Cornelis, NC, USA
It’s March and we are preparing to leave for Sicily and another summer in the Mediterranean. Before laying out the plan for this year’s cruising season, we looked back on last year. Wow! We went to so many great places it is difficult to remember all the names. And there were so many wonderful new experiences it is mindboggling.
When we left Barcelona last May, our plan was to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Spain to Turkey. It looked doable and exciting. We talked to other cruisers who said nothing negative about the plan, but we consistently heard words like ambitious and aggressive. As we made our way along the coast of France, we started to think about the places we would miss if we pushed to Turkey, like the Italian Riviera, Tuscany, Rome, the Amafi coast. So we changed the plan, sailed along the Italian coast and decided to winter in Croatia. A month or so later, weather slowed us down while in Corsica, with 10 days of strong “Mistral” winds. So, we changed our plan again and decided to slow down even more in order to explore more of Italy, ending the season in Sicily. When the heat and crowds of August hit us, we changed plans once more, deciding to delay our Rome visit until we flew home to the US. So what was to be a quick trip across the Med, turned into a months stay in Spain, a month in France and over four months in Italy, proving that a cruiser’s plan is truly etching in sand.
2011 was a different year, no long passages across oceans, only a few overnights or passages that were more than 20 hours. The year was more about exploring different cultures, food, wine, history, churches, and ruins. There were plenty of islands, just not tropical islands with white sand beaches. In fact, many of the beaches were rocks. We got better at Mediterranean mooring, where you back into a dock between two boats that are way too close together, but we still have occasional exciting docking experiences!
2011 was also the same in many ways. Berkeley East provided us with the usual challenges, pumps failing, contaminated fuel, opportunities to chase smells. As seems to be the case in most years, BE got hit again. Nothing bad this time, just a scratch from a boat that anchored too close in the dark and drifted into us when the wind stopped. She is a tough ship.
The mega-yachts were even larger last year. The number and size of large yachts blew us away again. We thought we had seen large ships in St. Baths, but were overwhelmed by the number of 150+ foot yachts cruising around Italy. We spent a couple of weeks buddy boating with one of the largest yachts in the world “A” (387 feet long). Owned by a Russian billionaire, “A” is one of the most unique super yachts in the world. We were together in Sardinia, Capri and Sorrento.
We met many people and made new friends last year. We had guests visit us from France, Australia, Nevada and California.
In short, we had a fantastic season!
After our second summer in the Mediterranean we have some observations. Nothing profound, but just life’s differences and similarities as seen through our eyes:
One of the toughest questions we have been asked over the years is “where are you from?”. We have moved around a lot, so we had to decide if we should say North Carolina because we have a house there, or California because we grew up there. We started out saying the “United States”. The Europeans do not recognize this description, as they consider us Americans. But calling ourselves “American” seemed presumptuous given that the US is just one of many countries in the Americas. But in the end, to avoid confusion, when asked where we are from, we now say America.
The French language is very difficult. While we are sure this was obvious to everyone, French words are not spelled like they are pronounced. You need to discard some of the letters and add a couple that are not there. The trick is recognizing which to ignore, and which too add. After almost a month in France we never really got the hang of it. Italian is a lot easier!
Why do people who don’t speak English give their boats English names? There is some of this in the United States with boats named “Carpe Diem” and “La Dolce Vita”, but nothing like in Spain, France and Italy. Most of the boats there have English names.
In August it gets hot and everyone goes on vacation. We had heard this just like everyone else, but really, it gets HOT and because everyone is on vacation, it is very crowded.
One thing we have not been able to figure out is why the French make such good bread and when you go one mile across the border to Italy, the bread is almost inedible. We have heard all the explanations, and we understand that Italian bread is an acquired taste, and they speak different languages, but how can this be? Why doesn’t someone in Italy just steal the French bread recipe!
When we used to sail in the Caribbean, we were always leery when a French boat pulled into the anchorage. They anchored too close, we considered this rude and it played into the stereotype of “the French”. But since we’ve been in the Med, we have found the French sailors to be very courteous and never anchor too close. We have concluded the difference is that in the Caribbean they are on charter boats and at home they are on their own boats. While in Spain last year, a Frenchman on a small sailboat came by and tipped his hat to us as pulled into the anchorage. We took this as a very kind way to acknowledge our sail across the Atlantic. Everyone we have come across in France has been friendly.
Another difference we found between the Italians and the French is that when you enter a marina in Italy everyone comes to help, in France they ignore you. They assume you can handle it and don’t need their assistance. We appreciate the confidence the French have in our docking abilities, but we like the Italian approach better, as it is always a challenge for us to get Berkeley East into the small area we have been allocated.
We were surprised to find that in the Med, it is a fashion statement to wear clothes with American flags, state/city names and sport team logos on them. Our informal survey indicates that the New York Yankees are the favorite sports team of the Europeans, followed by the L.A. Lakers. As far as locations go, New York wins again, followed by California, and then San Diego. While we don’t wear a lot of clothes with American logos on them, the large US flag on our stern attracts a lot of attention. People come by to talk with us about their family who live in America, to hear about our sail across the Atlantic Ocean and to get their picture taken with the flag. Although we don’t speak French or Italian well, we managed to have wonderful conversations with local tourist, fishermen and sailors who came by to chat.
Lastly, everyone makes good wine in the Med and there are so many varieties that we have never heard of. Each country and region has wines that are unique to them, and while there are some large wineries, most are small family run operations that have been passed down from generation to generation. Needless to say Berkeley East is now full of great wine!
So before you ask what the plan is for next year, we have learned that this lifestyle does not allow planning for next week, let alone next year. The one thing for certain is that we will spend longer in the Mediterranean than we originally planned. For now we will continue on our eastward path, probably moving slower than we ever imagined. The current thinking for 2012 is to cruise the Adriatic Sea and return to Sicily for the winter. There are few things that are driving our plan: we need to be out of the European Union by July to avoid Berkeley East being taxed; while we spent six months in Europe last year, we are concerned that Greece may enforce the Schengen Treaty that limits us to only 90 days in Europe every six months; Croatia is going to be accepted into the EU in 2013; and Porto Turistico Marina di Regusa, Sicily is making it financially attractive to leave BE there for the winter again, which means more Euros for the cruising kitty. While our life looks simple there are a lot of factors that impact what we do.
So the rough plan looks like this:
April – Sicily
May – Malta, Southern Italy (Calabria and Puglia)
June – Greek Ionian Islands (Corfu, Paxi, Lefkada, …)
July – Albania, Montenegro and Croatia
August – Croatia
September – Slovenia and Venice
October – The East coast of Italy and back to Sicily
But stay tuned, you never know where we might end up. It looks like 2012 will be another exciting year.
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Mike and Linda
Great update! Love reading your stories!