Farewell Isola... we love you but we must leave...Matelot!

We arrived in this town on Sunday 22 June and will depart tomorrow, 20 August. We are taking with us our boat Matelot, and all the memories, better ears for Richard and better teeth for me!

Yes!

We are off to do some cruising, to have lots of overnight anchorages and to enjoy the fruits of the past 2 months. Gasp!... our finances need some time to recover but we are not sure if Croatia will be quite the place for this. However, we are going anyway and plan to spend the remainder of August and all of September cruising south through Croatia, Montenegro and Albania towards Greece where we will probably winter the boat over.

The highlights of this town - and country will stay with us forever...

- The wonderful Marina staffed by people who have made us feel so much at home.
- The old town with its charming streets.

- The concrete and pebble beaches but the swimming is still so good.

- The interesting stuff going on around us and the never ending stream of new boats which arrive during the night on massive lorries
- The passion for sailing, the children who we see being coached every day from Optimist class upwards. (Slovenia won Silver in the Lasers today and the celebrations here were loud and spontaneous. The sailor was from this yacht club and this marina.)
- The ice cream - Richard's saviour on those days when you need something sweet.
- The coffee - at .80c for a short black or around E1 for a cappucino, well below normal Europe prices.
- The bread! It is like home made bread, keeps for days and is truly delicious and wholesome. Sometimes we purchase the whole grain, sometimes the sour dough - it is all really good. E1.45 per very large loaf! Makes delicious croutons. We will stock up tomorrow morning as plan to be anchoring out for a week.
- The olive oil and the wine! Istria is well known for the oil and wine produced here. It does not disappoint.
- The beer! Lasko Zlatorog at around .85c for a large 500ml can. We have stocked up on this.
- The constant sunshine between the storms.
- The feeling that this could be home except for the language.
- The relaxed nature and ease of getting around on public transport.
- The people who have been so wonderful to us... and it goes on and on.

- The sunsets!!

It is quite strange to think that we will not be back here again. Isola you will stay with us forever!

Captain's Comment

Felix, our engineer, jokester and confidant, thank you for all you have done for us and Matelot over the last eight weeks. We may not return but will never forget you!

Capn Buck

Return to Isola...storm damage in our absence...

The Russell Coutts 44 before and after pics!

Our time in Venice is short, but very lovely in this amazing place. We say our farewells to Amee and Michael and ride the speedboat shuttle back to Vento Venezia on the island of Certosa at 11pm on Sunday10 August. It is quite a buzz flying across the still water in the darkness.

Our departure next morning via the fuel berths is accompanied by some moments of confusion as the chart plotter maintains "no fix" mode for quite some time. We negotiate the channels successfully and very carefully and are eventually fuelled up and chartplotter back on line as we depart leaving Lido to starboard.

Our destination is Chioggia in the southern part of the lagoon, where we will meet up with the Simrad Agent to get our VHF radio sorted out. We motor the 3 hour passage, trying to sail for a while but the wind is not on our side today. The entrance is tricky but not as tricky as the marina which is pole berths and almost impossible to turn and reverse Matelot in the small space. Richard's patience is tried and a few words fly, but we eventually tie up. The VHF agent provides us with an English manual for the boat and instructs us on its use. It turns out to be operator error, but who would have guessed it from the conflicting instructions in the on line manual. The marina is brand new and completely empty. We cannot access water and have an issue with shore power as well but eventually get lit up. All for E65 for the night and we wonder at the price when we set off to walk into town for dinner and have to circumnavigate the canals to the nearest bridge which is quite a walk, when it would have taken 30 seconds to cross the canal at the back of the marina in a shuttle but none is provided for by the marina.

This is a pretty little fishing town which we enjoy for the evening. Our provisions are low as we have not visited the supermarket in Venice, so the next morning we decide this is the moment to get the outboard going on the inflatable and we motor into town to shop. The canal where we "park up" is very calm except for when large boats motor by leaving large wakes, at which time our small tender behaves like a rubber duck in a bathtub. I run in and out of the supermarket and baker and we beat a hasty retreat back to Matelot to head for parts north of Venice in the Laguna Morano. We are looking for an overnight anchorage as it is "time" for another first.

We are so spoilt in NZ. Our anchorages are protected and plentiful. We spend our first night at anchor in a spot called Lignano, moored on the edge of the channel, not too close to a row of piles marking shallow water. Very flat water and the fresh wind is predicted to drop overnight to 5-10 knots. We chicken out initially and call in to the marina, but become more stoic about anchoring out when quoted E85 for the night. We read in the pilot book that this area is not desirable to enter or leave in a SE gale and we wake in the morning after a good sleep to freshening SE up to 20 knots so decide to get out fairly quickly. This is an interesting experience which I will not say much about, just that we leave with two other similar sized yachts for company and they both turn back! The water shallows up over the bar and is not helped by the steep sea state, but we are soon in deep water and safely heading back to Isola, with an improving sea as we go. We have a magnificent sail - absolutely magnificent. Our old sails are on their last outing but they perform very well.

Richard is ecstatic as we romp across the northern Adriatic and Gulf of Trieste back to Isola, to be greeted by news that the Friday night storm has wreaked havoc here, seriously damaging 30 per cent of the yachts in the marina. The Russell Coutts 44 which we were parked next to up on the hard stand has a smashed mast and Felix breathes a sigh of relief to see us safe and sound! See the before and after pics.

Captain's Comment:

It is four months now since we departed New Zealand. Pretty much every moment has bought something new and exciting and we are now ready for some quiet, relaxing cruising! However, I suspect that each day will continue to be a day full of surprises and demands that challenge us to the max - but it is good for us and keeps us on our toes! I am sitting here in the yacht club in Izola as yet another storm breaks. My weather web site (meteo.hr) tells me that we can expect 35 - 55 knot winds from the SE and heavy rain over the next 12 hours. This is an area where you have to be on your toes as far as the weather is concerned and that is part of the learning curve for us - obtaining up to the minute and accurate weather forecasts. I'm glad however that we are in a marina tonight rather than anchored out. I don't think it would be very pleasant out in one of these storms - they are quite vicious if short lived, full of continuous lightning and crashing thunder. We depart for Croatia on Tuesday next and my weather "guru" tells me it will be fine and clear. I hope he is right! My thanks and continuing regard for my first mate. She has put up with a lot but seems as I do to enjoy the challenge.

Cap'n Buck
August 2008

We passage to Venice but not without drama!...

Photos

Richard is a happy chap behind the wheel as we leave Isola Marina

Amee and Ben's surprise meeting!

Lunch en route

We arrive and how on earth did we get in there...?

Farewell Lizzie and Ross... until next time!

Amee pays us a visit with her friend Ebs (Ebony) and we eat on board while the storm rages

Amee and Pippy having a good time in Venice the next day

...

We decide we are leaving for Venice on Thursday 7 August.

Lizzie and Ross are running out of time and must get to Sicily for their departure back to NZ. We really want to do the passage to Venice with them. We are feeling disappointed that the refit on Matelot has taken so long that we have not had any cruising time. These friends have been so supportive and flexible and so happy to just be having the experience in Isola, but we want to do this special event with them.

This is to be the first of many learning curves to come for us. We learn we must be ready for plans to change at the last minute, because we can only do what the boat will do and we will have to be honest to visiting friends and family and communicate that things can change or be not quite as expected!

The last 24 hours before our departure are manic...!

We discover the new C-Map card we have purchased for the chart plotter does not work. Eventually we discover we are on an older system and have to buy 2 cards instead of the one. They are E250 each and several trips to Porto Roz!

Felix presents his final account, but we have to send funds from NZ and it takes 48 hours. Richard eventually negotiates to leave our new sails with him as security. Richard and Ross get up at 6am on 7 Aug and refit the old sails ready for our passage.

Pippy develops a "periodontic?" abscess and has it treated in Isola on the eve of our departure. It makes her quite unwell and she cannot believe she has no injection to numb it before being dealt with. She has always been such a baby at the dentist, cannot believe she is desperate enough to submit to almost anything!

We have a new Simrad RD68 VHF on board, with a distress button - and nobody has told us it had to be sent to Simrad and personalised with a new "MMSI code". It is not until we are some way into our passage that we discover our VHF only works on Ch 16. We had assumed it worked on every channel. (Pippy had discovered the on board manual was in German so had downloaded the English version on her computer). After frantically turning it on and reading the English manual through, we discover the source of the problem! Being out on the water with a partially working VHF is not a good idea, but we continue on anyway - under motor because there is no wind!

Matelot performs well and Richard is supremely happy as we motor along at 2250 rpms, making 7.7 knots. We leave Isola around 10.30 am and have an uneventful sunny and calm day, seeing Venice appear on the horizon around 4pm. We arrive at the entrance at 5.30pm and motor past the Lido on our port side, sharing the channel with several ferries and ships heading out in the opposite direction. There is a massive construction area a short way in which is the project under way to protect Venice from South Easterly gales and frequent flooding. It all looks very industrial at this stage.

We are booked in to Vento di Venezia, a delightful private boating club attached to a hotel on the Island of Certosa, at the recommendation of our Marina in Isola. We can see Venice in the distance when we arrive at the island. We cannot believe the narrow channel we have to navigate into and the even narrower space which Richard must reverse Matelot in to. This is his first go at reversing the boat so he is understandably cautious. However it all goes perfectly (except for slightly rounding off the finger) and we are soon safely berthed stern-to as instructed by the marinara. However he has got his English words mixed up and it appears we should have gone bow in. We are jammed up against a massive house boat and we are not going to attempt to turn the boat around now.

It slowly dawns on us that we are having a bit of an anti climax moment. The highlight of sailing into Venice has not really happened as we are still some distance away - 1 hour by ferry - and the last ferry goes at 8pm! It is now 7pm, so we are not going anywhere tonight. We are all exhausted and by the time check in formalities have been completed, we turn in for an early night.

Before we know it Lizzie and Ross are packed on we are on the ferry the next morning on our way into Venice. Our ferry goes around the outside, so we have not yet seen the Grand Canal as we land at Ferrovia and say our goodbyes to our friends.

We are expecting Amee to arrive on the train from Nice at 8pm so plan to spend the day exploring, and trying to take in the sights everywhere - what an amazing place - but by 2pm we are concerned by the gathering dark clouds and spots of rain. We have left all the hatches open on the boat. Richard goes back to rescue the boat but is too late and we are flooded, with wet bedding, stove etc. That was a huge mistake and we are on another learning curve. Never leave the hatches open when you go for the day!

Pippy spends the remaining time in the city tracking down a marine books store called Mare di Carte (translation: Sea of Paper), as we are still desperately in need of an Adriatic Pilot Book. Success at last with this wonderful store and we are able to purchase the Adriatic, Italian Waters and Greek Pilot books, plus all the charts we are likely to need for a while. Christina who runs the store is incredibly helpful about everything we need to know and just a delightful person to meet. We will add the website of this store to this blog for anyone interested.

Amee duly arrives after an 8 hour trip from Nice. Amazingly she and Richard's son Ben (who have never met) have been introduced to each other in Ibiza as they are in the same group of people holidaying there. How small is the world really? They send us this wonderful photo to surprise us! We return to Certosa Island with Amee's huge pink suitcase and find Richard still trying to dry out the boat. As night falls, we are treated to a massive show of lightning over Venice and it is not long before we are in the middle of a raging storm which goes on for several hours of high winds and driving rain. Amee is a little unsure, but her friend Ebs shows no sign of nervousness.

Nine days in Isola ....

As we are loaded into the water on the travel hoist, a wonderful New Zealand care package arrives from Pippy's daughter and son in law, Nicci and Anthony Davies, containing Anzac Cookies, Twinings English Tea Bags (can't buy them here!), wonderful NZ design tea towels, a Yabba Telephone Card and a "Bellbird Card" which plays the sound of the bell bird when it is opened! This definitely softens the blow of having to be towed back to our marina due to a faulty starter motor, and using the emergency steering! We munch away and play the Bellbird as we ready the mooring lines and love the feel of floating again! That is Lizzie in the photo with Richard and one of the tea towels!

The next 9 days are a blurr of activity on the marina as we complete the final tasks to ready Matelot for her first passage.

The rig is checked and tuned.

The new sails are fitted but due to last minute drama have to be left behind temporarily.

They are fantastic, made of the best off shore fabric from Germany!

Kim McFadden pays us a flying visit from London! She is the first of the younger generation to come and stay. She loves the new hairdo she gets in Isola and thinks the Kiwi design tea towels are fab!.

The fault in the starter motor is repaired.

The newly painted and corrosion protected steering quadrant is returned and refitted.

Richard gets a hand stitched (by Pippy and Lizzie) cover for the outboard.

The full service and engineering on the engine is carried out including new seals on the salt water pump and new impeller.

The anchor windlass is checked and rewired.

Richard purchases a new anchor and 50 meters of chain and warp. The chain is laid out on the marina and spray painted to mark off each 10m.

Ross gets the oven reassembled and it works! This is a major for me. He also installs new nav lights and fire extinguishers amongst other things!

Lizzie keeps the food and drinks coming!

We are looking forward to sailing in to Venice with these guys - they have been awesome and we want to share this special moment with them.

Pippy makes several trips to Porto Roz getting the right C-Map card for the Adriatic and Greece.

At E250 a card they are essential but horrificaly expensive.

Lizzie pumps the dinghy up and it is checked over - no problems there.

The sea trial goes well with Felix running the engine at 3,000 rpms as we leave the marina! Felix gives Richard wonderful advice and information on managing and running the boat!

Finally! We have a name and Felix applies it to the stern!