FrankingWorldTraveller

Dinner for 53? What was I thinking?

July 8, 2014
Our son Matt and Emma, who visited us in Corfu, are engaged!

We left Amante for a 3-day holiday to attend their engagement tea in Wetherby, a small town in Yorkshire.

What a wonderful way to wrap up the season, seeing the happy couple celebrated in her father’s home town. Emma’s parents, Robert and Liz hall are both from England, and kindly invited us to join them for this special occasion.

We visited days after the tour de France had passed through Yorkshire, so we were unable to find a room in Wetherby. We stayed in Harrogate, my next hometown, which was dressed in flowers and yellow bicycles for the tour. Upon the advice of our neighbor, a Yorkshire man, we visited Betty’s Tea Room and had another extravagant tea before we left.

The Calories! The Calories!

We left Amante in Corfu early July in good hands to attend our son’s Engagement Tea in Wetherby, Yorkshire, England.

After bidding Amante farewell, we returned home to enjoy a brief bit of Tahoe Summer.
Stay tuned for Part 2!!

Antibes, France May 30, 2014

I first visited Antibes by car, with Francesca, the lovely lady who works provisioning yachts in La Ciotat. She had to pick up a few things, so I drove with her. She lived in Antibes for years, and gave me a quick tour of where the kids went to school, the places they often ate, where all the yachties hang out. This view made Antibes seem like a potential liveable place. I had an hour to wander while Francesca did her business, so I walked to the edge of the city gates, where I found Heidi’s English Book Shop, just at the city gate that opens to the sea wall. What joy! To peruse and smell and pick at English books (albeit for only 10 minutes) was such a delight. I bought Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for 5 euro off the used book stand. SCORE!

Then I took a speed tour of the Musée Picasso, formerly the Château Grimaldi. It is built upon the foundations of the ancient Greek town of Antipolis. Also showing were a few pieces of Miró that I had seen in Barcelona. Fun 20 minutes.

20 more minutes just walking about and a quick tour through the English Grocery store to buy crackers- unheard of in France, Yorkshire Gold tea, and a few goodies, and I met back up with my ride for a rosé and chips. It was a treat to hear English being spoken, quite a lot of it really, in Antibes. It seems to be the yacht mecca in France.

Which brings me to the boats. When we came back by boat, we could not get a berth. In fact, we could not get a berth anywhere on the French Riviera until a yacht berth broker called Cap Ferrat for us and pulled a favor. We stayed at anchor from the time we left La Ciotat until Cap Ferrat. We anchored out at Antibes, but driving into town through the marina was jaw-dropping. The outer quai, always called “Millionaire’s Row” is now adorned with boats not likely belonging to mere millionaires. Let’s just upgrade it to Billionaire’s Row. The smallest boat on this row is about 120 feet, most are over 200. The term Megayacht is outdated for these toys, meet the new Gigayachts.

The first one, I was told, belongs to one of the sons of the Sultan of Brunei. Hideous boat.

This one, called Madame Gu, won Superyacht of the Year last year. She anchored a few hundred meters from us and launched her helicopter from the bowels of the bow.

This one, we first saw at Cap Ferrat, and then again in Corfu, is called Luna, owned by Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich.

What more to say? Once I start prattling on about Gigayachts, I can hardly find the words to make the charming walled city formerly known as Antipolis seem as cool as it is. You’ll have to trust me. And after all, they call their market “The Provence Market” so it must be cool.

I ran from Gaios to Mongonissi beach on the southeastern part of Paxos one morning to check it out. The small cove and surrounding bays were adorable and looked very inviting for swimming, so we decided to bring the boat down.

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The anchorage was too small for us, so we anchored just outside in the bay that was exposed to the east. This allowed us to use our new stern line anchoring system for the first time, to try the process in good conditions. Mary and Larry can do it by themselves. It involves anchoring the boat and holding it steady on anchor, while someone hops in the dinghy and runs a stern line to the shore, ties it off, while the person holding the boat steady in whatever wind there is, tightens the stern line. Piece of cake with 3 people, all captains, right? First in my defense, I (Vanessa) wanted to anchor without the stern line, so we could just jump in the water and escape the insufferable heat.

It took us 2 hours, mostly due to 3 captains offering ideas. Too many chefs and all that. The 2 main captains, Neal and Mauro had to work out geometry problems on paper before doing anything, one of those captains having to translate both language and units (thus the paper- no one could keep up both in his head), while auxiliary Captainessa just shakes her head and gets hungry and mean. We finally had Amante tied up and anchored and had lunch at 3:00 pm. Here is Amante from shore tucked in against lava rocks.

We didn’t wait the obligatory 30 minutes before jumping in the cool, clear water and had a nice long snorkel. After resting, we went to the little beach resort I had found on a jog the morning before, Mongonissi beach resort with Pan and Theo’s taverna.

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Lovely, peaceful setting with a small beach, and a casually elegant restaurant. The dancing had been the night before, so we missed that, sadly. Our entertainment was provided by 5 small children making the sounds of 5 small children at work on a beach- splashing, squealing, moving sand one fistful at a time for ten minutes to build a sand castle with the right sand, according the the design of the 5 year old architect’s vision. There was only one cat that made the rounds during cocktails, making friends that she would beg her dinner from later. I only gave her 3 pieces of chicken.

Pretty sweet place.

Corfu rubbed me wrong at the beginning. Entering by boat, Corfu is beautiful, a mountainous island a stone’s throw from Albania. The megayachts are lined up outside the harbor beneath the citadel. History back to before there was such a thing as history. The promise of Ouzo and grilled octopus.
Going into the Port Authority and seeing a holding cell full of what I assume to be North African refugees piled up in a tiny cell made me both sad and scared. Going into town to look for cell phones made me think “Tijuana”. Even once we got into the good part, Corfu Old Town my opinion elevated only to “Puerto Vallarta”. I have left Italy, the land untouched by ugliness, and Sicily, the land of lust and heat, for the Mexico of Europe. I fumed.

Upon second glance, my opinion of Corfu elevated a good deal. First a good night’s sleep, then a trip to the grocery store to buy, as ever, way too much food, then curse myself for all the troubled way back to the boat with it in tow. A taxi, three longs walks down the dock with heavy bags in the first day over 80/80. (degrees/%humidity). We got the food and the next guests, our son Matt and Emma on board, went to lunch, heard all Matt and Emma’s travels so far. They both seem to be having a great time, so that’s contagious, and a-beaming we motored from the marina to the large anchorage underneath the “Old Fort”. The Old Fort was built starting in 800 A.D, and the New Fort, note the use of the word new here, in the 1500s.

We were amazed by the neighborhood, at the anchorage anyway. We anchored amid 5 yachts over 250 feet. A small, tasteful, modern 150 footer whose name I missed, looked as out of place as we did, but since we were the only sailboat, we had the tallest rig with spreader lights. Still we looked rather minnow-esque next the these big fish. Luna, Le Gran Bleu, Ocean Victory, Cakewalk, and Saint Nicholaus are over 250 feet, while Bandito, Whisper, Jamaica Bay and IBoat (squared) were only 98-140 or so feet, darling little things.
Will post an entry on those boats with close up photos.

We first climbed the Old Fort to get photos and see the panorama. The Ionian University now sits on the point of the Old Fort and on our return trip we walked down a row of buildings that house the music school. An opera singer and her accompaniment were rehearsing as well as a string quartet. The music added an unexpected element of beauty.

We walked the streets of Old Town with Matt and Emma squealing with delight at all the old European town things that we have grown accustomed to: limestone streets, cobbled alleys, old world (and in this case Venetian) architecture with arches at the first floor and rotting shuttered windows, A Esplanade (the Litton) left by the short period of French rule, that is filled with cafés and bars and shops, kids playing in the Cricket field that sits alongside the Esplanade, street after street of open shops, kids playing among a throng of tourists as if they were nothing more annoying than the heat and insects of summer.

We had dinner. Walking back we found the Elsplanade filled with people, mostly kids doing kids things, standing in cliques and looking like a mix of prostitots and mini rappers. World fashion seems to be set by pop stars. Sigh. There was a Greek festival in the park, with about 100 people in Traditional Greek dress doing those funny little Greek dances we all associate with Greekdom. There weren’t many tourists, which made that even more delightful. Full bellies and walked out, we went back to Amante and slept well.

Arrived in Corfu after 36 hours of relatively unpleasant seas, but good sailing.

We left from Riposto about 6 am in calm seas and no wind, which soon gave way to seas and then wind. The seas were forecast to be a maximum of 2 meters (6 feet) towards the last of the trip, but about 2 hours along, the seas built to 2-4 and by afternoon the first day they were 6 feet and held all night. The wind came up, so we were able to sail most of the way, using only the genoa. The sky was dark, and the new moon gave no light, and other than a small sailboat (?) that gave no AIS signal and only showed up on radar occasionally, we were without company. The midnight watch mind goes something like this: IS that lille boat still there? watch radar….1 out of 4 or 5 sweeps shows a blip….get the binoculars…see the running light…forget it for awhile, check it again later, same thing. In this case, it became apparent the little boat was moving faster than us, meaning: a) it wasn’t smaller than us or b) it was a motorboat or c) it was a smaller sailboat that was using its engine at full throttle because we were holding 8 knots, or d) most likely, it was a boat full of Syrian refugees that would intercept us soon, board Amante, and throw us all overboard. That was obviously the choice, or at least sitting alone in the cockpit in dead dark with no other boats to answer a mayday, it became the likely scenario. Do I wake up Neal? no, he’s the one who watched it for hours before your watch. Do I remember it and write about it? You can, but it’s boring and no one will care because it didn’t actually result in kidnapping or going to jail with the Russian Prostitutes (stollen from my buddy Mary). By mid-morning we saw GREECE! By 6 p.m. we were in Gouvia Marina and I posted on Facebook that I was finally in Greece eating Octopus and drinking Ouzo, which I stole from some movie quote that made it sound way more glamorous than my soggy, salted version at a marina bar proved, but it was well earned and quite tasty!

The next Island we visited was Vulcano (Vulcan). Anchoring in Vulcan is rather tricky as the large bay is exceedingly deep, then shallows up to a 25 foot contour line very quickly.

That was full of small boats, so we anchored in about 70 feet of water next to luxury motor yacht with really lovely lines, called “Inception”. We cooked on the grill and we drank the wines we bought in Lipari. We spent the night in ferry wake as this must be the busiest ferry port on the planet (maybe it is a portal to the planet Vulcan, accounting for the 5 Ferries per hour (or so) until 11 pm!! Dreadful. But we got up the next morning with a goal to summit the crater, so off we went.

The town was very small considering the number of Ferries coming and going until very late at night. I do think there is some truth to my theory that this is a portal to the Planet Vulcan, and those aren’t just tourists looking to get stinky in a mud bath, but Vulcans zapping home to Pon Far or something. The architecture seemed Mexican, and after having visited Puerto Vallarta in January, I half expected to see a burrito stand. The houses are almost mission style, with red tile roofs and white stucco walls with exposed wood beams. I suppose there aren’t many trees growing on the island, since it is an active volcano, so materials must be shipped in. But Ihave not seen red tile roofs thus far in the Italian port towns or especially in the islands. So very different from Lipari, which almost touches Volcano at its northern point.

The climb was steep at times, but really pleasant and it felt good to walk the Earth after quite a lot of miles on the boat.

The smell of sulfur was pretty intense. There were delicious views from on top of the crater, but I was really getting tired of the smell of sulphur by this time. It was our plan to finish the hike and go to the bubbling mud pools to “do the mud bath” thing, so off we all went, even Mauro, who seemed to enjoy it the most.

It was foul and disgusting, but we laughed it up and played like it was fun and were happy to take showers afterwards and boil our clothing from the hike and swim. The whole boat is covered in volcanic ash and dust, but we have visited the volcanic Aeolians. One last stop in Sicily, under Etna, and I am done vacuuming volcano ash!

David and Michelle Geddes joined the Amante crew on the Aeolian islands. Michelle just graduated from high school and they are traveling Europe on a Father-Daughter graduation trip.

We spent the first day with the Geddes in port at porto Pignataro in Lipari. We rode to town in the dinghy and walked through the Lipari old town, a very old and quaint place we had walked through with the Finches last year. This year it is earlier in the season, so it wasn’t as hot as last year. We visited the church on the point overlooking the bay and the citadel, or fort, that was built starting in the 11th century. The saint of the town is St. Bartolomeo, whose statue stands to the left of the alter nave. There is attached to the church, and viewable for 1 euro, a ruin from a monk cloister (?) built also in the 11th century. Read all about the islands here: http://www.eolnet.it/eng/IsoleEolie.asp
We visited the Museum and I decided that pretty much after being able to walk upright, man accomplished the following in this order: eat, reproduce, make pottery, make alcohol to put into that pottery, decorate that pottery with increasing depictions from this list, build a boat, build 2 boats, race, make weapons, war, conquer the next town, island, continent, etc., repeat.

We wandered those same little streets that are so delightful, tiny cobbled alleyways, open doors to people’s homes, where they were having dinner or napping. We had lunch, shopped for cheeses and goodies and went back to the boat. David napped and Michelle and I took a dinghy tour to look at a huge yacht named “Event” and got caught in a rainstorm with BIG raindrops, but we were tough and kept going. We had dinner at the restaurant at the marina, which was as described- simple but good.

The next morning the seas were still up, so we walked from Lipari town through the tunnel to see the charming town of Canetto. We saw the “true love taxi” was running and the black beach was slowly filling with bathers. Canetto is a short walk through the tunnel from Lipari town, but is quite different in feel as it is a beach town. The church is named after St. Christopher, protector of travelers and so a favorite, and is the first church I can remember with the likeness of the patron Saint above the alter instead one of Mary or Christ.
WE introduced David and Michelle to Granita, which, with summer arriving will be a new favorite.

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The most beautiful rodeo in the 7 seas.
We arrived in Ponza after an uneventful, mostly windless navigation. Our friend and new sailor, Aaron stood watch for a turn, checking radar, AIS, visual sight checks, engine checks and making hourly log entries. Now Aaron can use the underused phrase, “not on MY watch” with alacrity. We anchored on the town side of Ponza, where all the boats were anchored and went to town. There is a well known lack of dinghy docks in Ponza, in most Italian ports, actually. They have enough visitors, thank you. No fear. Our trusty and very friendly Italian captain Mauro waves over the right guy (he spots the “right guy” from 200 meters) and has a friendly chat, Badaboom, Bob’s your uncle, we have a place on the private dock. Mauro says we can tip the guy if we want. Last year to pick up Perri and Gary we had to “tip” a guy 20 Euros to tie up for 5 minutes in Naxos, near Taormina.
We went to the Ferry office and bought tickets for Mauro to go home for the weekend and for Aaron to go with him back to mainland Italy and continue his aimless wandering, I mean agenda-less travel. I would SO love to be able to travel with what I could carry in a backpack and just go where the weather looks nice, where there is an art or jazz festival I’m interested in, or where new friends claim they have a sailboat and hitch a ride for a few days. What a wonderful way to travel! I’m sure I could find a way to stress it up. We had a nice lunch, a tour of the remarkable cemetery and a dinghy tour of the caves and grottos built by the Romans and still in use today. What monuments to architecture can be built when the price of labor is right.

After they left, we, the Franking/Amantes had quiet dinner on the boat, anchored next to some beautiful yachts including Azucar, formerly Crystal Seas, the Younts beautiful yacht on the left.

Next day we had a whole day by ourselves doing what I imagine all other boating couples do:
We woke up late from an overnight passage the day/night before. I sat in the cockpit in my underwear writing email. Neal fixed things- imagine! I cleaned like a mad woman. I was actually pretty impressed with myself: bedding for 3 beds, 4 heads, inside of ports, window screens on deck with a scrub brush and oxyclean, new canvas cover for dinghy (I added a shirt for this part), made lunch. I also spent a good hour putting ospho on things that should have been flitzed were I a better person. This is the stainless equivalent of sweeping dust under a rug. Basically cheating. And lastly I cleaned myself, off the back of the boat in just the underwear again. 4 boats pulled up anchor while I did. Just as I was drying my hair to go to town for dinner, a blast of cold air sent me on deck. A squall! Cold air at 25 knots, rush to get all those clean things off the lines (window covers, no laundry) zip up the enclosure and close the hatches.

With that 15 minute squall came the Ponza swell. This is a swell that rolls in from the east striking the anchorage and amplifying at the 25 foot contour mark that small boats choose to anchor on. So they (and us) get it from both directions- the swell rolls in, hits the shore and bounces back in to a big piled up mess. Boats started leaving to go to the other side, what everyone does when this happens, what we did last year only after a couple of hours of torture. Mr Franking reported that the weather forecast shows the other side of the island would be worse. So we had sandwiches for dinner, our plans to go into town, dashed. I went up front to try to sleep. The swell grew worse. Mr Franking said he had dove down with the mask and snorkel and saw the anchor buried deep in the mud. He felt secure, he pointed to all the boats that had stayed (all over 100 feet). I tried to sleep on the salon sofa- nothing like this is every encountered at sea, the period of the waves was a few feet- constant pitching, 6-8 feet, some of the waves breaking before they hit us, the dinghy was tied to the tow line out back going airborne. I said very mean things to Mr Franking about why are we the last to move and he sat there sure the other side was worse and couldn’t explain why they weren’t returning. Next morning, the 80 meter left with its guests and we were alone, all alone in the anchorage with our smug certainty of the weather forecast to keep us awake. We left for the other side about 10.

We found a spot in the quite lovely Cala di Feola. There weren’t many boats but there were many Ponzans, as this is a waterfront hangout. There aren’t beaches, but beautiful rocky shoreline, caves, limestone baths used by the Romans that are separated from the shoreline by a narrow isthmus of limestone used as a beach. We walked up about 10 million stairs that snaked through people’s homes, between their house and garden, between neighbors chatting from their respective patios. This island, outside Ponza town, has houses that I think look more Greek than Italian, flat and white, roofs used as rain catchment, often with PVC leading across the walking path to a garden trough. Exhausted and slightly land sick from the bronco busting the night before, I lagged behind Neal towards the town, where the church bells reminded me it was Sunday. A man stopped us at the bus stop, a very friendly Ponzan who wanted to know where we were from. We told him Nevada. He said, “Cherokee? Navaho?” I was dumbstruck. I knew these words. I couldn’t attach them to anything a man in Ponza should be asking me. He said, “I lika the Indiani.” (Italian plural word for Indians). I was so dumbstruck I couldn’t remember the Indian tribe that settled the Tahoe basin. I guessed “Arapahoe?” I knew it was wrong, but how do you tell a guy in Ponza he knows more about the native peoples of your home town than you do? He seemed pleased and bid us a buon giornata and caught the bus with his vegetables.

We walked around a bit and shopped and had lunch at the only hotel we saw. Our carafe of not bad wine was 3 euros. Meal was pretty good.We thought we might have a full night sleep, but about bedtime, all the boats looking for a safe anchorage from the other side showed up and fought for the few remaining spots in the harbor, in about 20-25 knots of wind. It was such a circus that Neal stayed in the cockpit waiting with fenders until things and boats quieted down, about 2 a.m.
We had to get Mauro from the Ferry dock the next morning, so around we went. The swell was still rolling, from a few weather events that converged on tiny little middle of the Tyhrean sea Ponza. We tried to anchor where we had spent the night two days previously, but couldn’t get the anchor to hold. So Neal stayed on deck while I took the dinghy to get Mauro. Wearing the life vest in the dinghy wasn’t a bad idea, but it was simply forgotten. I had been wearing it around the island over my rain jacket. Returning from the market in my life vest, Mauro reminded me how silly I looked and took my photo. All I’m missing is my bike helmet and safety goggles.

And in this condition, tired and unsteady, we left for the 29 hour crossing to Stromboli. Bad bad idea, but staying would have been worse as the weather continued to pick on poor little Ponza. I love this beautiful island, but one has to want to visit to warrant the trouble of doing so. And one must be prepared to sleep in one’s life vest.