An ugly place, a huge commercial port and also a military presence. Dirty, old and not at all appealing, but we were here to get work done and not for the scenery.
The next morning the port agent arrived to get our details. He wanted copies of every ship document we had on board, but we had them all so no problem. Or almost. The next morning (Friday) he was back with a problem. They noticed two of our documents were outdated. All have been applied for and we are awaiting the new documents, but apparently there is two much red tape to get through and 4 months later we still were without.
So without these documents the port will not let us leave! Detained in Hell and the guests are arriving in a few hours and they expect to leave immediately. Merde!! (French for Shit!) Now my back is up against the wall. I serve up another volley of phone calls rapidly burning through phone credit with my French phone and try to get a small army working to resolve this crisis ASAP. I might add that no one has ever heard of a yacht being detained for these documents, but there you are, just my luck.
One of the documents had to do with commercial chartering of the yacht which is required by the MCA, but we were able to bypass that one by having the owner on board and declaring that we were operating privately and not commercially. The other document we weren’t going to be so lucky with. We had to have it or we were stuck there and the document has to be issued from England and its Friday afternoon. After a herd of phone calls and putting the screws to a few people we managed to get an assurance that someone from the Italian office would arrive Saturday morning with a temporary certificate which would satisfy the port and allow us to leave.
Meanwhile the guests had been delayed. Their original flight plans went awry and they wound up flying into Rome on a private flight. The problem was that the airport they landed at didn’t allow private flights. So as they taxied to a stop they were surrounded by lots of lights and guns, local police, airport security and Interpol!! The authorities were in a good mood though, probably happy to have the rare opportunity to draw there weapons in the line of duty and let everyone off with a good talking to. The pilots were lucky there and could have lost their licenses.
So all in all a rough day for everyone, but they arrived in the evening and were understanding regarding the boats predicament. I was just praying the document would arrive in the morning and we could get the hell out of Dodge!
I had received confirmation of a berth not in Portofino, but the marina just next to it for Friday evening, but we weren’t going to make that although we would still have to pay for it. I let the agent know that we would still like the reservation at Porto Santa Margherita for Saturday and the next morning after the temporary document arrived, all the I’s were dotted an t’s crossed we made our way out of Livorno as fast as we could. I vowed never to go back. Of course, today I learned that I will in fact be going back in October to get the rest of our warranty work done before it expires. Se le Vie!
It would be about a six hour cruise to Santa Margherita and Cinque Terre is along the way. So my fears were realized when the boss asked to stop in Cinque Terre for a stroll. I had planned on doing this later in the week, not on the cruise up. We had to be in port by 6:30pm or we would be locked out and have to anchor for the evening. I hate anchoring!! You have to be on 24 hour anchor watch which means that Scott (Engineer/Mate) and I are lucky to get 4 hours sleep in a day. So as they were sitting down for lunch I pulled up close to Monterossa (the first of the five towns) and dropped anchor. That area is a wildlife park and there are restrictions along the coast with regard to anchoring, fishing, etc. I made sure that I stayed out of the no anchor zone, but quickly surmised that I might still be out of bounds as I spotted a zodiac making a beeline towards us.
Struggling through the Italian we realized that although it is possible to anchor where we were, our boat was too big so we would have to move on. At least I didn’t get a ticket. So we weighed anchor, moved offshore a bit and started doing slow circles to allow the guests to finish lunch before they went ashore for their excursion. I allowed the boat to get far enough offshore so that the ride in by tender didn’t look so appealing and sure enough they decided that they wouldn’t be going ashore after all and we could make our way to Santa Margherita. Maybe my luck is changing?!
Arriving in Santa Margherita we found it also to be very nice and dollar for dollar or euro for euro much more preferable in my opinion to Portofino. But then that’s just my sensibilities, I was never much on exclusivity such as Portofino has with its reputation for having celebrity yachts in harbour. So the only snafu there was that I couldn’t get a dinner reservation at their restaurant of choice.
In the morning after we picked up some fresh bread we headed out to cruise around the bay and finally anchored to wait for our berth in Portofino to open up. Check in time is normally 2pm so I wasn’t too pleased when it wasn’t until nearly 4pm that they gave me the OK to enter. Particularly when just before that a squall kicked up making it a challenge to get the guests back on board and put the tender back into the garage. Not to mention having to dock in heavy rain and wind.
No matter though, we got in, dropping both anchors to secure our bow, tied up and gave the dock master a tip. I didn’t particularly feel it was deserved, but good luck getting back in later in the season if you don’t spread some love. They were very appreciative, uncannily so really, but as long as they remember us, all is good.
In Portofino I was actually able to get a reservation for their restaurant of choice, "Puny" only to have them blow it off! The next day as I was visiting the Carabinierrie (immigration) to supply all our passports, even Max’s (Golden Lab) the guests went off and came back with a load of expensive silver knick knacks for the boat and 8 cases of fine wine.
We were booked for a second evening there, but as plans on this boat change with the movement of the planets I wasn’t surprised to learn that two of the guests wouldn’t be leaving today as planned, but we would all be setting sail together back for France that afternoon.
So we headed back in not the best weather, but managed to keep ahead of the worst of it and arrived back in Villefranche to anchor for the evening among a swarm of other boats. A stiff wind necessitated a vigil anchor watch and with a few hours sleep in the morning we went around the peninsula to Cap Ferrat where we are currently anchored for the evening.
So that brings us up to date. Our Grand Prix charter starts on the 27th and then we have a one day charter on the 2nd of June. An insurance survey right after that and then June 6th I fly home for two weeks! Our berth for the Grand Prix is just outside the tunnel before the chicane, front row. So if you watch on the tele you might get a glimpse of us or at least the boat. That is if it isn’t a complete blur as the camera follows F-1 cars speeding by…….
Bon Soiree
Update: Woke up this morning for my 4am anchor watch shift and saw a note from the boss, "Can we wake up in St. Tropez? That would be very good. Thanks". My immediate thought was that "waking up in Thailand with two asian girls giving me a Thai massage would be very good, but I guess St. Tropez is somewhat more practical." So I'll see ya in St. Tropez this morning if you are around and everyone will be around because the Cannes film festival begins today. Parking will be at a premium....
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