Wednesday, October 27, 2010

BB#6: Split

Like most places along this Adriatic coast, Split has both an old city and a new city. The old city is by far the more interesting, dating back hundreds of years.

In about AD300, an enormous, fortified palace was constructed for the Roman Emperor, Diocletian, as a country villa and garrison. The town of Split grew within its labyrinthian walls.



Many relics of this era are still standing, including churches, museums and aquaducts.






The city cathedral is little altered from its original condition, as are large parts of the palace. At each of the four corners, a massive stone tower still stands, with narrow slits in the battlements for shooting weapons (of whatever kind) at the enemies outside.







The palace and its battlements gave refuge from many a ransacking over the centuries. After Diocletian’s death, the palace was occupied by the exiles of Salona, fleeing from the Avars and Slavs. Later Split came under the jurisdiction of the Croatian kings, then under Venetian rule from 1420 to 1797, then became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918, with a brief period under Napoleon.


This constant invasion, killing, exiling, conquering and claiming is something we find hard to comprehend these days. The history of the whole area is quite cruel and bloody. It seems like everyone else was forever trying to take someone else’s land (and lives) away.

We took a tour of the catacombs and sub-structure of the Diocletian's palace. Here, the Romans kept their slaves and persecuted Christians. Later the vast caverns were used for rubbish and sewage disposal, but restoration and preservation programs have cleaned that all out, for present day benefit.


Today, tourists wander through by the droves and stall-holders sell souvenirs. The vaulted ceilings have incredibly intricate, circular patterns of stone-work laid in their domes. Beautiful stone carvings adorn the odd alcove, begging the question “why?"

Why all the statues and gargoyles and decorative finishes to otherwise purely functional, often besieged constructions?

It was the same question we pondered with regard to all the really old buildings, some of which took hundreds of men hundreds of years to build. How did they maintain that continuity of purpose?

Between the palace and the sea is another common feature of these towns – a wonderful, white-tiled expanse of no-vehicle, people-space, where visitors and locals alike can promenade idly.



Here, there are cafes and bars, street-food stalls selling hot corn cobs, pancakes with nutella, ice-creams, plus other souvenir stands. Small children are given rides in straw baskets.



It is a relaxed, holiday atmosphere. In the evening, live music and folk-dancing are laid on for our free entertainment and we can choose either to go ashore amongst the throng, or listen from our nearby anchorage.

The harbour is a busy place, being a central hub for the many vehicular ferries which service the nearby islands, as well as the huge cruise ships which come from all over the Med.




Sandy beaches are a rarity in Croatia, but not far away we found one – as did everyone else!


Monday, October 25, 2010

BB#5: Bepo the Magician

17/8/10

The next morning we motored round to the slipway and true to his word, Bepo was waiting, ready to perform his magic on the sail-drive the moment we were lifted out of the water. We soon bore witness to precisely how this was to be done.

It was no single-handed feat, even though Bepo, the Master, did perform the hands-on tinkering himself - all done standing on an upturned bucket so he could reach the offending “leg”, a couple of metres off the ground. Four young ‘theatre-assistants’ ably assisted the operation with surgical precision – “scalpel”, for pass the spanner, “sponge” to mop up the gear oil, “kidney dish”, to receive each nut or bolt….. and so forth, until he was right inside the guts of it.

The lackeys knew exactly which tool to pass and when, which part to race off with to clean, which chunk of wood to wedge against the hull for leverage. At one stage of the game, one of them was a second too slow as Bepo blindly waved a tube of grease in the direction where a hand should have been to take it. Without missing a beat he tossed it to the ground to be later scooped up by the humble slacker. It was a real circus, one that would never be seen in Australia.

A cast of thousands seemed to appear out of nowhere - spectators, running commentators, (speaking in Croatian, so not sure), casual passer-by’s, even a couple of motorcyclists rode up and parked beneath the boat to observe the Master at work. The clock was ticking, but Bepo still found time to answer his mobile phone, which seemed to ring every few minutes.

After the half hour ticked by, the yard-men returned. We thought they might start pressuring us to either get back in the water, or move off the travel-lift, but they seemed content to watch too, laughing at Bepo’s phone with its odd ring tone, jostling each other, swinging off the crossbars of the travel-lift, all seemingly complicit in the game. One of them gave us a nod to walk slowly up to the office to pay, adding “one lift”. We smiled gratefully.

We paid 350 Euro for one lift out of the water and back, instead of 700. We guessed the trainee grease-monkeys would only be paid peanuts, but the 150 Euro labour bill either rewarded Bepo handsomely or was spread amongst them.

All things considered, we got off rather lightly. Best of all, we were back in action without having missed a beat. Maria had taken the bus to Split for the day, and we were ready to head there to pick her up in the afternoon.

And just as there had been the pressure in Slovenia of being up and running for Maria’s arrival, so too we were chewing our nails a little over the imminent arrival of our new boat guests, Ian (Wishy) and Julie, who were flying into Split the next morning.




As it turned out, we were peacefully anchored in Split harbour and they never suspected the tenterhooks we had been on.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

BB#4: Gearboxes & Wineglasses

From Zadar, we got it into our heads that we are a yacht, a racing yacht at that, not a motor boat, so we should be sailing rather than burning diesel.

The universe was obviously eavesdropping on this proclamation, because as we motored out in calm waters, we discovered a good reason to be purist “wind-bludgers” – emulsified oil in the gearbox.

Blue Bohemia has a sail-drive – a stubby “leg” protruding beneath the hull with the propeller attached - rather than a long shaft-drive. The sail-drive is filled with oil which lubricates the gear-box. The oil should be clear, not an opaque, yellow-ish-white, which indicates a leaky seal and salt-water ingress. If this is ignored, the gear-box will eventually cease.

So no more motoring any great distances for us!

The unpleasant realisation struck us that we needed to lift the boat out on the hardstand to replace the seal.

“But we have only been in the water for less than a fortnight!”

All very frustrating (and costly), but pointless to now curse that we had not replaced the seal before that grand launch day, less than two weeks ago in Izola. However, philosophically reasoning, “if we had tried to complete all the jobs that could/should have been done, we would still be there!”

We rang the closest marinas in Zadar and Split, but no luck – all were busy maintaining the charter fleet, with at least 6 weeks waiting time. The people at Split suggested the name of a mechanic, Bepo, who operated out of a new marina in Kastela Bay, near Split. We rang him and he was very helpful, even suggesting we stay in the “slings” of the travel-lift for half an hour, and he could do the job while the yard workers had their morning tea. That way, we would only have to pay for one lift, rather than a lift out, transfer to a cradle, and another lift back into the water later.

Half an hour to remove the sail-drive, replace the seal and reassemble seemed optimistic to us, but Bepo assured us he replaced the seals on all the charter boats yearly, needed or not. Hmmm, another reminder of what we should have done…

The wind was blowing a gentle 3 or 4 knots from the NE, so we hauled up the spinnaker and sailed a course of 120 deg at a speed of 4 – 5 knots – gotta love that kite! Just after dusk, we drained the oil from the gearbox, refilled it with new oil and motored slowly into Kaprije Bay, a beautiful quiet anchorage for the night.

The next morning there was virtually no wind, so we nursed the engine along slowly until just enough breeze filled in to hoist the spinnaker again. We had another glorious morning’s sail, flat waters and hot sunshine.




This is how Maria liked to keep cool while helming in the mid-day sun.

Having the wind directly behind, means steering a course slightly to the left and right of our heading, to avoid accidental “gybing” - which is what happens if the wind catches the wrong side of the sail and crashes the boom violently across the boat – knocking heads off on its way! We tie a “preventer”, a long rope from the end of the boom to the bow of the boat to help prevent this, but still it is best avoided if possible, by careful steering.




So all the way down our course, every few hours, we did a controlled gybe, deliberately changing the boom from one side to the other, and likewise the spinnaker. One very important thing throughout this manoeuvre, is to make sure that both the ropes that control the bottom edge of the spinnaker are kept tight. If not, watch out – the spinnaker can wrap itself around the forestay – known as a “wineglass” because it looks like one.




OK, we got the wineglass to kill all wineglasses!!

Not just one small wrap in the centre of the sail, but top, bottom, middle, the whole thing was jammed. To add further insult to injury, halyards, topping lifts and other ropes that should not have been anywhere near the forestay were also tangled up in it. It was a doozy!



How on earth to get it down? The wind by now was gusting at 25 knots apparent, which is well over 30 knots true, as we were screaming along at around 10 – 12 knots. The poor spinnaker was flapping and flogging and making a dreadful complaint up there. “Get me down! Get me down!”

“Nothing else for it but to go up the mast.”

“You must be kidding!”

Nope, not kidding. OK, three of us on board, no autopilot, this is going to be fun.

“Run downwind; let the main blanket the kite; keep her steady as you can – and avoid the gybe!”

Easier said than done – and we were running out of sea-room, rapidly approaching land.

Now some of you may have seen TV coverage of those strappingly fit young men on the America’s Cup race boats, who just run up the mast while the boat is sailing along, looking for wind on the water. Well, quite unbelievably, that is what Das did. Good thing he had on his much leaner and stronger sailing body, rather than his sit-at-computer-all-day body.

Even so, Maria thought he must have had a death-wish, as he bounced about up there, rather like a puppet on a string, swinging wildly from mast to forestay and back, trying to get that sail down. Each time it looked as if he had a small section of it under control, a gust of wind would inflate it out like a balloon beneath him, sending him flying out in mid-air. He was straddling it like a bucking bronco, but one that was completely impossible to subdue.

Three times we hoisted him up and down the mast, to no avail. Eventually we pulled in behind a small island and dropped the anchor to try again. At least we weren’t at risk of sailing into the land anymore. But even though the wind was a little quieter, the waves breaking around the point made the boat roll wildly from side to side. Again the puppet was flung helplessly about up there, each painful landing against the mast or rigging knocking the stuffing out of him.



Five or six hours later, defeat was conceded. It was not coming down. The only thing to do was to leave it up there and lash it every few inches around the stay to keep it quiet while we limped into Kastela Marina. Very conspicuously, very embarrassedly, very much to the amusement of all who looked and pointed. OK, so they had the last laugh after all.

Once tied up quietly in the Marina, we winched the sagging puppet twice more up the mast, and finally, just before dark, got it all down.



Oops, forgot this is confidential.

Monday, October 18, 2010

BB#3 “Nudie beach”

8/8/2010
Vrsar Island (“Nudie beach”)

This was a very interesting place that challenged any preconceived ideas we might have had about the human body in its au naturale state.

The approach to a long, narrow estuary that we had identified as a suitable anchorage for the night, took us past a small island. From the distance, we could just make out a few naked bodies and we assumed it must be one of those designated nude bathing beaches we had heard about. We continued motoring further up the channel and selected a bay with a dozen or so other boats on anchor.

Only after choosing our spot, setting the anchor and flaking the mainsail on the boom did we notice the very large, very “indecent” derrière of the woman on the boat anchored nearby.

We were anchored about 150m off the beach, just outside a row of small white buoys used to cordon off a swimming zone. In Australia, this would be the “shark net”, but here there was a large opening for boats to pass through. Kayaks, dinghies and windsurfers went by with totally naked riders, all quite “in your face”, as it were. Initially this was rather confronting!




But the bay was otherwise peaceful and protected and made a good spot to catch up on some boat jobs, such as installing the holding tank. It didn’t seem right to be discharging effluent into their pristine swimming pool.

The next morning Maria went ashore to check out the place up close and personal. I rowed her in to the small jetty, where stood a young man who would have made a good model for Michelangelo’s David. A couple of largish German women were floating in the water nearby, their breasts bobbing like over-inflated buoyancy vests. We didn’t know which way to look and I was glad to drop Maria off and quickly row back to the boat.



A few hours later Maria was to be seen standing on the end of the same pier, leaping up and down to attract our attention. She was obviously fully naked and appeared to be flayling about in all directions - a rather disconcerting sight.

“You go and fetch her,” Das said.

Later Maria reported having been accosted by the “blue police” who told her she had to be naked if she wanted to be there. Fair enough, to keep the perverts out I guess. Apparently it was OK to wear clothes if walking (or perhaps it was ‘working’); but if lying on the beach or swimming, it was not permitted. We decided to keep on working on the boat.

The Valalta Naturalist Resort was a very extensive, private camping ground frequented by hundreds of European holiday-makers, mainly older German couples but also families with young children. It made us think about the effects of this on youngsters. Having grown up seeing so much adult nudity, it must seem completely natural to them, no doubt quite devoid of sensuality or eroticism. For Maria, she saw more male genitalia than in her entire life before and even though trying not to look, couldn’t help but making comparisons between them. “Some like prunes,” she reported, “some the size of our winch handles!”




Each night a live band played loud Western music from the 60’s which was very good to dance round in the cockpit to (clothed), followed by a huge fireworks display at midnight.
We enjoyed it so much we considered staying longer to finish off more boat jobs, in particular checking all the wiring. At some stage, the cables to the engine-room blower had suffered a melt-down so these, plus other unknown burnt wires had to be pulled out, traced back to the source and replaced. However, the perfect amount of wind was blowing in the right direction, tempting us to move on. Maria was keen to head further south to the better-known islands and every boat that passed us by, she called out loudly, “Take me with you!”

By now, the nudity was much less confronting. We had seen all shapes and sizes – flabby bellies, dimpled cellulite and the rare few fine figures. These latter were the naked form we were more conditioned to expect and when they appeared, they produced the usual reactions. Just as we were motoring out of the bay on our departure, a small motor boat past by and as we were right alongside, a Grecian goddess suddenly stood up, displaying her perfect physique in a grand gesture designed to impress. Sorry, we missed getting a photo…



Zadar

After leaving the island of Vrsar we hoisted the kite and had a glorious sail south with about 8 knots apparent wind and boat speed of around 9 knots all day. Again, we felt so smug to be passing all the slow-poke charter boats with their totally inefficient sails that furl up on rollers in the mast, and hang like shapeless shopping bags when set. Their day of having the last laugh on us would come later ….

We anchored overnight in a few bays on various islands on the way south, and on Thursday 12th August, we made our first stopover in a marina in the centre of the very interesting port of Zadar. This was our first experience of an ancient walled city. Once a Dalmatian capital, it is still a beautiful town, despite the destruction caused by WWII bombings.

A good friend from Melbourne, Dan, had told us about the “water music” feature in Zadar so we were keen to visit this tourist attraction. After wandering aimlessly through the old town, admiring the well-worn marble cobblestones, dry-stone walls and arches, we found our way to the opposite bank of the harbour, where the tour-operators for various cruise boats drum up business. We asked one which way to the …. “water music” – she finished the sentence for us – obviously everyone asks the same question.

Not knowing quite what to expect, we almost walked right past it, apart from the intermittent soft drone of the strangest sounds, a little like some kind of distant church organ. A large paved area of the foreshore has several rows of about ten holes, each row slightly offset from the next. These bore holes are about 3 inch diameter and several feet deep. The water below, as it surges with waves or the wake of passing boats, creates air movement thereby sound. The “organ” pipes must be of different lengths, producing different tones, otherwise it is an un-tuned instrument. If you lie with your ear to one of the holes, a much stronger sound can be heard with the subtle nuances of volume and pitch as the air pressure modulates. The sound is quite ethereal, other-worldly and haunting; completely unlike anything else – except maybe for whales. It is a brilliant idea, and hence the designer won a prestigious European award for architecture in outdoor public spaces.



A little further along the promenade, another unique creation is a large round “sun-dial” set into the ground. A shiny glass circle, about 20 metre diameter wide appears to be made of transparent photovoltaic plates. At night, myriads of tiny lights shine through from underneath; these are constantly changing colour, as well as direction, spreading in lines, circles, stellar explosions. People walk, sit, hop on these to see if it is they who are causing the lights to change colour and direction. Children love it!


Wednesday, October 13, 2010

BB#2: First Passage

6/8/2010

The boat is renamed, rebadged with Southport, Australia as home port, and proudly flying the Ozzie flag.




Time to go sailing! Still a heap of unfinished jobs but they can be done en route to somewhere else.

The excitement of a first passage in unknown waters is enhanced by an unknown boat, a bit like a blind date. You expect it to be interesting at very least. Although we know BB inside out by now, we have yet to see how she performs in her element.

Officially leaving the EU, clearing out of Slovenia, we motored in flat calm waters the ridiculously short distance of about 12 miles to the nearest port of entry into Croatia, a small town called Umag. The 48hp Yanmar diesel engine thrummed sweetly, as if it had never skipped a beat in its life. We only have a tiny ‘egg-beater’ of a propeller with two blades that fold together to reduce drag while racing, but it pushes us along at a respectable 6-7 knots.


Leaving our "home" of 3 weeks: Izola Marina, Slovenia


We motored past the first of what was to become typical scenery – old castles, fortresses, churches, built of stone atop high walls rising out of deep seas. You realize you are in a very old place.




Slovenian coast - church spires everywhere.


In Umag, the Port Captain asked how long we wanted to stay and explained the costs involved in purchasing a “vignette”. This is a fee for registration of arrival, fulfilment of requirements for navigation, navigational safety fees, light dues and information chart. For 3 months this came to about $AU550.
Accustomed as we are to paying for port entry and exit fees and cruising permits in the Sth Pacific, these fees never bother us. We accept it as our contribution to the cruising grounds we enjoy.

Our playground for this season is the Adriatic sea, an almost land-locked waterway that provides the best kind of sailing - flat-water with minimal ocean swell.

Flanking the left side of the Adriatic is the shapely calf and boot of Italy; on the right, several countries: Slovenia at the top, with very limited coastline, Croatia, with the lion’s share, Bosnia Herzegovina with scarcely a look-in, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece. Strange how there are so many nations on the right and only one on the left…

The west coast of Italy is shallow and uninviting, with few protected anchorages. Even the large port of Venice has dredges constantly digging out its entrance channel. On the other side, Croatia has it all, and it is easy to see why the Romans, Venetians, Illyrians, Slavs, Turks, amongst others, have fought for it over the centuries. Croatia is the “Gem of the Med”, with hundreds of islands and protected harbours to explore.

The Croatian cruising guide refers to 777 anchorages, so you are never more than an easy day’s sail from the next sheltered bay. Within those bays, there is usually an ancient historical site dating back to some inconceivable bygone era with ruins of mostly Roman monuments. They built them to last back then!

After checking in at Umag we motored to the middle of the wide basin and picked up a mooring. Within minutes a friendly man in an open wooden dory came over and charged us the mooring fee: 168 Kuna, (about $3.50) per metre of boat length. BB is 14.4m long (and an approximation won’t do). We asked how to say “thankyou” in Croatian: (“Hvala”). He corrected our use of the word we had learnt in Slovenia (“Hvala”) but we couldn’t pick up the subtle difference. To our ears they both sounded the same, but we didn’t want to offend anyone so soon.




It was our first night out on mooring, swinging to the wind instead of being tied up alongside a marina and it felt good. It took a couple of hours to get organised, to rig up a harness to lift the new outboard off the pushpit and lower it onto the back of the dinghy for the inaugural run. It was a Chinese 9.9hp 4 stroke motor called a “Hidea” (later to become known as the “Hideous”). But that first run it purred like a kitten.


Umag

Bright lights and music filled the night air. The foreshore was alive with busy sidewalk cafes, restaurants, colourful street stalls selling artworks, toys, bikinis, towels, snorkels and masks and other tourist paraphernalia, not unlike those we had seen near our hardstand home in Izola. (Well, I guess we were only a few miles down the road after all).

The next day we had our first sail and it was fantastic! BB skims along so gracefully in light airs she leaves all the more conventional cruisers sitting dead in her wake. Whilst the Bavarias and Beneteaus are motoring under bare poles, we glide by noiselessly, picking them off one by one with smug satisfaction. So this is why we chose a race boat!



The decision of which sails to bring with us and which to leave in the trailer/container had not been so easy. During our time on the hardstand in Izola, we had set ourselves the task of pulling out two or three sails each night after dinner, just before it got dark (around 9.30pm) and checking them out. We spread them out on the grassy strip at the water’s edge, measured and photographed them and made notes about their condition. There were some beautiful, almost unused sails amongst them, each one worth around 20 grand to buy new. It occurred to us that we had bought a highly valuable sail wardrobe and they had thrown the boat in for free.

On board now we have one carbon mainsail, chosen because it has 2 reef points which are necessary to reduce sail in strong winds. Unfortunately it doesn’t have any “slides” on it (which keep the sail attached to a track on the mast), but has a “bolt rope” instead. This means that when you drop the sail, it comes out of the groove in the mast and falls all over the boat – very messy and hard to see past when entering a crowded anchorage.

We ameliorated that problem by putting on “lazy jacks” – thin ropes that run from two thirds of the way up the mast to the boom on either side of the sail, like a giant open-weave spider web. These help to contain the sail as it drops onto the boom, where it is flaked back and forth like a concertina then tied down. It works well for sail control when you don’t have half a dozen octopus-armed crew spreading their long tentacles all over the flapping beast.

For our headsails, we chose a magnificent “number one” (biggest) genoa which is made of the most delicate filigree material, transparent and cellophane-like. This is an ultra-light sail, for the gentlest of breezes. Given the amount of motoring most boats do in the Med, we thought this would be a good choice. For the same reason, we included a lightweight bright yellow spinnaker. More on this later.

In case of heavier weather, we have a Number 4 (smallest) headsail, plus a couple of even smaller storm sails – which we did get to use on the trip across to Venice – more on that later!

Monday, October 11, 2010

BB#1:Meeting BB




Arrival in the Med: 15/7/2010

The long haul flight was surprisingly easier than expected and we hit the ground running. After over 35 hours of travel, we caught the 12.30 bus from Trieste (Italy) to Izola, a small coastal town in Slovenia. Everything went according to plan, with all connections on time and a seamless transit across all borders. Only a massive Italian flag atop a heavy stone building indicated we had crossed into Slovenia, but the countryside did reflect a subtle national difference, with lush green pastures and gentle hills. I could sense the warmth of the people and liked it instantly. It was interesting to see how everyone in the crowded bus struck up a conversation with whomever was seated next to them and the slowly winding 33 km ride was filled with the background hum of soft Slavic tones and laughter. It wouldn’t happen in Australia. This is why we travel, to appreciate the differences.


When you are exhausted after travelling half way round the world in a very confined seated position, things can appear a little tarnished. Such was our first impression of the Sydney 46 yacht we had bought in Slovenia, sight-unseen off the internet. The photos on the internet had been taken in her hey-day, when the blue hull still shone new like and everything still worked. She was undoubtedly a beautiful boat once-upon-a-time, but a few years of neglect had buried that quite deeply. Now we found only a sad and faded memory of her former glory. Yes, it was a bit of a letdown - one of those empty holes you feel in the pit of the stomach – and our leaden spirits sank deeper as the pictures in our minds were replaced with reality. Still neither of us showed this disappointment to the former owner’s representative as he showed us around the boat, but we tried instead to resurrect the shiny pictures we might uncover, given a bit of work. Given a lot of work! Only later in the crisp white sheets of our motel room did we admit to one another our true feelings, but even then, we tempered our views with excuses of exhaustion.



OK, so her blue hull was faded, cracked and crazed and could stand a respray. But apart from that, everything else was more or less as we had expected. We knew she would be grimy or mouldy down below decks and need a good scrub from bow to stern. The flexible water-bladders had long since perished but we had factored new ones into the equation. We expected to have to install a bow-roller and anchor winch, plus get a 25kg anchor and 100 metres of chain, as racing yachts don’t have this weight on board. Nor do they have holding tanks in the head, so that was on the list to install. And the fact that the toilet was so putrid you needed to wear a gas mask to approach it and all the old plumbing stank like a sewer, well, we had half-expected to remove and replace all that as well.








The list went on, everywhere you looked.

Back in our earlier ignorance, we had calculated we would be two days on the hardstand, then five days in the water before our departure. But the floorboards in the cabin sole were badly pitted and water stained, so stripping the old varnish off and giving a good hard sand, then applying 3 coats of polyurethane seemed like a necessary precursor to all other jobs.




Somewhat of a cosmetic ‘face-lift’, but one that would make the cabin a much happier abode. So we removed everything off the boat (down the 5 metre high ladder) and stowed it in the box-trailer/container that came with the purchase (already chocker-block with the remaining 20-plus sails and gear that was not on board.) One lucky find in the trailer was a substantially beefy air-conditioning unit, which we hoisted up on board and set up to help avoid the melt-down of working in a 38 degree heat-wave.

At this point, we still had no fridge, no working stove to make a cup of coffee, no water on board apart from the drink bottles and buckets we carried up the ladder each day. Our living area shrank to only the forward cabin. This we sealed off from the rest of the boat to keep the dust out, using sheets of white plastic that we salvaged from the rubbish bins. This heavy-duty plastic is used to wrap up the brand new boats that arrive here by truck almost daily. We had contemplated moving off the boat during this process, especially to avoid the toxic fumes of the polyurethane, but the hotel which we had booked for our first night in the country was now full, as were all other places nearby. Ah, tourist season. So it was ‘camping’ out on board for us. We didn’t have any bedding, pillows, plates, cups or anything, so hired a car and braved the right-hand-driving to go shopping to nearby Koper.

Where we are, here in the marina at Izola, it is highly likely that such things are available, but being unable to speak the language, or even identify most stores, we were struggling. For all the tools, hardware, marine equipment, kitchenware, bedding, etc we needed, Koper was the place to go. The Marina office staff told us it was the most “modernist” shopping centre in the whole Northern region, only recently opened. It had large supermarkets, (“Spar”), hardware stores like Bunnings (“Obe”), plus various other specialty shops for electrical goods, bedding and homewares (even “Harvey Norman”). Best of all, it was air-conditioned! We even managed to find a good eatery for lunch and for dinner too, given that the expedition took the whole day. And luck, or the angel of haphazard no-map navigation was with us, because we somehow found our way in and out of the maze of fly-overs and daisy-loops to get on the right (and mostly remembered to stay on the right) roads there and back.
Life became much more pleasant with a pillow and sheet and towel. Ah, the simple things.




Izola

There is a laneway thru the middle of the marina leading to fairyland. Painted wooden booths display cheap clothing, beads, and walls of colourful footwear suitable for pebble-beach bathing.




There is also one of the ubiquitous ‘gelataria’, with rows of rainbow-flavoured ice-creams which Das finds harder to walk past. During the day, pedestrians amble back and forth; mothers with prams, kids on scooters, cyclists, and even unhelmeted riders of motorbikes scoot by. In the cool of the evening many more promenade the seafront and the amusement park rides start up.


There is a big yellow inflatable slide that looks far too steep a descent for small children to fling themselves down. Old-fashioned dodgem cars, like I haven’t seen since I was 7 or 8 years old, still have squealing girls colliding head-on with the boys in a pre-pubescent mating ritual. There is a series of enclosed trampolines where youngsters can enjoy gravity-defying leaps on stretchy bungie cords, twisting and spinning and turning back-flips to the delight of their parents. Loud Western music distorts the air, even though the English lyrics are just unintelligible noise for most of the locals. I guess they like the rock beat. Further down, a traditionally-costumed South American man with long black hair aspirates lovingly over bamboo pan-flutes, wafting hauntingly rounded melodies into the air.



Our evening strolls are something to look forward to after long hot days spent eroding our endless job lists. We eat a simple, inexpensive meal at a nearby outdoor restaurant where they know us by name.





A large bowl of salad costs about $2.50 and a glass of wine a dollar. The food is exceptionally fresh and tastes more ‘real’ than any I can remember having eaten since childhood. The peaches from the local street market are unbelievably succulent, as if just picked off a real peach tree. It’s a delight to stop and buy a couple of peaches, nectarines, plus a bunch of purple or green grapes for the next day’s breakfast. Gradually we are becoming more self-sufficient, bringing small portions of food on board, enough for one or two meals, which is all that will keep without refrigeration. It means less time out, which means more jobs crossed off the list.

We have the pressure of a deadline, Maria’s arrival from Melbourne on August 1st, which is approaching faster than we can possibly be ready for. Never mind the imagined few days on the hardstand; we have been up for nearly three weeks. We keep going back to the office and extending our stay. They are happy about this of course, as the ‘meter is ticking’. It costs about half as much to remain on the hard as to be in the water, so we keep climbing the ladder each day. But we make the resolve to have the travel lift launch us the day before Maria arrives, no matter what.

One of the biggest challenges we faced was to work out a once-off shopping list for all the things we needed for the boat. Back in Oz, Das had found an on-line ordering site for a place called “Nautimarket”, that sold everything from nuts and bolts to dinghies and outboards. We spent hours poring over their on-line catalogue and putting together an order. It was important to get everything we might need, because there was no going back for a minor item such as the right sized cable joiners or battery terminals if we overlooked them. Without transport to Koper we couldn’t just nip down the road and pick up these things and the local chandlery was very lightly stocked.

Finally, we thought our order was complete, including a special deal on combined outboard motor and inflatable dinghy, 100 metres of anchor chain, 25 kg delta anchor, toilet, holding tank, 2 x 120 litre water bladders, a desalinator (fresh water maker), 3 x 100 amp gel batteries, a battery charger, invertor, etc. etc…. it all came to around 15 grand, but we had factored this into our budget when we bought the boat (and, as always, the good news is we only have to pay for half each!) In fact, they gave quite sizable discounts on most things, so we did get good value for our money.

We placed the order on-line and then rang to see when it might be delivered. Their warehouse was about 100 km away in a small town called Carlino in Italy. Well, it turned out delivery was coming by camel and might arrive sometime in early August. There was no choice if we wanted these things installed prior to going in the water, other than to hire a van and drive to Carlino and pick them up ourselves. We found a fairly large Avis rental with unlimited kilometres (which was necessary, the number of times we got lost – yes, we went off without a map again!) But we got all the goodies back to the boat before dark and spent several hours winching everything up on board. It was like Christmas!!! So many new toys! No matter that we didn’t get much sleep that night; we could at least install the toilet now.




And the water bladders – oh, the excitement of seeing that first spurt of water come gushing out of a tap over the sink – not to have to haul water up and down the ladder constantly – such luxury.

We winched the 100 metres of glavanized chain up to the foredeck and fed it down into the bow through the new anchor winch, only to discover – the 10mm links didn’t fit the gypsy! Aaargghhh! Assumption: DIN766 is the standard throughout Europe; don’t bother taking the gypsy with us to Nautimarket; of course it will be standard, of course… oops. To ass-u-me makes an ass of u & me...




So, hire another car and drive another 200 odd kilometres back out to Carlino to return it.



The local chandlery ordered some replacement chain in for us the next day. We carted this out to the dock, marked it all carefully at 20m intervals, using small rubber ‘peanuts’ of different colours that wedge between the links – started feeding it back on board – only to find, wrong size again! Noooooo!! How could that be? So pull it all out again, back to the chandlery to get a replacement, again. Three goes to get it right.

The day before launching, we had a small dodger fitted - not a brilliant job, but at least some protection over the companionway.






Launch day: a major spectator event with somewhat disconcerting comments about her not having splashed her toes in the briny for over 2 years! Oh my, will she float? Will she go?



But everyone is smiling proudly as she is lowered gently into her long missed medium and the sea welcomes her back, just exactly to her clean waterline, despite all the extra weight she is carrying. Then the slings are released and we start the engine. It coughs and splutters a few times, then bursts into life, a healthy growl of complaint for the years of disuse. Everyone claps and cheers. We have checked all systems thoroughly; pulled apart the gear/throttle lever which was completely ceased, so it now responds (albeit rather stiffly) to being pushed into forward and we begin to move out of the dock.

“Let’s take her for a little spin round the bay,” Das suggests. I shake my head at this premature adventurousness. We head toward the floating concrete pontoon at the end of the marina arm which we have been allocated to tie up on for a couple of days.

Meanwhile, another yacht has come in and tied up on the same pontoon, leaving just enough room for us to come in behind him.

Das throttles back to slow us down, and then, the unthinkable happens – the engine coughs apologetically and dies. We are moving quite fast, heading toward the other yacht. Das grabs a rope then tells me to take the helm and head for the dock, as slowly as possible. Where are the brakes?

A few seconds later, he jumps, wraps the rope around a cleat on the dock and we slew to a stop, millimetres behind the other yacht’s stern, where all crew are standing round uselessly. The rope jerks our bow into the concrete dock, making a loud thud as she hits and gouging a painful line of white into the blue hull, thankfully only a flesh wound. We console ourselves by the fact that this extra scrape blends in with all the rest; she is not pristine and needs that new paint job all the more now.

But here we are, in the water at last, with Maria arriving tomorrow, with an engine that doesn’t go. And we are very aware that Maria has flown half-way round the world to go sailing in the Med, not to sit and watch us repair an old boat. However, the weather is beautiful and Izola is not an unpleasant place to be. A few days’ sight-seeing from a relatively comfortable base is not too bad. But for us, the pressure now was the cost of sitting in the water – we certainly hadn’t budgeted for an extra grand a week of marina fees.

Luckily it turned out that the engine problem was only water in the fuel, as the fill-cap, which is situated in the cockpit floor, leaked. We removed the tank and had it cleaned and patched up a couple of small holes in it and everything worked fine after that. So Maria only needed to hang around 'on land' for 4 days before going sailing which was not too bad. She spent a couple of days playing tourist, one day going to the nearby town of Piran, one day taking the bus to Trieste to do some bargain shopping for Italian leather boots, and generally enjoying the weather.


Piran



Typical Med style sunbather in Piran


She also helped scrape the old name ("Bohemia Express") off the sides of the boat and put the new name on ("Blue Bohemia").