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.