Hi Folks,

Good evening from Sunny St Laurent Du Var by Sunny Nice
on the Sunny Cote d’Azure . When we were
last in touch we were in the lovely Riva Di Traiano. Subsequently we have reached France and are 3 or 4 sailing days from the Rhone and our entry into the French inland waterway
system

Since Riva Di Traiano our progress has been quite rapid:-

 

Cala Galera – was
a 55 mile sail up the Italian coast. All along the route were various forts and
lookouts, some ancient and some more recent. We motor-sailed much of the way
and only managed about an hour without the engine. The wind died and we motored
the last few miles into Marina Cala Galera. On arrival we were put into a berth
alongside the quay. This meant that Marley could now escape from the boat without
needing to be lifted off. He thought this was great and proceeded to prance
& frolic around on the quayside much to the amusement of the Ormeggiotorre and ourselves – he is certainly very good for international relations .

 

The marina is in a pleasant woodland setting with an imposing fortress on the hill overlooking it. While we were here the clouds formed themselves into the most beautiful formations.
 

San Rocco – As we set out we realised that we had passed the 10^th anniversary of
our cruise unnoticed. We left Tarbert on 22^nd May 2006. Decided we would mark its passing when we get to the canals.
 

Again we had an hour of sailing before the wind disappeared and we had to fire up the iron topsail (engine - for you lubbery types).
 

There are few useable harbours on this stretch of coast and even those are decidedly shallow and prone to regular silting. As we approached San Rocco a rib ambled out of the harbour and told us that we should wait 10 minutes while the dredger did some dredgy stuff. It finally left the harbour and we burbled in . The guy in the rib looked at us and asked what
depth we drew. We told him “1.5 metres”. After a significant pause he said we “SHOULD be OK but must keep to the left” he then gesticulated to the left as only a worried Italian can. He then went over to the dredger and seemed to have a serious conversation with the
crew. There was plenty of shaking of heads and grim expressions. 
 

Rob proceeded to take the boat into the harbour very slowly while Gina called out the depth readings. They proceeded to go down to 1.4 metres. We were then met by another rib with two young Ormeggiatorre who guided us into our berth and chatted away with us. So far, so good. Now we only had to get out the following morning.
 

To call San Rocco sleepy would be an exaggeration. Sleepy
implies that it can easily be woken up – comatose would probably be more
accurate. It has great tourist beaches on either side of a canal (of which the marina is a part). I have no doubt that it yawns, stretches, probably breaks wind noisily,scratches its extremities and stumbles into consciousness in July and August - but today it was out for the count . The marina itself is lovely. It has a gym, lounge, yacht club and bar all sitting overlooking the boats. We took a burble into town and bought a bottle of gas from a fisherman’s chandlery for E78. Previously we had been quoted E100 for such bottle. So San Rocco is OK!

 

After a few drinks in the marina bar we headed back to Tiercel for dinner and bed. All this doing nothing is really quite tiring. Perhaps it is the ‘San Rocco’ effect!

 

The following morning we left quite early, motored into
the canal, squeezed around the lifeless dredger and watched with horror as the
echo sounder nose dived to 1.1. metres. We could hear the keel making a trench
in the undredged sand but, true to form, Tiercel kept going till we were
outside the harbour and in deeper water.

 

Salivoli -  After we left San Rocco we headed for
Salivoli . There was much sunshine and loadsa gentle breezes to waft us on our
way. We arrived in Salivoli, agreed a berth with an Ormeggiatorri and topped up
with fuel. After topping up we got to our agreed berth and tied up. Just as we
finished another Ormeggiotorre pulled up alongside us in his rib and threatened
to throw us out because we had apparently stolen a berth. After much shouting
and gesticulation by both him and Rob he checked out our story and blamed one
of his cohorts for the misunderstanding but did not apologise! For the rest of our stay he could be seen
lurking around the marina deliberately avoiding us.

 

Despite this wee contretemps we liked Salivoli.
Originally it had been our intention to spend a couple of nights here preparing
for the 150 mile crossing to France. Unfortunately the weather forecast showed
it going seriously ‘tits-up’  on Monday
so, while Gina and Tim went shopping, Rob did some serious passage planning so
that we could leave Salivoli on Saturday
morning and be in be in Nice on Sunday before lunch .

 

On Gina and Tim’s return we headed for the bar to plan
the morrow. An early night followed with alarms set for 05.30.

 

St Laurent du Var  – We actually had the boat underway at
05.50 and a cup of tea in hand at 06.00. For most of the morning we motored
through almost glassy seas with barely a whisper of wind to disturb them. We passed the beautiful, mountainous and
verdant Isle of Elba followed by the more remote Isola Capraia and finally the
Northern tip of Corsica. At this point the wind came up on the nose and we
trundled into an annoying head wind for the next few hours.

 

As the night passed we saw very few boats/ships just a
couple of ferries. Dawn then broke and the heavens opened. The Cote d’Azure
just looked plain grey!

 

The cloud gradually lifted and the coast started to
reveal itself . We motored past Nice airport and saw an awful lot of helicopters
hovering around. We realised that this was the day of the Monaco Grand Prix so
assumed that the beautiful people were heading to Monaco for a good days
racing/posing.

 

Eventually we entered the marina at around 09.00 and were
ushered to our berth after pieces of
silver had been palmed (E38 per night). We were now in the South of France and all of 4 days before Tim headed for home and
Gina and Rob legged it to the Rhone.

 

We were quite taken aback by the vastly improved quality
of the fresh foods in even the most humble shops here . On Tuesday we headed into Nice on the train.
This was Marley’s first ever rail journey so we were a tad concerned about how
he would react. Typical of the dog, he took it all in his stride.

 

Nice really is an unexpected pleasure . This was a very
windy day and the beautiful people posing on the beaches were trying to look
cool whilst being sand-blasted. The old town is that lovely mixture of narrow alleyways with wee shops, restaurants
and bars opening up into some drop dead gorgeous open public places and squares.

 

We had lunch in a restaurant in the square opposite the
hall of justice. It was a great place to sit and watch the world go by. Sadly
the ‘real’ world imposed itself on us quite quickly when, from the North side
of the square 4 soldiers (3 men and one woman), full armed and clearly
vigilant, patrolled across the square and headed down towards the beaches. This
brought home to us the effect religious terrorism is having on this liberal and
secular republic.

 

After lunch we strolled back through the narrow
alleyways, some lovely green spaces and the broad Avenue Jean Medecin - where
Gina partook of a bit of retail therapy . On arrival at the station we boarded
our train which then did nothing for about 10 minutes. Suddenly 4 or 5 guys
piled off of the train, re-entered by other doors and proceeded to surround and
search another young guy a few seats down from us. Clearly they were
police/security personnel with
suspicions! Hmmm.........

 

Today Tim flew out home to Wiltshire. Tiercel will now be
heading westwards for about 140 miles before stopping for a few weeks to give
us time to retrieve our car from Policoro, prepare Tiercel for a few hundred
miles of inland waterways, visit some friends and then set off on the
freshwater section of our journey.