Voyage au France: Our first passage!

We've just spent more than a week at sea, sailing or motoring day and night, to travel from Croatia to France. The trip was over 1000 (1128 to be exact) nautical miles, thanks to the boot of Italy being directly in the road, like a big kick in the pants. We are actually now north of where we were in Croatia, in a little town called Frejus on the Cote d’Azur near St. Tropez. Selkie is getting work done here on her rigging so that she will be ready to set out across the Atlantic.

On Lastovo, the southernmost island of Croatia, Ger and I went for a run and got some energy out of our systems. We were both a little nervous about being in ~500 square metres with four adults and two children, with no chance of exercise or escape for a week or more.

This is the heel of Italy, just as the sun rose after my first night watch. Celia and I shared the 12-6 watch and Ger and Graeme did 6-12. That meant that from noon to 6pm, Celia and I took turns sailing and doing everything else that needed to happen on the boat for it to function, including keeping the kids happy and everyone fed. At 6pm, we ate dinner then tried to get some sleep before our next watch that began at midnight. Until 6am, we did the same as during the day, except the kids mostly slept through the night, so we were able to spell each other off to get a few hours of sleep as well. Then at 6am, I went back to bed until just before noon to start the whole thing all over again.

Here is what I wrote in my journal after my second watch: “We can see the lights of Italy as the sun sets. What an amazing 24 hours. I thought my night watch would be hell but it was really magical sailing under the stars, Orion guiding the way, with a train of phosphorescence streaming out behind the boat. Saw a red sliver of moon rise, along with Venus, then the sky slowly brightened in the east, snuffing out the stars by the handful. After a deep sleep, I awakened to a fantastic day watch, in a very different way. We put up the spinnaker but only after making bets on what colour(s) it would be and laughing about how the word spinnaker (especially with a British accent) sounds like the Spanish word for spinach. Then three little dolphins came and jumped and played by the boat. I was up front with the kids and I don’t know who was more excited. Then we saw a big, old slow turtle just swimming along the surface in the middle of the Adriatic”

The turtle.
The spinnaker.

After desperately clutching the wheel for my entire watch the first few days, and making my shoulders and arms surprisingly sore, I learned to relax a little. Believe it or not, I am actually steering the boat in this photo.

Another bit from my journal: “My second night sailing was also wonderful. A dark cloud with flashes of lightning in its upper reaches slowly came my way, making me wonder at what point standing in a metal boat, with a metal mast jutting high into the sky, and holding onto a metal wheel becomes dangerous. When the cloud finally crossed over top of me, the lightning seemed to have mostly dissipated but it obscured the stars I had been navigating by. So I tried something Graeme had told me, to “sail for the wind, not the course”, and just paid attention to the wind in the sails and the small adjustments in direction I needed to make to keep them happy and full and pulling us swiftly along. I got the boat going fast!! It was really fun."

We stopped for a few hours at a few different islands along the way. The Isla de Vulcan (whose crater still smolders) is near Sicily.

This other little island we stopped at between Sardinia and Corsica felt very Mediterranean.

The rest of the time, we couldn’t leave the boat, not even to swim, so we found other ways to amuse ourselves.

The kids wanted a tattoo like mine, so I obliged.

Dylan playing the artiste while sporting his new peanut bracelet and the Superman tattoo Graeme gave him. Tres Eurohot.

Graeme taught us to use his sextant. Here I am taking the noonday sight. I was able to determine our position to within 7 miles, using only this funky instrument, some crazy calculations and the sun and horizon. Another victory for the luddites!

Unfortunately, we were attacked by pirates just off Corsica. Fortunately, we were able to subdue them with promises of ice cream when we arrived in France.

With our courtesy flag hoisted, after eight days at sea, we entered France.

A final bit from my journal: “Passage making is very different from cruising. There have been times when I have hated this, when I’ve been completely exhausted, feeling pretty ill, and suddenly I have to kick into high gear to do something important, like take a sail down. One early morning, after having been up most of the night, I was a few feet up the mast, trying to tie the end of the sail down but being rocked so hard by waves that I was really just bearhugging the mast so I didn’t go flying, and I thought ‘if this was a job, I’d quit right now’. But it’s not a job, it’s an adventure. And, in the same way that I sometimes hate mountaineering, when I question what I choose to do for fun and why I willingly subject myself to misery and fatigue, and promise myself that if I ever put my feet on solid, warm, dry ground again, I will stop doing this, but I don’t stop because then I have some spectacular experience of nature’s beauty or my own sense of accomplishment and I realize I am exactly where I want to be. That’s sailing so far for me”.

Our first meal in our new home was filled with all the things we had been dreaming about eating in France – chocolate croissants, dijon moutarde, et fromage brie. Oooh la la!!

The pirates were also satisfied with their crème glace.

Hoist the sails, we're headed south!

Well, we've just been 'cruising', as it is called in sailing circles, going where the wind takes us, dropping anchor in whichever bay is prettiest and most sheltered, stopping in towns when we start to run low on water, food and tolerance for our dirty clothes and each others' smell.

This picture is for you, Chelle and Steve. I think you'd really like all the big ships we are seeing.

For our last week together, Nelson and I got dropped off on the island of Hvar, which we had heard about from a climber in Italy.

The doorway of a church in the town of Hvar, through which many people have obviously gone.

After stocking up on food, we took a bus part way then hiked along a winding trail along the ocean towards a little town called Sveta Nedjelja.

Along the way were all these beautiful little bays.

We stopped in this one for so long, it took us almost the entire day to get 5km.

Just past Sveta Nedjelja are the most amazing limestone cliffs, with a little shelter for boats and swimming at its base.

At the cliff's base lives this guy Miro, who has put up all the routes on it and runs a little B&B there.

You'll never guess what we did there.

It was pretty hot, so we would climb in the morning, swim and sleep all afternoon, then return to the cliffs in the evening.

Okay, even I'm getting a bit bored of all the climbing photos!

It was really beautiful, though, and the favourite climbing place of our entire summer.

While we were there, a forest fire started not too far from the top of the cliffs. Water bombers and helicopters with buckets were picking up water from the ocean right in front of us and dropping it on the fire.

The town was spared but the fire burned several kilometers along the coast before stopping. This is the trail we had hiked along just a few days before. For two nights afterward, we could see hotspots still burning in the hills above us.

The trail and the road back to the town of Hvar were closed, so our trusty crew came directly to the cliffs to pick us up. Elaine, Celia's sister who had come for a short visit, masterfully handled the dinghy in big seas to come to our rescue. We headed for Split to drop her and Nelson off at the airport and to pick up Graeme, our final crewmember for the crossing.

Graeme has only been here for a few days but has already won all of our hearts with his friendly kiwi nature and, of course, presents!

He brought peanut butter which has been impossible to find

here. So far I have managed to fill the void of Nelson's leaving with peanut butter, honey and banana sandwiches! Despite his vast knowledge of boats and sailing, Graeme has also happily agreed to call me 'Lady Yachtmaster', especially while I am wearing my big floppy hat and drinking Earl Grey tea. I think we will get along just fine.

We leave Split today and head south. We are still waiting to hear about where we can get some important work done on the rigging on our way to South America, and we have some little jobs to do before we start crossing the Mediterranean but the journey has officially begun!