Voyages from 1998 to 2005



Summary Log #4 Sailing Season 2005 - Italy to the Canaries

Hog Island, Grenada

July 10, 2006

Distances Traveled in 2005 (April to December)

Ostia, Italy, to the Canal du Midi in Provence, France - 755 Nautical Miles

Canal du Midi to the Bay of Biscay - 574 Miles (including 143 locks and 387 bridges)

Bay of Biscay to Lisbon, Portugal - 879 Miles

Lisbon, Portugal to Madeira and La Gomera in the Canaries - 1341 Miles

Total distance traveled in 2005 = 3449 Nautical Miles

Logs Written to cover the Sailing Season 2005

Logs #34 Rome, Corsica, Sardinia - 13 individual logs

Logs #35 France 2 - 14 individual logs

Logs #36 Spain 2 - 5 individual logs

Logs #37 Portugal (including Madeira) - 6 individual logs

Logs #37 Canary Islands - 11 individual logs

Total number of logs written for 2005 - 49 individual logs

Ostia, Rome, Italy

We spent the winter of 2004/2005 in a marina in Ostia, a suburb of Rome, where the Tiber River empties into the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Mediterranean. A single ticket on a local bus would get us into downtown Rome in half an hour. We went in many times and saw most of the museums, and historical and archeological sites. We traveled up and down the west side of Italy from Pompeii and Naples (where we had an interesting encounter with a pickpocket to retrieve our stolen cell phone) up to Pisa and Tuscany. In the spring Wolfgang, a German friend visiting us, and I took Sprite all the way up the Tiber to the first historical bridge of ancient Rome. We made many new friends, and met many old friends we have encountered in our travels through Europe and the Mediterranean, in the marina. (For example, Rod and Susie on Glenlyon we first met in Bermuda in 1999, and again in the Azores, London, Paris, Kemer Marina in Turkey, and now here in Ostia, They too are working their way out into the Atlantic, and we met them again in the Canaries.) The facilities were OK, but the security was poor, with 17 bicycles stolen (including the old one I was going to junk before leaving Rome), and many toilet seats!

Elba, Corsica and Sardinia

We departed Ostia April 14, heading up the Italian coast past the now uninhabited island of Monte Cristo to Elba, where Napoleon was exiled for 100 days before his final return to try to conquer Europe. (Both are Italian.) Next over to Corsica, a French island, where we went around the north peninsula and down to Calvi (where Nelson lost an eye), enjoying a visit to the French Foreign Legion base there. The Corsican flag is an unusual one simply featuring the silhouette of a black head with a white headband on a plain white background. At one time the headband was over the eyes, as used when Moorish prisoners were blindfolded before being beheaded. Since it was not a very politically correct image, the blindfold was raised to a headband around the forehead. We stopped at several places going around Corsica, down to Bonifacio on the southern tip, then across the strait to the beautiful rugged Maddalena Islands on northeastern Sardinia, The Sardinian flag has a similar history as the Corsican one, except that it is a white flag with the red Cross of St. George, and four headbanded black silhouettes, one in each corner. Sardinia is part of Italy.

I described our first anchorage on Isola Razzoli at Cala Lunga in Log #34k as, "one of the most rugged, treacherous, magnificent, anchorages we have been in since arriving in Europe". The Maddalenas are an uninhabited archipelago of rocky, shoal infested islands in azure blue clear water. Then down to the southern group of islands, over to the fabled Porto Cervo on the Costa Smeralda, the NE mainland shore of Sardinia, a luxurious marina/resort development created with money from the Aga Khan. Jacques and Andree joined us, from Sardinia as we made our way northwest 170 miles up to the Cote d’Azur on the south coast of France.

South of France and the Canal du Midi to Bordeaux

We didn’t want the luxury or expense of going to San Tropez, Nice, Cannes, or Monaco, and thus went to the pleasant offlying Iles d’Hyeres before going on to Toulon and Marseilles, where Jacques and Andree left us. In Toulon I had to see the major French naval base, and from Marseilles we visited Ile D’If, and the Chateau D’If where, in the novel of the same name, the Count of Monte Cristo was imprisoned for 18 years. Over to Saintes Maries in the Camargue delta of the Rhone, where we saw Camargue cowboys, bullfights (the bulls are not killed), and a Gypsy festival, before taking our mast down May 27 to enter the Canal du Midi at Aigues-Mortes. Here we were joined by Tony and Annie Cook, friends from the Toronto Power and Sail Squadron. Tony is the webmaster of www.searoom.com where all my logs and pictures are posted.

The Canal du Midi is a fascinating waterway going from the Camargue area of Provence, across Etang du Thau, where we saw acres and acres of oysters farms (and of course enjoyed several meals of seafood), as well as boat jousting contests. Then into the canal proper where we now had to contend with a few opening bridges, and locks, and locks, and locks! (143 in all) Most of the bridges were low arched affairs for local roadways, some dating back to Roman times. For this reason we had to lower the forward mast support, in order to have less than 10 feet airdraft. We meandered up through the middle Pyrenees, stopping in the ancient city of Carcassone in the Languedoc region for a few weeks while I went back to Canada for my granddaughter’s wedding.

Continuing on, we stopped for a week in Toulouse, then on to Castets-en-Dorthe, the end of the canal system, leading into the Garonne River and the Gironde Estuary in the Medoc wine region, by July 20. We stopped in Bordeaux for 18 days for maintenance, repairs and supplies, before heading out the estuary at Pointe de Graves and into the Bay of Biscay on August 12

It was 2 ½ months, 574 miles, 143 locks, and 387 bridges from Port Camargue in the Mediterranean to the Atlantic on the Bay of Biscay, a most enjoyable trip through the south of France, stopping every night at the dock of a small village on the canal, enjoying their history, hospitality and wines.

Spain

Diagonally across the Bay of Biscay, we sailed 175 miles straight to Santander on the north coast of Spain (from there visiting Bilbao and the Guggenheim Museum). Going west, into the prevailing winds, motoring most of the way, across the north coast of Spain, we stopped at San Vicente de la Barquera, Ribadesella, Gijon, and Ribadeo, all rias (river estuaries) which have large areas that dry out at low tide, just to make anchoring interesting. Once around Cape Ortegal we were finally heading south, down the northwest Atlantic coast to La Coruna, from which we visited the pilgrimage site of Santiago de Compostela.

Continuing south we entered a few more rias, rounded Cape Torinana, the westernmost point of Spain, and down around the fabled Cape Finisterre (the town was rather drab) to the Rias Baixas (the southern rias), four great estuaries on Galicia’s southern coast. This first one, Ria de Muros, is an estuary about 8 miles in depth and two miles wide with a half dozen bays and five major towns nestled along the two sides. The other three estuaries are Ria de Arosa, Ria de Pontevedra, and Ria de Vigo where our last Spanish port of call was Bayona. The islands off-lying the lower three rias are part of a national park and provide some stunning scenery, conservation trails, and pristine geography. We enjoyed these last three rias most of all our coastal cruising of Atlantic northern Spain.

Portugal to Madeira

We entered Portugal at Viana do Castelo, then went another 22 miles to Povoa de Varzim, where we were to base ourselves for three nights to explore Portugal’s second largest and second most important city, Porto, also know as Oporto, the source of fortified port wine. After a few days we went to Sao Jacinto, and then to Figuera da Foz (where immigration noted Judy had overstayed her time in the Shengen countries of the EU, and she had to take a flight to London and back to exit and re-enter). I was OK as I was using my British passport. Then down to historic Lisbon for several days, where we were joined by Doug Caldwell, a friend from Toronto who joined us last year sailing from Crete to Italy.

We had a great sail from Cascais, on the coast by Lisbon, for the 489 mile passage to

Porto Santo, one of the two Madeira islands belonging to Portugal, with strong NE trade winds all the way. After two nights there we went over to Quinte de Lorde Marina on the SE end of Madeira, where we spent an enjoyable two weeks with Judy’s dad, Henry, and our guest Doug, renting a car and seeing the whole island in detail - one of our favourite places.

The Canaries

We sailed 275 miles south to make our landfall Oct. 23 at Graciosa, one of the smaller, less developed of the Canaries (part of Spain), then a few miles around to Lanzarote, dropping anchor in the north end of Puerto de Naos, the best anchorage we had in all the Canaries. Here Doug left us to return to Toronto. We spent the next two months visiting most of the Canary islands, and unfortunately many marinas, as the anchorages in the Canaries are not good. We were in Tenerife for Tropical Storm Delta which came through in November, safe in a marina which sustained severe damage. We were also in Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, La Palma for Christmas alongside the tall ship Lord Nelson, and the New Year in La Gomera, before setting off for the Cape Verde Islands January 2, 2006. We had some of our heaviest sails in and leaving the Canary Islands.

Thus in 9 months of sailing from Ostia just outside of Rome in April, via the Canal du Midi to the Canary Islands to the end of the year, we traveled 3449 nautical miles in 2005. 

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