Summer Sailing and home again!

The summer season got off in early May to a great start. 5 glorious days in Villasimius where we said a final goodbye to long term travel companions Tony and Pat as they headed SE towards Sicily and Greece and we headed North to the Maddalenas. Out of the hustle of July/August it's hard to think of a more beautiful anchorage than that outside the marina on the western anchorage at Villasimius. With it's miles of sandy beaches, massive granite and basalt rocks, pretty holiday homes and majestic mountains.....a lovely spot.



We finally moved on to Cala Pira a very pretty anchorage where we had the beach to ourselves much to Jazz's delight as we could play football and he could paddle in the water to his hearts delight. Heading north Arbatax is a useful if uninspiring stop but we stayed free in the anchorage, so cheap at least. We next headed for Calasetta again not the most beautiful spot but free on the hammerhead and we were able to shelter for 3 days from a Mistrale. We also met our lovely German friends Hartmut and Dorothee plus friend Walter in their fabulous Ovni 55, Centaurus. Never thought I would fall for an aluminium boat but this one off is a beauty and sails like a witch....as we would soon discover.


After 3 days holed up next to each other and having been invited to join them for a meal at an agritourismo restaurant, we had started to get all the information you want that Rod Heikell leaves out of the Pilot books. Where else you can stay free...Olbia old commercial quay.....where you can get water.....Ottiolu 1-3 when all at lunch.....where are just beautiful spots not to miss....Coda Cavallo where you can enjoy aperitivi overlooking Isola Tavolare and one of the most fabulous views in the Med, Porto Brandinghi, Cala di Volpe, Villamarina on Isola San Stefano with it's huge abandoned granite statue.

It was the spring for strong winds as after a days sailing from La Caletta we ended up having to spend another 3 days in Olbia sheltering from the next onslaught....but that was after we had raced Centaurus around Isola Tavolare doing up to 9.3 knots...we did lead for a while as the photo above indicates...but no chance against this speed machine who on just genoa must have been doing up to 12 knots before we all decided to wind in the sails when it gusted up to 40 knots and head for safety.



We finally had to say goodbye to Centaurus and crew as they headed back to Olbia. We spent another 3 weeks travelling along the North coast of Sardegna, partly to meet our friend Valeria in Stintino and partly to have circuited the island (all but 25 miles from Stintino to Porto Conte where we had landed the October previously). The north coast past Capo Testa had little to recommend it. No safe anchorages, miserable stop at Castelsardo, despite it's promising resemblance to Edinburgh from a distance. Turned out to be too touristy, full of miserable people including the Frenchman who threw our lines in the water when we tried to moor next to him in a 33 knot blow! Stintino a pretty spot and was lovely to see Valeria who rewarded our efforts in explaining the virtues of Sardegna to her new Irish travel agents, with a wonderful fish meal lots of massive prawns, fish cakes, squid etc followed by a large sea bass cooked in salt.....so sweet and tender!


We rushed back to Santa Teresa di Gallura in another blow exhausted but relieved to feel back 'home'. By the end of June Corsica beckoned. We hear the west coast is the best, but we were meeting friends in Elba on 5th July so a quick saunter through some highlights included a trip to the fairytale looking entrance to Bonifacio. Lovely town if the experience rather spoiled by the disco until 3.00am. Porto Vecchio 24 miles up the eastern coast is an amazingly large harbour....like a large Spanish Ria. N.B. Explore more on next visit! We had a wonderful anchorage at St. Ciprianu, with it's silky sandy beach. However we started to be more conscious of the different atmosphere from the down to earth Sards and the rather more haughty or disinterested approach of some of the Corsicans.



After another couple of stops...we didn't want to start speaking French again...and couldn't use our internet access.....we arrived in Porto Azzurro on Elba. It's another massive harbour and as scenic as you could wish. We popped across to Tuscany...as you do...to pick up David and Yvonne from the mainland as they'd flown into Pisa. The next morning we sailed the brief distance back to Portoferraio the capital of Elba and the heart of Napoleon's stronghold when he was exiled here prior to his escape and attempt to regain power at the Battle of Waterloo. It's a stunning spot except that it's no good showing the Ormeggiatore Rod Heikell's assertion that it's a town quay and should be free when they are trying to extract €80 from you! The anchorage is almost a mile from a safe landing spot, hence we only spent one night there which was a pity. David and Yvonne treated us to a lovely meal having checked on the internet for a real non -touristy restaurant. It was a super meal and we enjoyed wandering around the street stalls which sold some lovely locally made jewelry and housewares.


The next day we visited Napoleon's house La Molina and enjoyed wandering around the streets. He only lived on the island for 10 months but put in place a large amount of public works to improve the city. Obviously quite effective as it's now pretty unchanged since his time here. I guess there are a few more restaurants and tabacchi though! We moved on to Marciana Marina where we also managed to anchor in the harbour. Lovely little town. Elba is full of them. Some snorkeling and sailing later we dropped our friends back at Salivoli before heading back to Porto Azzurro. We did the round trip again a few days later for our Italian visitors Ellie and Giuseppe. We may only have had 30 hours together, but was a highlight of our summer! On our return trip to Elba, we did have a close encounter with the helicopter putting out forest fires!


Porto Azzurro is a great place to stop with it's massive anchorage, from which it's easy to get to the flower filled town. There is a prison on the hill...Logodouro....which has been there for hundreds of years and still houses a few Mafia big whigs. The town changed its name from Logodouro around the second world war to improve it's tourist image...which has obviously worked! The cliff top walks around the ancient walls of the jail now provide stunning views of this lovely indented coastline and a welcome and rare spot for Jazz to have a good run.

As we headed south to Giglio another of the Tuscan archipelago islands, we didn't know our problems were about to start! We had met a waiter in Brighton who on hearing of our trip said '"You must visit my island of Giglio. The sea is so clean you can see 40 feet to the bottom!"
We didn't try at 40' but we could certainly see the bottom of the anchorage at about 25'. However as we were about to drop anchor there was an awful smell of burning rubber. We dropped as quickly as safety would allow and watched in horror as we saw bits of rubber coming out into the water. It turned out to be the impeller which had broken all but one of it's blades. Martin quickly changed it but we weren't sure if this was the route problem or something had caused it to fail so catastrophically. We had been having an intermittent (the worst!) problems with our alternator not charging our batteries. Was there some electrical fault which had caused things to overheat?

We carried on to Gianuttri a small dot of rough rocks uninhabited except briefly in summer. The next morning the engine wasn't charging the batteries which were now getting towards 60% so needed charging. We headed to Civitavecchia on the mainland near Rome, where we thought it would be easy to find an electrical engineer. Within 5 mins of landing in the basin of Michelangelo...designed by him which has many of his original harbour walls still standing, an electrician was on our boat. Not the happy ending we hoped for however. The guy didn't want us to see what he was doing..we weren't too happy but were in a vulnerable situation with limited language skills and an urgent problem. Having disconnected our smart charger and changed the alternator and charged €380 the batteries were at least charging.

Two days late we were in Ponza.....another fairytale island. We spent a couple of nights at anchor, snorkeling and trying to calm down from our previous mishaps (a few extra I didn't want to bore you with!) The second morning we decided to sail around to the anchorage just outside the town of Ponza. The batteries were again not charging. Martin wanted to go back to Cagliari. I said no we have 2 guests arriving in Sicily in the next few weeks. In Ponza they wanted €100 a night. I had a feeling of deja vu. We dropped our lines on the quay and headed 200 miles west! 32 hours later we were at Villasimius and the next lunchtime back in Cagliari.
Martin and Gary took another look at the electrics but after no real success decided to call in he cavalry. Bruno recommended a friend, though he mostly worked on houses. Mario arrived and you knew you were in safe hands. He next called his friend Cesare who builds alternators for a living. With their sons they went through our whole electrical system. Having said we should kill the Lladro (thief) in Civitavecchia who replaced our 60 amp alternator with a 25amp model with the regulator removed and disconnected various wires that all had to be sorted.
N.B BEWARE GETTING AN REPAIRS DONE IN DARSENA MARINA CIVITAVECCHIA AND ANYWHERE ELSE YOU DON'T KNOW IN THE HOLIDAY SILLY SEASON!!!!!!

It really felt this time that we were coming home. Lovely to have friends around again and people you can trust even though the first 10 weeks away were great. We decided to buy a car as we are now on an annual contract and will only be away for relatively short periods from now.
The car gives a lot more flexibility for exploring Sardegna and seeing friends. Duncan Amy and Joe came for 8 days in August and we all had a great time, sailing to Nora for Ferragosta. The kids loved snorkeling over the ruins of the Roman harbour, seeing all the fish, watching the fabulous firework display in the anchorage that evening just yards from our boat, swimming at friend's house, seeing where Nana and Grandpa will be living next year, going to the beach, seeing the Nuraghi site at Barumini.


Being 'home' we've also been able to be a bit more pro-active with our flat sales. We now have sold, subject to contract, our small flat and have a bit more activity on the larger one. Our house plans are almost ready for the Comune. They keep asking for extras....now its a 3D model of the plans set in a photographic image of the landscape. Hopefully no more hoops to jump through!

In a week we'll be back to the Maddalenas for a while to meet Karen and Simon who've also had to divert from Sicily....many apologies. Still it will be easier to have some good sailing there in 5 days than would be possible in that time frame from Catania.

Anyone who wants to see more photos which illustrate the story can find them on www.picasaweb.google.com/hejira38

Sell up and sail to the Mediterranean?

We're a mixed bunch, liveaboards. Everyone has their own story of why they gave up work, house on terra firma and maybe financial health to live in a small space with few of the 'essential' commodities of shore life, such as washing machines, let alone dishwashers!

Talk to almost any landlubber about your new life and they smile with envious admiration. Not that they all wish to run away to sea, but there is a sense that you are escaping the rat race even if they are not able. It's a fact that only about 5% of those who plan to sail into the sunset actually go through with it when push comes to shove. Many plan their 'escape' for years. Ours was a decision formulated over a couple of months. Redundancy, few chances to get an equivalent salary and maintain our expensive lifestyle. We decided it was important not to be dependant on others for our future but to create our own.

The finances for most are the main problem. We had 15 years to wait for pensions when we left UK so how to live until then? We sold our house but kept the mortgage, buying 3 new properties which could generate double the rent of our home. The interest only mortgage is paid plus enough for a basic living. Unexpected bills are always a nightmare so a good contingency fund is advisable. Being non-UK residents capital gains tax won't be payable when we decide to sell (as long as we don't return to UK permanently for 5 years)

Coming from a marina filled with experienced Solent sailors, many yacht masters, fastnet racers etc we imagined that all those who had actually made this leap of faith would be Tom Cunliffe incarnate with immaculately maintained boats. After a year away we are surprised to find ourselves at the more experienced end of the range with one of the better boats.

Some undoubtedly come away by boat because it is a relatively cheap way to live rather than because they love sailing. On our 2500 mile trip from the Solent to Sardegna we met many who had motored virtually the whole way. Some had taken many years to get to where they were, taking many bite-sized chunks and avoiding long passages as far as possible. You must like the water to live on a boat but the purist sailor is in the minority from our experience to date.

We wanted to avoid the western med as much as possible. Again our paths crossed a number of disgruntled Brits heading home and complaining of feeling unwelcome on the Costas...being turned away from marinas. Most were actually motorboaters and it seemed pretty obvious to us that Puerto Banus in August is not the place to be when the rich and famous are all parking their palaces on the quay! We went to Morocco to avoid much of this coastline as not to our taste. However many Brits don't do themselves any favours in not attempting to buy into a mediterranean lifestyle. Many seem more interested in cheap beer and 'English' food and the Spanish often don't help matters by the type of development that has been allowed.

We have so far only got so far as Sardegna. Most sailors seem to use it as a stepping stone to Greece, Turkey or Tunisia, which is rather surprising. The Italians have undoubtedly not yet made the best of their wonderful natural resources...and where they have as in Porto Cervo and Porto Rotundo you pay a high price. We love Cagliari as it's a great city, interesting all year round (unlike the holiday villages which are a desert in winter) and not expensive. This year we shall cruise Sardegna, Corsica, the Tuscan archipelago, Bay of Naples and islands, Puglia, Sicily and Aeolian islands and back here for next winter. We hope to make a landbase here , selling one of our UK properties. It is easy to rent property near the sea during the summer months when we plan to be away, so we can generate the same annual UK rent in 4 months here and have the benefit of it ourselves for the rest of the year.

Everyone is looking for something different when they sell up and sail into the sunset but as long as you avoid the 'obvious' mistakes it is a surprisingly easy thing to achieve!

Hejira Re-Launch

Hejira not looking too bad so far


OK so it's all at the bottom!


Deb & Brian of Chinook prepare to blast some barnacles


Nice and shiny prop with new anodes!


All ready for the water!

It may only have been 3 days.....but time is relative. Speeds past when we are having fun but felt like a month in the Cantiere, especially as we were sited in the mucky end where everyones rubbish washes down. I am talking of that most important and dreaded time of year for all boat owners. Having the boat lifted for cleaning anti-fouling, new anodes, prop service and whatever else we may find once out of the water.

Bad enough in our lovely clean organised yard in UK with excellent shower facilities. Far worse in the organised chaos that is Marina del Sole Cantiere. In addition we didn't know what to expect after a year in the warm waters of the Mediterranean and a few months sitting in the decidedly mucky waters of the Port of Cagliari.

Every boat owner, particularly liveaboards have an even spread of terror and excitement seeing their boats lifted and wondering what the bottom of their boat will look like.....and is the crane (far smaller than the UK equivalent) and driver up to the job! It may not look pretty but the guys here know their stuff and handled the boat with great care. A damaged sail drive gator was repaired by them with great skill and free of charge even though I believe the lift only further loosened the already poor adhesion.

The yard was a bit quiet over the week-end when we were working. It was grey and spitting with rain often and Full Flight and Roam had just gone back in the water. So it felt a little lonely and miserable in the grime alone! To make matters worse everyone else was being sociable. Saturday evening DP's (drinky poos) where we arrived late after all the food had gone! Then a BBQ on Sunday afternoon whilst we were busy with G3 compound then wax and polishing the port side hull. It's away from the pontoon so the hardest to do from our berth. We finally rolled up exhausted at 5.30pm. I found a couple of roasted veggies and couscous left though Martin was fresh out of sausages or chicken!

There is nothing better than seeing your boat returning to the water. All the grime of the yard was soon hosed off and the last bits of wax and polish soon completed. So much easier working in a clean environment. We are now looking forward to a BBQ on the beach at Pula this week-end to ease us back into summer cruising mode!

Benvenuto 2007

Gary leads the Karaoke!


Loads of lovely grub!



Martin and Tony entertain the partygoers


Happy New Year Darling!


Janet's House the following Morning!


New Years Day at Teulada Beach

The year got off to a wonderful start with a party in Perde Sali. It's great to get out of the marina and city occasionally. Our wonderful Brompton bikes can only take us so far. Also with the benefit of frinds who live here we get to see more of real Sardinian life. It's wonderful when strangers invite you to their home and offer you accomodation when they haven't even met you....just on the request of a mutual friend.

Before the party we walked down to the marina at Perde Sali which as you can see is lovely with the mountains so close by.There was a great mix of Sard and English partygoers who all mixed very well and celebrated both New Years with gusto. Any excuse! Everyone brought food and there was a mountain which seemed to be constantly replenished. Martin and Tony entertained us all with some folk music which was followed by English then Italian Karaoke.

Janet and Eliot were wonderful hosts and even offered accomodation for many of us.The weather was kind and on New Years Day we all enjoyed a lovely walk on Teulada beach after helping clear some of the detritus from the night before. This largely involved eating platefuls of food.

Great way to start the New Year!

Bradys on Tour

Hejira in the Mediterranean

If you have stumbled on this blog unawares we are Martin Colette and Jazz (woof)Brady and are sailing in the Mediterranean for as long as we are enjoying ourselves. Hejira is a Moody S38 which we bought after Martin left work in September 2005. There is life after work honestly!

We didn't plan to set off for a few more years but sometimes things happen and you have to decide what you really want to do in life. So we're not rich in much except time but many far braver souls we have met have begun this lifestyle with less financial security than ourselves and are having the time of their lives.

You could say we were influenced by our children who came back from gap year adventures and the like inspired to do different things with their lives. We didn't want to get to 60+ with a load of cash in the bank but having lost the energy and enthusiasm to have adventures ourselves. We've met plenty of sailors in their late 60's still having a great life exploring the world on their boats.

2006 was quite a blur having left UK in late June after selling our home and buying smaller properties to rent thus providing us with an income and some extra security. Very brief travelogue for non-friends and relatives who've not read our newsletters:-

We spent a month exploring the Rias of Galicia NW Spain which are delightful, before heading south through many of the lovely cities of Portugal including Porto, Cascais, Lisbon and Sintra. We skipped through the Algarve in mid summer and onto SW Spain and the lovely city of Cadiz. We were keen to get to Gibraltar both to leave the cold waters of the Atlantic and move into the warm Mediterranean, and also to catch up with boat maintenance as chandlery items had not been easy to find passing quickly through Spain and Portugal.

After a fruitful boat wise (if uninspiring) stop in Gibraltar we headed for Morocco. We were surprised to see how few European boats stopped there. You have to be prepared to be boarded by umpteen officials.....very polite but time consuming. Also it's not cheap in the few marinas and few places to stop but you avoid the Costa's and see a very different way of life....and crikey you've just sailed to AFRICA!!!!

In a rush to reach Sardinia for winter we rather rushed our way through the Balearic's. Wish we could have spent longer on Ibiza and Menorca where we had a couple of nights each. At last we could enjoy some snorkeling. Nothing beats falling off the boat on a scorching day into refreshing but warm water. Had a fabulously fast sail across to Porto Conte in NW Sardinia from Mahon. Sailed 174 miles in 25 hours. Worked our way south to our winter home in Cagliari which is a great place to spend 5 months in dock! I don;t know why it's not more popular. It's very cheap, great food, cultured city plenty to do and explore and very friendly people. It's also a real place not like many of the marina stops in Southern Spain with their English bars and fish and chips and annoying British tourists. It's also cheap to get to and fro to UK via Ryan air. Have met many people suggesting great places to visit around the island in Spring. We intend cruising the East coast then see a bit of Corsica before continuing onto Elba and the Italian mainland where we will gradually work our way down to Sicily where we have relatives. May come back here for winter again as we have friends here and it's the cheapest place in this part of the Med.

If you have sailed around this area and have some experiences to share (places not to be missed or to sail quickly through, free and cheap places to stop etc) please share with us also.