After a very long day in Antibes that included buying and attaching more anchor chain, measuring and marking it, and switching out the Delta for the Spade anchor after reading it should hold better, we motored past Nice to VilleFranche.

Once again we were not disappointed in the beauty surrounding us.  The forecast was looking bad and this is the largest natural harbor that would protect us from the predicted east winds and bad weather.  Arriving at 6 PM we set our anchor and settled in for a delicious dinner with fresh ingredients from the Provence market.

Friday morning the boat was facing 180 degrees but then back to the original direction and basically the wind was swirling and increasing all day. Late in the afternoon we went for a hike and when we got to the top of the hill we looked down and saw El Gato was not where we left her. Huh? The sandals came off and we flew down the hill racing with backpacks and hoping we could get El Raton to El Gato before something bad happened. And why did she wait until we left her? We raced the dinghy, climbed aboard, and started the engines and were so thankful she drifted between 2 large yachts and not into them. The anchor was barely touching the bottom as this harbor is super deep. El Gato was on her way to the other side or out to sea. Time would tell but we are so thankful nothing bad happened! Sidebar, Eric was impressed that I could run, and my feet are so raw now I won’t need a pedicure. He had good shoes on so he was lucky.  

Lesson: if the wind is strong, and your boat has been doing donuts, it might break loose. Don’t go for a hike.

  
VilleFranche is between Nice and Monaco, and Nice is just over that hill.

The past week has been one surprise after another.

As we travel along the south coast of France slowly, and choose the next location, we look for a good spot to anchor, look up and gasp.

It’s more beautiful than we imagined, and with all the history surrounding each building we are in constant awe.

Traveling by boat is the bees knees.

No worry about hotel reservations, rental cars and such, and as long as the weather cooperates we are peacefully enjoying each location with it’s new discoveries.

The pictures tell the story.

And in order of places we’ve sailed since leaving Isle Porquerolle, Lavandou, St Tropez, Agay, Cannes, and Antibes. We are back in Cannes hoping to get our water maker up and running. A few more items like more chain (so we can sleep when the weather does get bad) and we should be all set for staying off docks. And rocks.

Lavandou

St Tropez

Loved the Maritime Museum at the fort. It told the story of Torpes, and the history of Tropezians and the sea.  To us, even better than seeing the rich and famous.

The Capitainerie (port captain HQ) had a Rolex time keeper which seemed very appropriate with all the super yachts surrounding the port.

Can only imagine what it costs per night to dock here!

Only clothes, no sails sold here.

Really?

Artist Ivan makes everything with sailboats. Even this dress is made of little gold and silver boats. He wanted me to try it on. 🙂

Maritime Museum in St Tropez

Looking at El Gato.

Kids everywhere are learning to sail in France. today we watched them put little ones in boats with no sails and they were instructed to stand, switch boats, rock and roll, etc. They have great techniques for making them comfy in a boat without having to learn to race.

On to Cannes, but instead of going to the busy ports, we hung out at an island. And right there was a fort and a monastery.  As luck would have it, everyone was anchored on the other side, so we only shared our spot with 2 others!

Swam for the first time (Eric goes in everyday at least once) and enjoyed the coolness. Its really warm during the day but nice and cool at night still.

Took a hike around the island and ran into France, named because she was born when WW2 started. She was full of stories and walked with us until we went to the top of the fort. We love looking down at El Gato! Its like we had a baby. Love being with her, and when we are gone we miss her but know she will be OK without us for a bit. haha

And like a baby, I take too many photos of her. Sorry.  

More of the Cannes atmosphere.

This is Al Mirqad. We are now anchored near them and they just opened the garage to launch some toys. Jet skis, windsurfers, etc.

When we arrived in Antibes, we knew there would be a regatta happening so we set up near the start line of the first start, and then followed the largest class around the course.

When the races were over we took El Raton (dinghy) into the port and walked the docks.   Saw Doug Peterson’s famous Ganbare that still says San Diego on it, surrounded by wooden classic. Thought that was pretty classic!

Once again as luck would have it, we were anchored directly in front of something amazing, the Picasso Museum, so we went for a visit. And there was a bride and groom having photos done right in front of El Gato. That night we were entertained by regatta fireworks and live music.

In a few weeks it will be our one year anniversary. Has it already been a year? Has it already been 4 since we re-met? YES! And it keeps getting better.

Thanks for reading.

We enjoy sharing this with the people we know and love.

6/1/15

We escaped!

Last week we were still in Canet and saw there would be 2 days of “normal” winds before the big bad Tramontanes would return. The thorn in our side told us Monday would be a holiday, and after waiting through umpteen holidays (May is known for that, so is August, December, etc) we made the decision to bolt. If it wasn’t finished, so be it. We would do it ourselves.

We sailed outta there on a Sunday afternoon at 5PM in 15 kts and clear skies.

Ahead was Culibri, a Catana 55 with our American friends Henry, Carol, and John. We chased them down with El Gordo, our big fat reaching genoa, and overtook them at dark which is 10PM now. No autopilot but it was fun taking turns driving and learning our new yacht’s performance.  She is fun to drive!  Our first sunset and sunrise were spectacular and we realized it was also the first time we had sailed overnight together. Very memorable.  Our AIS worked and around 3AM a huge blip showed up named WARNOW. OK so what would You thing about that name when it is on a converging course, you are in the Med, and it is huge – 150 meters? We altered our course, and learned later that Culibri did too. Exciting! It was a container ship tho so no worries. Maybe they saw the movie Cpt. Phillips and decided it would be a good name just in case.

Photos: Sunset and Sunrise on our first overnighter. Still chilly at night.

By 2PM we had our anchor down in a small harbor off Porquerolles (Pork Rolls in American) called Langoustier. Grabbed the bikes and dumped them in El Raton (dinghy is old and looks like a mouse or a rat) and took a short tour of the island.

Wow. Claude, Alex, Riccard and others had told us we should go here and it did not disappoint!
One local sailor said it reminds him of Catalina. One big harbor with restaurants and bars, not too far from the mainland, and everyone goes there. For us it was very different, but that’s because we see it all as European, and there were forts, windmills, and wonderful bike paths that went all over the islands to beaches and coves and vineyards. IT is however very close to the mainland, maybe 10 miles so ferries come everyday and cruise ships drop by as well. Good thing it’s only May so not as crowded yet.

 

John, Henry, and Eric surveying the scenery starring our two yachts that just arrived at their first port.

Caliber, our sistership from San Francisco, sailed with us to Porquerolles

A quick sail up to Catana’s outpost/charter company in Toulon, where we picked up the parts they promised, and then a long adventurous dinghy ride across the harbor to purchase teak chairs for the back porch.

Toulon is a huge Naval port and we were comparing it to San Diego, except of course it also was very different with forts on the sides, and the mountains right behind.

Back to Porquerolles for another taste of the village and paths, and where we ate our new favorite ice-cream – ginger gelato. We found a restaurant called O Tobago, named after the owners trip to Tobago Cays, Grenadines, on their brother’s cat. Instant friends, we had the Moulles and frittes, pizza, and Med salad. Yum!

Now we know what Moullin means – windmill.

Moullin rouge? A good movie and we have no clue what it had to do with windmills.

David, the owner of O Tobago making delicious pizza.

Bikes everywhere. Glad we brought ours.

Pretty help at the fuel dock.

On May 31 ( I thought is was June 1 and am learning how easy it is to forget the time, day, date) we left the island to cruise along the south coast of France.  Not disappointed! Found a wonderful spot for lunch, and then headed east until we found another sweet spot.

As for El Gato, we are learning everyday, and the list is still long on what we want/need to do, but it keeps us super busy. Eric is McGiver and can fix just about anything and before leaving he installed our new chart plotters for the helm stations, and the auto pilot which now works just fine. All in all the systems on a 15 year old boat are working really well. There is a mix of new and old, and we expect to be fixing and upgrading along the way. But as we’ve witnessed, even new boats need a lot of TLC and work to get things right.

Our view this morning. Breathtaking.

Bottom line is living on a boat is AWESOME, as good as we have always hoped, and maybe even better. We are learning and loving it every step of the way.

On Friday we received our new mainsail cover from Epure.

This is the old one,

White cloth generally looks good once – when you buy it.

The quality and workmanship at Epure was fantastic. They are a hardworking group of friends that we’ve come to know and call our friends. They also recovered our salon couches in the most amazing terra-cotta colored leather. It feels so soft we hate to stand up.  Sylvie is going to make us some wine bags with the leftovers!

 

Because we changed the name of the boat from El Pato to El Gato, we had to perform a ritual that has been done for ages. We removed everything that had the old name on it (or changed the P to a G),

and invited our local buddies to come help us.

Eric read the rites,

and everyone did the appropriate yelling and toasting on cue.

He then splashed some very nice Champagne on the bows, mast and bowsprit,  that daughter Chelsea gave us for the occasion back in December.

Sylvie surprised us with monogrammed t shirts and a linen table cloth that can be transformed into a bag for veggies (very French). It was a good send off for sure!

Tomorrow, Monday, around noon we will shove off and sail towards Toulon. There are a few islands off the coast called the Porqueroles (we say pork rolls). 140 NM, an overnighter. We need to bust outta here before the next Tramontane comes. This one is finally calming down but another is expected Tuesday. They say the locals can claim it was the wind that drive them to murder. I can start to see why. There is such a thing as too much. But the hard core kiters and windsurfers are in heaven!

Finally got the Bill of Sale! YEAH!!!!!

Last week was a whirlwind of boat jobs. Eric has been McGiver with wiring chart plotters and auto pilot, helping me tape windows and wood frames for me to paint and varnish, and generally up at 7 and done by 9PM. I’ve also been brushing up on navigation and reading the pilots books for France, Corsica and Spain. The days are long which is very nice until we realize we haven’t eaten and it’s almost 10PM!

Dragged ourselves off the boat for some local flavor and finally went wine tasting. I know, we are nuts to not have gone before but there’s so much to do we forget. We rode our bikes in 25 knots mostly downwind and got rides back.

The other highlight of the weekend was seeing a parade of pirates blasting guns down the harbor. We bought a really cool lamp made with bits from the beach, and a carbon fiber fishing pole at the mini festival. No idea what they were celebrating…

We are waiting for our USCG docs from the US and are told 2 weeks. Hoping we can hop down the coast before heading north. Cadaques is the spot according to locals. If it’s anything like Colliure we will be very happy.

We’ve been blessed with good weather until now but it’s not so bad. Only saw 51 knots so far.  We’re still on the dock but happily so when it’s blowing this hard!

Yesterday we had a treat. Heard a band playing and jumped on the bikes to go see pirates on boats play fighting on the harbor. Rode around to the other side and found a small festival with a band, booths, and folks selling their old boat gear. We bought a fishing pole for our reels and a really cool lamp made of driftwood from the local beaches. The best part was watching Eric run with the fishing line at the direction of the fisherman selling us his carbon fiber rod, and teaching me how to reel him in. It was hilarious. picture people walking alongside the boats and Eric weaving in and out as he got closer to me.  We spent an hour with the locals drinking the red wine and trying to talk between English, Spanish, French and Catalan.

Good news too. We got the Bill Of Sale! In two weeks we should be documented!

The first guests will be Nancy and Platt Johnson. We’ll head to Corsica and Sardinia.

🙂

May 11, 2015

We’ve been in Canet for 5 days and El Gato is making daily transformations. First we placed her name on with the stickers from North Sails Graphics. Kudos to Avery, Chelsea, Celeste, and Crystal for helping with the font. Eric did some blue jobs like changing our exhaust hoses and rudder pins, while I unloaded all our luggage, all 9 bags, then we splashed.  The guys at Catana were incredible at squeezing us through the maze of yachts.

Our new view from the water:

We were barely here when our Catalan ambassador Claude showed up for dinner on board, then invited us to his sister’s birthday party where he made a special Catalan dish similar to paella. 

We were delighted to see our couches in leather! And we brought Sammy the Seagull for a little more color.

We tried out the GoSun which is a solar powered grill and it worked beautifully!  Chicken kabobs for dinner! Helps that the sun goes down at 9PM.

I learned how to make aoli from Claude’s mother, and found it is a good way to keep the arms strong.

Yesterday we took a break from the boat, took advantage of our rental car, and headed west towards Castlenou.

And we took down the old French flag and replaced it with a Catalan flag. Forgot to bring a US flag but we don’t have our papers from Catana anyway so why not pretend we are local?

We are using our bikes to go almost everywhere and I’ve even bought small basil and mint plants and pinched off an aloe plant so we can have a garden! It is the best home away from home we could ever have hoped for!

Speaking of hope, we HOPE that Catana will provide the necessary papers so we can take off in a week. And we have been given a great idea – go to Caraques, a beautiful harbor across the border but not too far south. Then we’ll head north east along the South of France. Is it really happening??? YES!

Long Term/Short Stay French Visa’s approved and arrived?  Check!

Boat finally in our names?  Check!

Taxes for 2013 and 2014 done?  Check!

Weather improving?  Check!

Off shore sewing machine arrived?  Check!

New graphics?  Check!

While we have enjoyed the San Diego climate (who doesn’t?) and seeing family and friends, small cats that race and small cats that cuddle, we are packing for our third and it looks like our final trip to France before shoving off the dock.

When we started this journey we had no idea we would be cruising the Med before crossing an ocean but isn’t that how life works? We have embraced it not without some setbacks and frustrations due largely to the place where the boat is kept.  The workmanship has been great. The timeliness is worse than we could have ever imagined.  But the end result means we had more time to really prepare for leaving home and setting sails.

What’s next? We depart May 4th and arrive the 6th (yep, cheap tickets can be 2 overnighters) and hope like mad that we can get out of Canet ASAP and head towards Italy.

The work on the boat is not finished but we told them we would do it ourselves thank you very much.  So grateful Eric is McGiver!

Since we can’t be in France yet, and we originally thought we’d be in the Caribbean by now with El Gato, Eric and I flew to St Thomas last week to stay with our good friend Teri McKenna during the STIR. The famous St Thomas International Regatta was sponsored by TAG Heuer instead of Rolex. 62 boats came and competed in 6 classes, and the conditions could not have been better!  Three days of racing that included rounding islands and buoys, and great parties with live bands every night. Teri had just purchased a brand new Formula16 Falcon, and Eric and I arrived the same day it was delivered in boxes and parts to the ST Thomas Yacht Club. We were barely off the plane before we were assembling her new shiny toy. Fellow racer and friend Sandra Tartaglino arrived several hours later and the team spent the next 2 days reading manuals, fine tuning, practicing, and getting pumped. Teri and Sandra raced on the Falcon and Teri gave us her Nacra17. It was a tough decision for Teri as both women are more comfortable sailing the Nacra17, but their combined weight is less than ideal for 20+ knots and fairly good size seas.  Eric and I on the other hand were the perfect weight for the bigger boat and were stoked to get out there and play in those conditions!  We were FLYING!!!! And as apprehensive as I was to prevent us from launching or capsizing, we were able to control the boat in the 18-25 knots and up to 8′ seas on Friday, day one of racing. This is what we DIDN’T WANT TO DO! It was a spinnaker start and we took off for Charlotte Amalie surfing down waves like a rocket ship. It was such an adrenaline rush with me on the back corner and Eric behind me on a trapeze wire with one foot in a foot strap to keep him from flying forward when we crashed through waves instead of over them. I felt like I needed goggles!  We won the race by a nice margin and then had another race up to the Stragglers with some up and down sailing around marks and Govt buoys. Definitely my favorite kind of racing with navigation, speed, and teamwork involved. Eric and I loved the Catacup in St Martin and this was as good or maybe better. On Saturday we were scheduled to race 4 buoy races and one Long distance. We were on the same courses as the IC24’s and they and a fairly large fleet. One good memory was when Eric and I are heading towards the finish and the IC24’s are finishing too. We were sailing at almost 20 knots with our spinnaker and they are going about 6 its. Weaving in and out of them as we all condense near the finish was crazy! They wouldn’t see us coming until we were passing their bow and we hoped our sail wouldn’t collapse. Then we’d hear them scream and shout and we were all smiling for sure!  After finishing three races we had an overall score of 5 firsts and we were preparing for race #6 when we heard and felt a loud crash. We were T boned by a fellow competitor who is still learning how to skipper and didn’t look soon enough after tacking and accelerating right into our starboard side. OMG it was a MESS!  Eric has to pull the boats apart and we could hear  our hull ripping as we sailed in circles stuck together and wondering how we’d get them apart and not sink. Then reality hit. Everyone was OK except mentally we were all in shock. I was as devastated about the hole as I was about losing. Yep, the reality check for me was I am still super competitive and hate to lose, especially when we had worked so hard to be where we were. It’s not just about winning, it’s the journey and we had practiced really hard the week before and flown too far and were so far ahead in points to give it all up because of someone else’s mistake.  Lucky for us, Morgan Avery who lives in ST is an expert on boat repairs and came to the rescue. He not only stayed up all night with only about 30 minutes sleep, he also came to us immediately when he heard about the crash, and he helped us figure out how to get it back home from the bay we were racing in. He was as skillful as one could ever hope for. An artist who loves to sail. He had sailed with Teri on the Nacra and loved it, and is a competitor so he really wanted to help. If we didn’t race the next day we were out of it. We could miss one race and win, but not two. And the truth is, we really wanted to sail some more. It was so FUN! Yes there were tears on my end but I tried hard to hide them. It’s been a long time since I cried over a race that’s for sure! The Protest committee granted us redress and we were given the average of our races for the day. So 2 more firsts, 7 total with 2 more races to go.

Sunday morning arrives and the boat is patched and ready to race. We wait as long as possible to let her dry and then head out for the long distance races. Yippee!  So fun rounding islands and dodging big boats. Sometimes we had to sail low to get past their bad air and then pass them from leeward. Other times we were able to round a mark and slowly inch forward to pass them to windward. But we always passed them upwind and down. Watching the crews hiking on the sides as we playfully skipped over waves, I have to admit we were grinning to think what they must think. Sandra and Teri passing keel boats upwind.

When it was all over the Mayor presented the winners watches and we were blown away by their beauty. With a dark blue background and the caribbean islands etched in gold, it is by far the most beautiful watch I could ever imagine wearing and I LOVE IT!!!! And the bonus? It matches my engagement ring and wedding ring! Amazing!

Thank you Teri for being so kind and generous in all you do, including loaning us your Nacra17, and thank you Eric for being such a wonderful loving husband, best friend, and crew!

While we thought we would have crossed our first ocean together by now, or be cruising the Med, the alternative has been quite nice. Being home in San Diego does not suck. When given limes, make margaritas!

One of our projects before we left in November was building a boat bar in a corner off the kitchen that does not get used. Eric came up with the brilliant idea to shape it like a small boat, (we actually had a mock up made of cardboard in our kitchen for a month) and wood artist and friend Stine Poole was commissioned to build it. We were psyched to see the finished product when we returned from France this time! The exquisite details, the brass latches, the ice bucket cover, even the cabinets have such fine details you could stare for hours. Everything is first class and if anyone is lucky enough to get something made by Stine, they will Not be disappointed!  It’s far beyond our expectations and these days that’s not an easy thing to say.  Add tiles to the wall, my Dad’s ancient bottle collection from beaches in the Bahamas, and we have ourselves one kick ass bar! All we needed to do was name it.

So we hosted a Name That Boat Bar Contest! Names trickled in from around the world and it was fun to hear all the ideas and suggestions.  A small group of Eat Sail Lovers came to celebrate and christen her and we read all the names out loud after everyone was duly pickled. The crowd roared for some names and was very quiet for others.  Felt and looked a bit like the Johnny Carson or Jay Leno show. Toss that card or hold onto it and read slow for a belly laugh.

In the end we decided to wait until the morning to sober up and make a good decision since we all know alcohol makes good judgement fly right out the window.

THE WINNER IS:

ISOBAR, Ice-O-Bar, I sober, well you can pronounce or spell it anyway you want but we chose this one for a few reasons.

The bar is beautiful and deserves a classy name. Wet Spot, FUBAR (military name meaning effed up beyond all recognition) Eat Swallow Love, Shipfaced, and Kids Table were all contenders but again, we have to live with this when we are sober and have guests that might not understand. FUBAR was a close second but then again we really don’t want anyone coming over here and going there. It’s not pretty. So…Steve Olbogen our personal trainer for wedding dress shape and big competitions as well as overall healthiness entered about 30 times and proved that perseverance pays. We had no idea he was sitting at a table at the party writing names non stop and this was his entry. The irony? He doesn’t drink!

What dos Isobar mean?

From Wikipedia: An isobar (from βάρος or baros, meaning ‘weight’) is a line of equal or constant pressure on a graph, plot, or map; an isopleth or contour line of pressure. More accurately, isobars are lines drawn on a map joining places of equal average atmospheric pressure reduced to sea level for a specified period of time. In meteorology, the barometric pressures shown are reduced to sea level, not the surface pressures at the map locations.^[9] The distribution of isobars is closely related to the magnitude and direction of the wind field, and can be used to predict future weather patterns. Isobars are commonly used in television weather reporting.

And why does this name work for us besides the obvious that we are sailors? Well, when it’s high pressure outside ( or somewhere) we will make drinks that are good for that. High pressure generally means good weather and that translates to warm. Blended drinks! And low pressure? Hurricanes are an example of extreme low pressure and we will be inclined to pour drinks on the rocks… like Dark and Stormies. What do you call a bunch of Dark and Stormies all lined up in a row? A squall line!

So here’s to Stine and coming home to a beautiful boat bar!