So it looks like I will need to get my sails and sunsets fix without the beautiful Blue Dolphin Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 319. She was a companion that opened up so many doors and opportunities. She helped me learn about myself as I became a better sailor and a better person, more patient and able to weather the storms and find joy in the moments of calm. I thought we would do more cruising, but I ended up racing her the most. Wednesday nights were a consistent weekly activity that brought me a lot of joy and always an opportunity to improve. The women’s regatta was a weekend racing highlight. The most memorable trip remains the 8 day adventure from Denmark to the Netherlands, with all the extremes mixed in. Thank you Blue Dolphin, I hope you are enjoying your new home and owner in Boston.
This summer, I got to return to the Outer Banks for some amazing sunsets and some windsurfing sailing. I’m looking forward to sunsets and adventures of all kinds: skiing, hiking, hanging in my neighborhood, pickleballing, and maybe heading out for a sail on someone else’s boat.
Some memories of sunsets and adventures with Blue Dolphin:
Tis the season for autumn maintenance! I was so prepared with 3 purchasing lists for items purchased from 3 different stores. Then I had a step by step instruction list that I wrote pulling from previous experience and articles from Practical Boat Owner and elsewhere.
But even with the diapers and puppy pads some diesel escaped. And I had the wrong size oil filter (too small). Plus the strap wrench we definitely had on board, was not on board.
The process of the project is always part of this journey. The oil and secondary fuel filter change was a success. Learned that we need an impeller removal tool and if you don’t close that engine seacock water will just keep coming when you open that impeller.
Also learned that you don’t put your lovely navy and white rain jacket on until you are 100% done. Not 90% bc in that last 10% you will get an oil stain on the white part of your jacket. And it will not come out. And even cleaning up the smallest bit of diesel mixed with water will cause some major nausea for me!
U2 kept popping into my head with their Stuck In A Moment song. Even after finishing the jobs my mind was still in the engine! Have you ever been stuck in an engine and couldn’t get out of it?
Windy October cruise across the bay to Knapps Narrows
It’s now November and the leaves are gorgeous reds, and yellows as my thoughts turn towards winterizing the boat. This means I’m making lists and finding lists and wondering where did I put those lists from last year. Then I realized that I never wrote those anchoring notes after the last overnight cruise in October.
We had gone out for a beautiful and sporty women’s overnight sail with no shortage of northwest wind continuing in the anchorage overnight. We dragged multiple times, and I realized I needed to review and figure out what could have gone better so that the next overnight would result in more sleep. That was the first time that I had a fitful night at anchor with very little shuteye. I was checking anchor drag every hour and a half and we did indeed slowly drag through the night and then in the morning we started dragging a bit quicker. So not only did we have to pull up our first anchor that we had set upon afternoon arrival, by the time we pulled it, our surroundings were pitch black. Then we also had to depart in the morning a bit sooner than planned, pulling up from our second anchorage due to dragging again.
The lack of sleep and stressful experience motivated me to have a good 30-45 minute conversation with my anchoring mentor the next evening to figure out what had gone wrong. We determined that it was likely the same error made twice but not as badly the second time since it held for much longer. The first time I believe we wrapped a lot of chain and never set. The second time I believe we had too much chain on top of the anchor as well. I think it did set but could have had one wrap around the bottom so that when the wind shifted a bit in the early morning the anchor came loose. We also determined that one of the reasons for the piling chain was the very shallow depth of the anchorage. It was 7 feet and Blue Dolphin has a 6 foot draft.
Blue Dolphin secure in the anchorage… or so I thought!
In shallow water, the anchor gets to the bottom lickety split, so there is a need to slow things down, otherwise you are just piling up chain on top of the anchor and possibly behind it. That piled chain can wrap around the anchor and prevent it from setting. So the advice I got is to practice the anchoring yourself without assistance, because then you realize that you do have some time to slow things down. Even when it is very windy, instead of reversing to a stop you can be walking to the front of the boat after you put the boat in neutral and the wind will blow it so you are no longer moving forward. The goal is to quickly get the anchor to the bottom, then go slow. In 7 feet of water the anchor will be at the bottom very quickly, and then you need to slowly pay out the chain as the boat gets moved backward thereby avoiding chain pileups. Then after this slow process, you want to really reverse down on the anchor – 1500 rpm to ensure that it is set. This also ensures that you will sleep well. I was also thinking that maybe I need and additional chain marker at 2.5 meters as right now I have every 5 meters.
Shows both anchoring locations. By morning we were getting pretty close to the dark blue shallows.
Since I was not able to get back out this season for an overnight anchor, I realized that I needed to write down what I had learned and write myself some anchoring notes to refer to next time. I find these written notes and checklists super handy plus I’m one of those people that learns through writing things down.
Anchoring notes:
Throttle forward into the wind.
Neutral to come to a stop and the pace will depend on the wind.
Let out the anchor chain somewhat quickly going straight down to ensure the anchor is on bottom, checking the chain markings.
Once it is on bottom you want to slowly pay out chain as boat moves backwards so that you have a nice angle going from the windlass to the anchor.
Keep letting out chain slowly until you have the desired amount, or the desired amount less the amount you need for your snubber.
So for this sailing experience I am going to start at the end, a very exciting finish to the week, which included a job interview. A job interview you say? Yes, on the last day of the week when I and my crew actually felt most comfortable med mooring , I got an intense job interview while coming into the “home” port where we chartered the boat. We dutifully called in on the radio to note our arrival as required, and then as we were coming in the gentleman on the dock asked – “Is she the skipper?” Not cool in my opinion because I chartered the boat from your company so just a little research and you would figure out that yes I am indeed the skipper. Of a 49 foot boat mind you that was supposed to be a 44 foot and your company wanted me to take a 52. But I digress. So my lovely crew (of mostly women, except my husband) answer yes. But that apparently was not enough. The next question – “Is she licensed?” Really?? Again, I couldn’t charter from your company without the license. Again while I am slowing down trying to figure out the wind and current and which fairway we started from, my lovely crew answers “Yes.” And still… – Not enough! I can vividly hear the next question with Italian accent exactly in my mind – “Does she knows what she’s doing?” And my lovely crew I think answers yes, but by that time I just have drowned them out because I learned I have to be calm and focused to execute these Med Moorings. But afterwards with an Aperol Spritz in hand, I decide the answer really could have been Your damn straight and Just relax, go get a gelato and pretend she’s a man. And how did I do – Nailed It!!
So in all fairness, I now need to jump back to the beginning of the week. It was June 2022 when we arrived in beautiful Sardinia: a juxtaposition of gorgeous island with a really mean taxi driver. Doesn’t that always happen when you are building up anticipation for a really big exciting trip (read – expensive) location that you fantasize about how it’s all going to be so perfect– the food, the people, the everything. And then whoosh, our first taxi driver brought us back to the reality that this is just real life in another country. He was annoyed that we didn’t speak Italian and took too long with our bags and telling him how many people we were. My son was dilly dallying about where to sit, and the driver finally pushed him down with a “You. Sit there.” So then we made it to our beautiful hotel the Colonna du Golf, never mind that my son forgot his fishing rod at the airport and my husband went back to get it, we were on the sea and there was a pool and a poolside bar. Aaah – You have arrived – literally GPS phrase worthy. Starving we order sandwiches – there is one sandwich left in the restaurant. Oh. Well, we had pool, drinks, and ambience and the adults giving the sandwich to the teenagers but not really wanting to. When we did manage to organize ourselves a taxi to dinner, we found a gorgeous spot for really great pizza and other dishes a short taxi ride away at Porto Rotondo- the first of many great pizzas and mealsover the course of the week.
The next day we checked in at Boomerang Yacht Charter. They had called us when we were flying in to let us know that our Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 440 was no longer available, because it had suffered a major accident with the previous charterers – uh oh. They offered to upgrade us to a 52 foot boat on a mooring ball that they would dinghy us out to. I thanked them but counter offered that perhaps another group would like that lovely upgrade and we could then have their 440. They offered a 49 that was at their docks and so we agreed. Med mooring a 52 vs a 44 foot boat just did not seem like a great idea for our American group. The check in went pretty smoothly except that the first mate did not make her connecting flight and would not get there until late the following day. So we decided to set off without her and she could taxi and meet us at our first port of call. Marina Portisco was beautiful and our order ahead provisioning went very well (Gusto Cambusa) and was a great call as the local grocery store was a bit small for a full week’s provisioning. The gelato in one of the Marina restaurants (they had a sit down area and a grab and go gelato area), was possibly the best we have ever had.
Day 1 – Sunday – Marina Portisco to Porto Palma lunch anchorage – 15 nautical miles, then to Cannigione harbor – 5 nm additional
We opted to sail to Cannigione which was recommended by Boomerang and someplace we could pick up our first mate. Initially we went to Porto Palma anchorage for an anchor and a swim. The sailing conditions right away were sporty and we got to see some race boats out on the water. Coming into Cannigione harbor, Boomerang had given us a specific woman to radio in and ask for. When we approached we saw a managed mooring ball field on the outside where the manager approached us. In retrospect this was the right place to go, as the guy was super friendly and spoke great English. Yes, we would have had to dinghy back and forth and dinghy all of our first mate’s gear on board, but still a friendly understandable bird in the hand is better than the unknown. Of course hindsight is 20/20! Second issue was we did not actually have to radio in. There was plenty of space and we didn’t realize we were boxing ourselves in by committing to one place. But rule followers and recommendation followers, we radioed into the port and had our first difficult to understand exchange. We then started coming into the harbor, and saw a long concrete dock with two outstanding places to pull in and med moor. However, these places were owned by someone else than the woman we had radioed. When we tried to dock there she called and told him we were her customers so he had to wave us off. Going into her concrete dock, was already stressful given we couldn’t understand her well and then the depth meter started setting off an alarm just as we started the approach to the fairway. It went downhill from there. The constant alarm from the depth meter combined with a strong cross wind and then instead of upwind line getting passed in we gave them the downwind line (never do this in a med mooring). Unfortunately I thought we were seconds away from getting the other line on and could not concentrate through the woman yelling “More thrusta” and thought she meant more throttle, when she actually meant bow thrust. I did not realize how badly we were getting blown and that the other helper on the dock and our crew just could not get the upwind line. Then the dockhand just let go of our downwind line and said you are on your own and that’s when we narrowly avoided a massive superyacht on our downwind side and my sister-in-law’s hand got injured trying to keep us off. I think her arm was in danger of getting broken too, as my husband yelled for her to get it out of the area between the boats. Yeah. Not good. Really not good. Many of our crew were there pushing off including my daughter and while we managed to not hit, it was a close call. As painful lessons tend to be– it was very instructive in teaching that you need to have your stuff together in advance – I mean really together – and not get ruffled by the dock people. Also know your bailout points and do it – and bail out early when it’s not going right.
So what did we learn. Set up your med mooring order as upwind (windward) stern, then downwind stern and bail out if the upwind stern does not get on. And get very familiar with the bow thruster. On this boat it was down below the helm in a somewhat strange place and it was a hydro thruster that took a bit to get powered up. Test it outside the harbor before the approach and since you do have it, use it. After the upwind then downwind stern, it’s the slimeline on the upwind/windward side and then the slimeline on the downwind (leeward) side. Once those are secured, you can put the throttle in reverse and make a final securing of the stern lines ensuring you are close enough for your walkway but not too close as it’s always possible a big wave could push your stern in and generally those med mooring docks are concrete and unforgiving. After recovery time, we had a lovely stroll into town for dinner. They had shower facilities there but nothing great, and this harbor was one of priciest of the places we stayed.
Day 2 – Cannigione harbor to Isola Spargi stopping at Porto Pollo along the way – 15nm
For Monday night we decided to anchor out at Isola Spargi and along the way check out Porto Pollo, which is famous for windsurfing. We did a short time at anchor there and swam to shore. After that we proceeded to the Isola Spargi anchorage. It was pretty crowded so we anchored at the back. The charter company had told us the big weather was coming on Tuesday night and the forecasts were showing this too. We had a great time cooking at anchor and then a few of us decided to dinghy into the island shore and check it out. There we saw a group of wild boar, both cool and a tiny bit scary. They were smelling everything so we followed what the other people were doing and got in the water. When wee returned to the boat, I thought we would want to explore again in the morning before departing, so we left the dinghy out. And we left the motor on the dinghy – mistake. We were woken sometime around 5 or 6am with huge winds and rain. Plus the wind had shifted 180 degrees and therefore all the boats were getting blown towards the island and many were dragging anchor. It was a completely chaotic scene as many boats were opting to pull up anchors and depart. There was one boat pulling up anchor that was getting blown back towards our boat and the captain was clearly stressed that they were losing control and would not get the anchor up fast enough. I remembered them from the previous night as they had their big blow up unicorn on the back and now that was coming towards us and the captain was looking nervous. We quickly decided to pull anchor and head back to Porto Pollo which was protected from the new wind direction. In the chaos, did we even remember the dinghy was behind the boat. Once we pulled anchor and started moving, we very quickly noticed the dinghy but it was upside down. Uh oh – very expensive lesson. We got it on board quick and efficiently however, we had dunked the motor and while we quickly rinsed it with fresh water, we did not have the ability to figure out how to fix it after that.
p.s. to this situation – At the end of the week having breakfast after our checkout we came upon a group of charterers who had hired a professional captain. On that Monday evening/ Tuesday morning when the winds shifted, their boat got blown into the rocks and they needed to get towed into Bonifacio, or towed somewhere. That did make us feel better!
Day 3 – Stay at Porto Pollo due to wind conditions, solve water problem and use floaties
At Porto Pollo it was gusting to 30 in the anchorage, but we managed to get a good spot. We did move later in the day to ensure we would be ok for the evening and not swing into anyone and the anchor really held well throughout the building winds. We had already been having a problem with the water pump on and off but the problem seemed to become more on/ all the time, so that we could barely get the water pump to work. In the brief they had told us to turn all the electronics off and then on if there was a problem, which seemed strange. We were in touch with Boomerang that day but they wanted us to go to a harbor so they could fix it which did not seem advisable in those conditions. We opened up the area to have a look, and after looking at it for a while, the first mate got a hammer out and was able to gently coax the connection back together – the electrical connection – by one or two well placed knocks. With our time there we were able to blow up the floaties and use the paddle board a bit, of course not the dingy, bc well yesterday…
Day 4 – Porto Pollo to Bonifacio, Corsica – 15nm
The sailing conditions did not disappoint for this beautiful voyage to Bonifacio. They were perfect. Unfortunately the furling main was a bit of a disappointment and I was kind of annoyed as our original boat had a traditional main which is one of the reasons I chose it. We tried many things but the main furler was stuck and we were not able to fix it underway. So we sailed with headsail alone and engine. Approaching by boat providing gorgeous scenery and the beautiful cliffs and harbor entrance were really huge and awe inspiring. This area was by far our favorite and if we were to return to the area for cruising, spending two days here would be in order. The med mooring in Bonifacio went smoothly as silk even though there were a Lot of boats there going in and out and the slips were all very crowded. The person who was assisting us to show us the slip and use their dinghy to help keep our bow from blowing downwind, was the epitome of efficiency and the complete opposite of the lady in Cannigione. This saint of a young man, said hardly anything. He only said the minimum needed to provide information and when there was another boat taking up the entrance to the fairway where we needed to go, he told them to leave. So our crew nailed the mooring as if we were professionals and all was calm and measured. And the area – wow – french pastries, gelato and amazing medieval architecture all in one place.
We did the big climb down to the water from the top of the cliff, and walked all around the town. Some crew walked even farther along the cliffs and had some really beautiful photos. The boat next to us said that cruising in Corsica is very good, so maybe a future option there as well.
Day 5 – Bonifacio to Cala Napoletana anchorage – 17nm then onto Golfo Aranci – 23nm
Amazing sail back across to Italy since we fixed the furling main at the dock. Again wonderful wind conditions – 15-20 knots consistent. Cala Napoletana was a beautiful anchorage, crowded though so we were at the back and we enjoyed, swimming and paddleboarding. I swam to the side shore of the U shaped anchorage and snorkeled along the way. In general the snorkeling in the anchorages was not that great, and I’m not sure what has happened to their fish population or if they previously had reefs. They now have very strict no fishing laws, which my son was really bummed about, and our best guess was they are trying to bring back their population. Though it was likely commercial operations that killed things and not individuals. We continued along the coast to Golfo di Aranci for our final night and our final med mooring outside the charter company docks. It went very well, and the dock was uncrowded. Golfo di Aranci was near an anchorage we wanted to spend the day at on Friday before returning the boat, plus they had a fuel dock. The people at Golfo di Aranci were super friendly. We had a lovely dinner and walk around the town.
Day 6 – Friday Golfo di Aranci to Cala Moresca then to Marina Portisco – 13nm
The fuel dock had a huge ship fueling in the morning, so we went to Cala Moresca to spend some time swimming and relaxing. Beautiful small anchorage with access to a great hike. This anchorage had some of the best snorkeling of all the places. The guidebook noted that the fuel dock opened after lunch – I think at 2. However I made what turned out to be a brilliant move and called them and with our limited language back and forth, they said they would be there for us at 1:30. We showed up a few minutes before, and the fuel people showed up at 1:30 on the dot! So much for the late Italian stereotype. As we were close to finishing 3 boats showed up and were queuing presumably for the 2pm opening time. Then we were on our way back to Marina Portisco, as we had to be back by 6 or 7pm. And well that part of the story is at the beginning! We made a reservation for a beautiful restaurant there at the Marina and had an outstanding last night dinner. Thanks to Sardinia and all the crew for the amazing memories.
Sails and Sunsets 