To Slovenia.....

And on we go…

Photos -

Me asking Richard what he is doing when he is trying to capture the old couple holding hands!

Window boxes

The new us after we have cut our own hair

Richard on our balcony after yet another good feed

The market in centre of Ižola

Our 3.00 am parting from Herzliya Marina and Ibis II has a dreamlike quality about it as we pile our bags on to the taxi in the dark. A bit like Alice in Wonderland where we are closing one door and opening another and going into a completely different world. In this case the white rabbit is the boat which we have been negotiating on for a while in Isola, Slovenia, close to Trieste in Italy.

She is a 2003 Beneteau 411 Celebration model with performance rig and ticks all our boxes. She is a one owner private yacht – never chartered... sailed to Brazil and back by her owner so has radar, life raft and iridium phone on board and even a spinnaker! Apparently he has not used her at all for the past 18 months as has several other boats. We have not signed any contract but have agreed on a price at this stage. We have found that it is very difficult to find a boat in the Med within our budget which suits our requirements. Most sailing yachts have in-mast furling with a non battened main which does not allow the hull to perform to its true ability and we do love to sail – really sail. Most of these boats spend much of their lives being motored around and sailed a little bit depending on the skill of the person in charge. The 411 Celebration is a highly spec’d model with deeper keel and taller mast, fully battened slab reefing. However it also includes all the comforts of home for our friends and family who we are looking forward so much to having on board.

We arrive in Isola 17 hours later, via 4 hours in Munich and a rental car hire in Trieste. We take a wrong turnoff on the way and stop in an Italian Village for mouth watering Limon flavoured gelato ice creams and directions from the locals and suddenly we find our way and are on our path again. We are hot, dusty and unbelievably tired on arrival and check in at 8.00 pm, when Richard insists we go and look at the boat immediately! I stamp a dirty foot and insist on a shower first but he is not having one and will wait for later.

We almost wished we hadn’t….!

The marina is very close to our hotel (not by accident!) but we have to walk (drag ourselves) up and down several fingers before we find her – teak decks black with dirt, canvas and sails in disarray, ropes everywhere and topsides which are no longer dark blue, but a cloudy greasy dirty bruised bluish colour. The gel coat looks as though it has never seen a hose or polish … We stand …stunned for a while, pick ourselves up and head back to the hotel.

Sleep that night is an unconscious rendition of comatose for 12-14 hours. Next morning early we call the broker and suggest that the boat is not quite up to what he described and we will probably call off the survey thanks. He convinces us to take a look inside at 4pm that day and we still call off the surveyor but leave a proviso that we will call him if we decide to go ahead.

By the time we go on board the owner has sent two strong men to clean her up and the teak is looking much better, the topsides no different, but generally a tidier impression. Surprisingly she is reasonably well kept inside except for the scuffed floorboards and a couple of damaged fittings. She is clean and uncluttered and the cabinetry is very good. After spending 2-3 hours going over the boat we decide to go ahead with the survey the next morning.

There is little or no wind as we motor out and pull up the sails… another awful moment of loaded silence when we see them… black with mould patches and full of small holes from sun damage. The surveyor immediately values them at zero! If only they had been taken off and stored down below they would still have plenty of wear in them because they look as though they have been good sails. Still she glides through the water effortlessly.

The survey continues in this vein, but overall a sound hull, motor and electronics/electrics. Just heaps of maintenance work to do and a big account to pay for someone. We get a list of items from the surveyor and go away fairly dumbfounded that a boat could be so misrepresented by the broker and owner. There is no spinnaker in sight, amongst other things. However, the seller is making noises about us coming back to them with a lower offer. That is where we are at. We have done the research and put in an offer for Euro 25k less than than the original agreement and are waiting to see what comes of it. Silence so far.

We seriously think about revisiting our first love, G Whizzard in the UK, but after much soul searching, decide that the Beneteau 411 Celebration is the design of boat we want. There are not many on the market and the one enduring thing is that she really is the type of boat we want. With the maintenance and refit she would be a good boat. The main issue for us is that the trades people here are very busy with the high season upon them and we would have to slowly work through the items starting from the most urgent. Can we do it? Do we want to? These are the questions we must answer.

In the meantime we are getting to know this lovely old Slovenian town called Izola (Italian spelling Isola, meaning island). We spend our first three nights in a hotel and enjoy an internet connection for this time, then have to move on as it is high season and the town is booked out. We find ourselves probably the last small studio apartment with cooking facilities (ho hum..) and move on to this garden apartment right beside the marina. Even if we don’t come away with a boat, we are loving our experience here. The historic old town with its stony winding streets, brims with leafy green trees and gardens full of brightly coloured flowers, not to mention geranium filled window boxes and perhaps more ice cream shops than cafés. The olive oil, tomatoes, olives, coffee, fresh fruit, pancetta, bread and pasta are fresh and delicious, as are the local fish and produce sold at the market which is open every day in the town centre. However, I could kill for a good cup of tea and cannot find tea bags anywhere.

Everything is very compact, within walking distance. It is very hot with blue skies each day – we tend to go out in the morning for a few hours, come back for a lunch of fresh bread and freshly purchased produce, sleep for a while, then go out for a swim later and a stint at the internet cafe. We are regrouping ourselves after the rush of all the tours and night passages made during the Rally, and it is heaven.

There are tons of restaurants and they are not too expensive, but we are trying not to blow out our budget so eat at home mostly, which is a regular comedy show. The small kitchenette has no hot water, so we have to bring it from the shower. I have figured out how to get the double electric plates going, but cannot stop them once they are “lit” and have to get everything boiling then pull the plug out of the wall! The wine glasses are tiny which is our excuse for having more of the less than 3 Euro local plonk. The beer is excellent and our balcony has a comfortable table and chairs where we sit until well into the night or until the mosquitoes move us on. The palm tree in the garden in front of us has its own built in tube of LED lights wound around the trunk so we could even be in Hollywood! There was no cork screw supplied so we purchased our own from the 1 Euro shop, plus a can opener for our can of pears – 3 broken can openers later and still we can’t get at them – perhaps the gods of fresh fruit are working against us. As I write Richard opens the freezer to get out the ice cream and the door falls off!

Sunday morning and Richard has been fighting off an ear infection for a few days, with a visit to the local doctor and antibiotics, but it is worse this morning and visibly swollen on the left side of his face. We head back to the doctor at 8.00am who says it is just the external part of his ear canal, and packs a dressing into it with instructions to keep on with the antibiotics. We console ourselves with delicious cappuccino at the nearest café and promise ourselves we will come back for an ice cream dessert later in the day.

The marina here is probably the largest and best set up on this tiny stretch of coast-line between Italy and Croatia. We have visited Koper in the north and Porto Roz in the south which both have smaller marinas and that is about all there is space for. We are interested to spot a Russell Coutts RS44 up on the hard – like a mini America’s cup boat amongst lots of other serious looking racing craft. The seller of the boat we are interested in has one of his other boats called Bohemia Express – an ex Sydney racer which he has imported here to compete with, lined up with the others. There are quite a few racing regattas based here during the season.

To be continued….