As
we do every year, we’ve made a list of expectations for the coming
cruising season and reviewed those from 2017 to see how accurate we
were. It’s hard to believe, but our expectation failure rate for
2017 is almost exactly the same as for 2016, 43% and 44%,
respectively. I’m not sure what that says about us except that
we’re apparently not getting any wiser about what’s waiting for
us.
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| We hope there will be more of this in the coming season... |
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| ...and this, too. |
Insanely
expensive marinas. Sure, they do exist, but we avoided them.
How simple was that? In the Balearics, we used the municipal ports
and buoys, which kept costs reasonable.
Carefully-timed
commando-style raids in ports for water and food in the limited free
time in ports. Never had to do this. We anchored out enough
that our overall costs were down, so we didn’t avoid taking our
time in the marinas when we needed or wanted to.
Using
the 2nd anchor. We never used it and
never saw many people using theirs either. To keep from swinging,
most people take a line ashore. We didn’t have to do that either,
although Patrick was very keen to try one time (when it wasn’t
necessary and I poo-poo’d the idea.)
Meals
from a can. Despite lots of anchoring time, we almost always had
fresh food. We often bought frozen food and we always asked for
meats to be vacuum-sealed, which most butcher shops are willing and
able to do.
Rigging
up a trip-line for the anchor. Great idea, but we never did it.
Our nautical guide pointed out the anchorages where a trip line would
be useful, and we avoided those areas since they weren’t very
appealing anyway.
Rolly
anchorages. I can only remember a couple of rolly anchorages but
the rolls never lasted very long and we never really thought about
hauling up the anchor to find a new spot.
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| Grocery deliveries ! Hope Sardinian grocery stores does this, too. |
Without
further ado, here is our list of expectations for 2018:
Language
frustrations. Patrick speaks enough Spanish to see us through
most situations, but neither of us speaks Italian. We’re cramming
this week, but we’re not very optimistic that this will avoid
frustrating situations.
Crowded
and expensive ports in southern Corsica and northern Sardinia in
early July. We hope to be south of Olbia by 15 July to avoid the
worse.
Using
a line ashore to keep from swinging in narrow anchorages. I just
thought I’d recycle this one, even though we shouldn’t have as
many narrow anchorages as we did in the Balearics.
Anchorages
in paradise and charming villages. This may also be more of a
given than an expectation, but we’re eager to see for ourselves.
We have a friend who had the intention of sailing around the Med like
us, but who has been stuck in Sardinia now for 3 years because he has
become completely smitten with the place and can’t imagine finding
a better spot anywhere else.
Improved
heat management techniques. This is more of a given rather than
an expectation, since we’ve had side panels made for the bimini
this year, but you never know.
Transportation
headaches. The further we get away from mainland Europe, the
more difficult it is to arrange transportation from our little Breton
village to increasingly remote islands in the Med. Our current
planning to get back to Mareda next week looks something like this:
carpool to the airport, spend the night in a hotel, early flight to
Bastia, taxi to bus stop, bus to Taverna. And we hope to get to the
boatyard early enough to slap on the anti-fouling paint before the
boat goes in the water later that afternoon !
Good
phone and internet service. Since Europe eliminated roaming
charges last summer, we can now use our existing French telephone and
internet on the boat from anywhere in Europe. The only question
remaining is signal strength in those anchorages in paradise.
Less
blogging. Going with a less-is-more approach, my plan is to send
photos and updates via Mareda’s Facebook page (sailingmareda) but
won’t write a blog post until there is sufficient material to make
it worth the effort (a real pain in the ass from my tragically slow
laptop on the boat).
Making
new friends, catching up with old ones. One of our favorite
things about cruising is meeting other cruisers and buddy boating for
awhile. Last year it was difficult around the islands because people
scatter in many different directions. This year, we’ll be going
down the coast, and many others will be doing the same. We may meet
up with two other friends sailing in the area this year if the winds
and tides of destiny will it.
A
more relaxed cruising couple. Not that we’ve become old hands
at Med sailing, but the initial learning curve is over and I figure
nothing can be worse than our baptism by fire of the Balearics in
July and August.
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| Can't wait for cockpit life. |
We leave in 5 days !! Our last days before
abandoning the house for 5 months look something like this: yard
work, coordinate with neighbors for mail pick up, watch a little
French Open tennis while going over lists and lists of lists for
things to take, call up the local shipyard for parts we want to take
with us, order new cockpit cushions and have them delivered to
Corsica, make an appointment with the electricians in Elba for repair
or replacement of our B&G chartplotter, put pressure on the life
raft revision people to have it ready before we want to head out,
defrost the fridge, watch World Cup Soccer preparatory matches
(cheering for France over Italy while we can…), quick dash to the
store for Brita water filters, last loads of laundry, call our
supplemental health insurance company to find out why we still don’t
have cards, print out boat insurance forms in French, Spanish,
English, and Italian, update laptop software and test OpenCPN and
MaxSea, google airline carry-on regulations to see if we can take a
tube of Sikaflex in the cabin, say goodbye to local friends, provide
emergency contact info to family, and finally, update the
doomsday book.
I
keep telling Patrick that all of this would be so much easier if we
just lived full time on the boat...
