We passed our two year
anniversary of living aboard our catamaran while anchored in the
picturesque Aolean Islands of southern Italy. Looking back, it
has been both a long and a short journey to get us to the two
year milestone:
long, as in plenty of miles under the keels and
plenty of ports visited. We have touched land from Maine to the
Caribbean to Europe and through the Med and hundreds of places
in between:
short, in that it has been two astonishingly quick
years of our daughters growing up and our family gaining
confidence in the cruising lifestyle. We had said from the
outset that we were going to “give it a year” and see how we
liked it. It was such a radical departure from our land based
lifestyle that it seemed prudent to hedge our bet. Now, two
years into it, some of our original fears and questions still
gnaw at the edges of our consciousness. Is this a viable
lifestyle for our family future? Is it good for the kids or is
the constant travel and upheaval more of a burden than a
benefit? Most days our floating home relies on a single chunk
of steel buried (hopefully) in the sand and holding us with a
strand of chain against all that the sea can dish up. Is this
tenuous connection to the earth a good way to raise a family and
live your life? Or is perhaps this fretting just a matter of
the grass being greener in the other lifestyle?
After crossing to Europe from
the Bahamas in June of 2006 we have taken our time and leisurely
cruised the coasts of Spain and Portugal before going into the
Med. We were excited to get into some cultural cruising after
having spent the last year in the islands of the Caribbean and
Bahamas. Although we loved the sheer beauty of the islands and
the trade wind sailing, the cultural offerings often did not
extend much past the beach bars. Spain, as our first landfall
in Europe offered up a whole foreign culture with a fabulous
coastline, not to mention ancient churches, cities, ruins and
museums.
Spain and Portugal
We explored the Rias of
Galicia along Spain’s northwest coast. These are rugged and
rocky rivers with plenty of well protected anchorages. After
getting a solid set in 5 meters of hard sand, we felt brave
enough to leave the boat in a well protected cove for an inland
trip. We took a day trip into Santiago de Compostela
which is the local Catholic equivalent of Mecca. The legend has
it that all good Spanish Catholics should walk to Santiago at
least once in their lives to pray in
its ornate cathedral. Since we are not Catholic,
we rode the bus
instead of walking, toured the magnificent cathedral,
and satisfied ourselves with tee shirts and a fantastic
tapas lunch. We spent three weeks
in all, cruising up and down the coast, poking
into little fishing villages along the
way.
Moving south, we rode a strong northerly
overnight with a double reefed
main, landing
in Peniche, Portugal. We were predisposed to love Portugal and
it’s
people since we had spent three lovely weeks in the Azores,
a Portuguese territory. It was our good luck to have a local
connection to a Portuguese family who spent time with us in
Lisbon, Cais Cais, and Alvor. It is amazing how much of a
difference it makes having an inside connection to a culture.
Our kids were able to hang out with Portuguese children who
thankfully spoke excellent English. It was gratifying to see
how easily the children crossed cultural boundaries and romped
and stomped with our hosts just like they would at home.
Our family came for a two week
visit in Alvor, Portugal in the height of the August tourist
season. Luckily we found a good anchorage within a short
dinghy/cab ride of their hotel. We took the whole family out on
daysails 3 or 4 times so that they could get a feel for what
attracted us to cruising. Some of our family members confided
in us that they were starting to “get it” as to our choice of
lifestyle. I was keeping a sharp eye on our cousin Kayla whose
age puts her smack in between my two girls. I wanted to see if
my kids were falling out of the cultural loop after a year of
being so far away from home with no TV or school peers to learn
from. As far as I could tell, thankfully, it did not seem to
be an issue.
Zia followed in Christopher
Columbus’ wake fifty miles up the Guadalquivir river into
Sevilla. This was where the plunder from the New World was
dumped into Spain’s economy with such disastrous results. The
resulting inflation and economic chaos allowed other colonial
powers to quickly eat up the gains that Spain had made with
Columbus’ discovery. Regardless, Seville is one of the most
beautiful of Spanish cities. We stayed for two sweltering weeks
at the swanky Club Nautico Sevilla, surrounded by the ultimate
luxury of three swimming pools.
After sailing through the
straights of Gibralter, we only had a couple of months before we
needed to hunker down for the winter. While the temperatures in
the med are usually moderate, the sailing weather can be
downright atrocious during the winter months.
In the course of deciding where to spend November through March,
we visited Valencia,
Barcelona and Mallorca.
We
even squeezed in a trip to the South of France for
three weeks of eating pleasure
before hunkering down for the season.
Mediterranean Spain and the Balearics
We spent a glorious winter on
board Zia in Barcelona, a city renowned for Catalan art and
architecture. We took a slip in a marina in November and flew
home for the holidays. Upon our return to Zia on New Year’s
Day,
we
enrolled the girls into a local public school. They flourished
in their three months of classes and the friends and playdates
that they made allowed us to integrate into the community as a
family. The girls made some fast friends and our April
departure date snuck up on us quickly. Their “sailing away”
party at school was a tearful
and heartwarming
event. We felt real pain at wrenching the girls
from the embrace of their friends to continue our family cruise.
Sailing out of Barcelona, our
excitement to continue our cruise was tempered by the certain
knowledge that we would sorely miss our friends and adopted
city. Ghosting along in light wind and fog, cruising seemed
like a distant memory, but we quickly fell back into the
lifestyle with great joy. Sailing the boat, cooking underway,
fishing, night watches, picking out our next stop in the
cruising guides, diving the anchor, swimming to the beach,
eating lunch at a beachfront restaurant and sleeping while
swinging at anchor - this is what we were missing during our
long layover in Barcelona. We cruised through all of the
Balearics that we had missed last fall, reveling in the crystal
clear waters of Ibiza, Formentera, Cabrera and Meinorca
and a few islands in between. Then we decided that it was time
to trade tapas for pizza and pasta.
Sardinia
We rode the Gibraltar current from Menorca to Alghero,
Sardinia.
I have to be honest, I did not even know that there was a
Gibraltar current. Before I read about it, I was clapping
myself on the back for the fantastic boat speed that we were
making. It soon became apparent that even though we have a good
boat, we were getting some serious help from the current. The
current comes in from Gibraltar and sweeps past the Balearics
bearing east at 2 knots or so. It gave us a couple of extra
knots in sloppy seas and squally conditions and the 180 mile
trip
took just under a day. We were finally in Italy, although Sardinians
consider themselves
as Sardinian
first and Italians second.
We barreled through the windy
straits of Bonifacio which funneled us out to the other side of
Sardinia
and anchored off of the seawall in Porto Cervo. Porto Cervo is
a ritzy
town
populated with a wealthy and stylish crowd. We knew that a
dreaded Mistral was on the way so we hunkered down for three
days weathering the storm at anchor. We were very well
protected and we never saw winds much over 45 knots but it was
still a huge relief when it finally blew itself out after about
3 days. We were ready for some tranquility so we shaped our
course for the Maddelena islands. The Maddelenas are a small
archipelago in the Straits of Bonafacio between Sardinia
and Corsica. They are a protected marine park,
pristine and rugged. One of the main attractions
in the guide books is Pink Beach, but recently it has been
totally cordoned off. No anchoring, swimming, landing or of
course sand stealing allowed. Apparently too many tourists from
the dayboats have been taking a scoop home with them and the
beach has been losing sand. Just around the corner from Pink
Beach we found our spot, the water was clear and we anchored in
20 feet over hard sand. There were occasional dayboats filled
with tourists cruising past but by and large, we had the place
to ourselves, just the way we like it. We snorkeled, swam and
kayaked and enjoyed the beauty of the place.
While in the Maddelinas, we worked up our cruising plan for the
French island of Corsica.
Corsica
Here is a telling story about
Corsica and Corsicans. Their flag is a black head in profile
with a white headband. The head belonged to the leader of the
Moorish troops that attempted to take over the “then” country of
Corsica centuries ago. The Corsicans fought off the invasion,
caught and beheaded the leader and paraded his melon around the
island on a pike. Don’t Mess With Us it seems to say. The flag
is in essence a “state” flag since Corsica is a French province,
although any Corsican will tell you that it is much better than
the French mainland. Corsicans are a rough and rowdy lot.
When
a McDonalds opened in Corsica,
it was promptly bombed. No one was hurt but the message was
received and McDonalds cleared off the island.
The coast is all cliffs,
spires and steep mountains brushed with shades of green and
brown. Absolutely breathtaking. Perhaps it is this incredibly
rough country that gives Corsicans their fiercely independent
character. After all,
a diminutive Corsican pretty much conquered all of
Europe a few short centuries ago. Yes, Napoleon Bonaparte was
born in Corsica and attended military school there before
thrashing most of the armies
in Europe. We cruised the area for a
week
finding scenic deserted bays with very challenging anchoring
conditions. The water was deep right up to the shore and the
bottom was often rock or gravel. We found ourselves relieved to
anchor in anything less than 40 feet. To wind up our Corsican
tour, we sailed around to the East side of the island to Porto
Vecchio. This would be our jumping off point for the island of
Elba off of Italy’s northwest coast. The wind was blowing in
the mid 20s and it was at just the right angle for an
exhilarating passage.
Italy
Our Italian tour started in
the northern island of Elba, the first of Napolean’s exile
homes. We spent a great few days anchored in both Porto Ferriao
and Porto Azurro before heading to Porto Santo Stefano on the
mainland to meet up with our Annapolis cruising
soulmates, Johnny and Po Martin. The Martins
and their kids, Jamie and Skyler, would be joining us for ten
days of island hopping along the Italian coast. Having Johnny
and Po crewing on your boat is sort of like having Picasso
helping you paint the living room. They are long term cruisers
who really know how to handle a boat and have a good time doing
it. We skipped from island to island hitting Palmarola, Ponza,
Ventotenne
and Capri before parting ways at the Amalfi Coast.
After the Martins left, we
spent a few days in Pompeii before overnighting down to the
Aolean Islands. There were live volcanoes,
mud baths,
and spectacular hiking to be had. The next stop
was Sicily,
only 100 or so miles to our South. We did almost a complete
circumnavigation of Sicily and trekked through many ancient
Greek and Roman ruins. Since we were only 75 miles from Africa,
it was broiling hot and the waters were unfortunately infested
with stinging jellyfish. Thank goodness for our
Nettle-Net Boatpool from Annapolis, which
allows us to swim unmolested. We just launch it off the stern
and we have a 12 foot pool to frolic in while the stinking
stinging jellys look on from outside, wishing no doubt that they
could join us. When we are done swimming, it rolls into to a
neat little package about the size of a basketball and stows in
a locker. Our boatpool has turned out to be indispensable here
in the Med.
www.nettle-net.com
Croatia, Greece and Turkey Next
Our next stop will be around
the boot heel of Italy and up to Croatia. After cruising
Croatia’s vast archipelago as far north as Venice, Italy, the
plan is to head south to Greece and then end up in Turkey for
the winter.
There is no doubt that we do
love cruising and we have no plans to stop. The good days
easily outweigh the bad and even the truly scary days fade from
our consciousness quickly. While musing about our cruising
life we made it a point to think back and remember what life was
like before we started cruising. What were our worries and
concerns regarding our lifestyle and our family? I can remember
wondering whether living in the same non-diverse neighborhood
throughout school would be a good thing for the girls. Living
in a town with busy streets and all of the other issues of city
living was a concern. How about the fact that we spend all day
working and have only our nights and weekends for the kids?
Wouldn’t it be better to travel around so they can see and
experience the diversity of the world? Oh yeah, now I remember
– we had basically the same questions and concerns while we were
living on land. Apparently, that’s what a parent does by
nature, on land or on the water. I guess for us the grass is
definitely still greener on the ocean.
