...you make lemonade (a.k.a. change your plans).

Buongiorno and greetings from Portosole marina in Sanremo, Italy. 

So much has happened in the last two weeks, I am not even quite sure where to start - so this blog post is a little longer than usual.

We left the marina at St. Mandrier Sur Mer on Monday September 16. We were both very happy to get on our way - although there are some pretty great things about living at a marina in the south of France: daily baguettes, electricity and water usage with reckless abandon, and conveniently timed, extra-long Saturday morning walks with the dogs past the men's weekly rugby practice (always skins and shirts)... no Ron, you stay here, I can take them. I really am a very considerate wife :)

Anyway, we had a very good first day. Calm waters. Light winds. Zero issue finding our planned anchorage at Port-Cros or picking up our mooring ball. The sailing conditions were near perfect, the evening rewarded us with a huge full moon. We had very few neighbours. It was everything we had been dreaming about.

Then Tuesday happened.

Day 2 was a bad day. Warning, if you are one of our friends or family members who has not been super cool with this plan from the outset, you might want to skip this part.

The day started much like the day before - light winds, fair seas. We made it all the way to St. Tropez before the winds started to pick up and we observed some storm clouds in the distance (wait...none of this was predicted???). We did exactly what you are supposed to do - we had only been flying our main sail but at 16 kts** of sustained wind we did the safe thing and put in 2 reefs (made the surface of the sail smaller). Ron went back down to finish rigging his fishing rods, I stayed up top - we were feeling great. Then everything changed. Winds started to pick up - fast. We went from 16 kts to more than 28 kts gusting in a matter of minutes. The skies opened up and we were in the middle of what was going to be the first of three thunderstorms that day. We dropped the main sail and switched to motoring. It was windy, I was completely soaked, it was uncomfortable...but we were still fine.

Then came the swell, and we were NOT fine.

Maelstrom is a blue water boat. She is built to handle big water. And while I know that - it is one thing to know it, and entirely another thing to believe it or live through it. Worst yet, our planned destination for that day had us straight into the wind and into the swell - every 4 seconds crashing nose first with a sensation of violence and discomfort that you must experience to really appreciate. It was still pouring with rain. The lightning and thunder was deafening (along with the constant high winds alarm that we could not figure out how to turn off). There had not yet been a safe minute for me to go below and put on dry/warm clothes and due to the conditions, our pace had slowed to a speed that was not going to get us to where we needed to be ahead of nightfall. We had to turn around. It was no longer safe.

We began calling around to see which marina might have room for us. But, with the Cannes boat show in full swing, all the marinas were full. One of the more sympathetic harbour masters told us we could anchor outside of the marina. Elated, we set our course, tacked 180 degrees, and headed to safe harbour.

Cold, wet, tired, we arrived - and the shelter was so welcome. The winds and swell off-shore were still bonkers but the harbour afforded us calm seas, almost no wind, and no more rain. Our moods shifted quickly. Me - from: "what the actual fuck was I thinking? I want to go home" to: "ok, drop anchor, change clothes, have a very big glass of wine - we've got this". See, in the world of sailing you have 3 (more or less) options to park your boat: dock, pick up a mooring ball or anchor. And it just so happens we are really good at anchoring. 

But the universe decided that both Ron and I needed to be completely put in our place that day - erasing ANY amount of over-confidence. With nightfall setting in we found out the anchor bridle installed by the boat builder was 2x too long (not something that was discoverered during the delivery handover process), and the clip that is meant to secure the bridle to the anchor chain does not have a safety clip which meant it kept falling off. Our 5 minute anchor task turned into 2 hours - still cold, still wet and in the dark. We had very little confidence in our anchor hold and finished the awful day setting 2 anchor alarms, sleeping in our clothes and setting hourly wake up alarms to visually check that we were not moving.

The good news - we spent the next day in that harbour, encouraged that our anchor did hold all night and ready to do a full 'lessons learned'.

So, what did we learn that day?

Even the most sophisticated weather forecasters/software don't always get it right. The marine gale-force wind warning was issued at 3PM  - 1 full hour after we had already been in the thick of it. We learned the next day that coast guard was actually called out for a man overboard instance. We have now assembled a wet/terrible weather drybag with wet weather gear, towels, extra tethers and life jackets that comes up to the helm station with us every day we are underway - no matter what the weather is forecasted to be. We also include a detailed plan B and plan C in our daily route. We increase the frequency of our weather reviews/debriefs. And, most importantly, when Charity says to Ron - I don't care what the app says, we are going to get wet - we actually listen to Charity...this has happened before :)

Silver lining:

I write this blog post, safe and sound, from the very hoity toity Portosole marina (where we are getting our bridle and a few other warranty issues fixed) and where we get to enjoy the beautiful sights, food and people of Sanremo.

The journey between the St. Tropez anchorage and here has been really wonderful.

Ron found his people at the nude beach in Eze.

I have invented a nautical vocabulary that I am pretty sure will become the new standard:

Spicy sea = high winds or big swell - described as mild, medium or caliente

Bogies = all objects (moving and non-moving) detected by our radar or AIS

Eat a bag of dicks = an expression of irritation or frustration resurrected from its first appearance driving from Castlegar to Osoyoos on a donut with my BFF Randi

And the most important news, we have changed our plans.

With the unplanned delays we can no longer take our time and proceed with our lackadaisical coastal cruising itinerary to Tunisia - Ron has to be out of the EU by October 3. And since it is neither smart nor safe to attempt 10 days on our own, we have hired crew and we will instead sail straight to Albania - no stopping. Me, Ron, Zooey, Tucker and now Marco (very experienced sailor) will head out on Tuesday.

I did say I had hoped to have lots to share in time for my next blog post. I am glad (????) to have been right.

Thank you so much for continuing to take an interest in our adventure. If you are looking for a very non-boring retirement plan, I think I have found the answer.

Until the next time, may you have fair winds and following seas.

Charity xo

** 1 kt of wind = ~2 km/h so 16 kts of wind is ~32 km/h

Current count of donations to Triton = net 3: 1 dog lead, 1 clothes pin, 1 hat and 1 rasher minus 1 boat hook that we rescued

Some pics of the last 2 weeks:

I shot this pic with my iPhone and did nothing to it. I have yet to pull my fancy Nikon DSLR out of its case. Cannes, FR.

Port Royal at Cannes and our view at the anchorage.

Maelstrom looks very pretty from the water.

Caught that morning salmon, tuna and calamari. 
"You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients." Julia Child

The pizza (my most favourite food) in Sanremo is unbelievable...

...and the gelato...I could live here forever.

What 'work' looks like now...route and weather planning - with red wine of course.

Early morning shift at the helm. Shorts and T-shirt weather for normal humans - mittens and all the layers for me.

The Eze cliff and our view at the anchorage of Baie de Saint Laurent, FR.

Wandering around Sanremo earning our pizza and gelato kcal by walking up and down all the very steep stairs. The whole village is a maze of alleys. I have not worn makeup (or a bra if I am being honest) in over a month and I don't miss it at all :)

Port-Cros, FR.

Sanremo, IT.

Plage at Sanremo.

Sanremo, IT.

I will be marrying my next husband for the money :) Our neighbour at the Portosole marina.

Hello from Zooey!

Boating life is not terrible. My brother sleeps all the time, which is no different than life in YYC. As long as our peeps are around, we are pretty happy.

Although we do have one complaint: even though we are being very good, we don't ever seem to get any gelato. Please express your concerns for these inhumane hardships via our socials.