Elba, Napoleon's First Incarceration

Elba is just off the coast of Italy, apparently too close to France since Napoleon made a comeback from there. We visited his confinement area, rather small and saw the same views he must have seen. After his defeat at Waterloo he was sent to a small island in the south Atlantic, thousands of miles away from anywhere and never gained power again. Like all islands in the Mediterranean, it's mountainous and even the coastal town requires hiking up and down steep hills to see everything. So hike we did to see Napoleon's house and the nearby fort with a commanding view of the harbor.

On the way down we saw a boat coming into dock and was interested in seeing an example of docking aft to the concrete dock, Mediterranean style. I took a two minute video of the whole procedure. I had expected the boat to drop a bow anchor and back into  the  dock (at right angles to the dock, not along side like at PYC) but they had sent a dinghy in ahead of them which had picked up a line off the dock that led out to an  mooring block already in place. He pulled up on the line attached to the dock and it led out into  the  harbor to the mooring block. As the boat neared the dock, he passed the line to a person on the boat who  walked it forward tot he bow and started pulling on the line. Eventually, he pulled up a heavy line that was obviously attached to a substantial mooring anchor. He did this twice so he had two bow lines attached. He also had two other lines from the aft to the dock which held the boat taunt against the bow anchors. The boat was perfectly secure. It's a very efficient use of dock limited dock space but I wouldn't recommend it for anywhere with a current, tough backing a boat into a sideways current! If you want to see Mediterranean mooring in action, click on this video.

The town itself was typically French with interesting shops and we spent  some time just looking around, no bus tours today! Interesting clouds!

Corsica, France

Corsica is on the way to Italy but it belongs to the French. It’s the birthplace of Columbus. The place of his birth is located in the Citadel, the town pictured in the first photo. One wonders what the world would have been like if Columbus had not sailed west.

The town is typically French with the outdoor display of vegetables and narrow streets to negotiate.

Nevertheless, we had full size buses for our tour through the mountains. Even though Corsica is an island, they have 8000 ft mountains! With so many ups and downs, they place their villages on the sides or tops of cliffs, reserving the limited flat areas for crops. That makes for a very scenic ride and the roads are very narrow, especially when meeting another bus! I have a video of such an encounter and it seems like the sides of the two buses “melt” through each other. We just sat back and enjoyed the views, trying to ignore the impossible passages of other vehicles as well as the sheer drop-offs at the edges of the roads! Just look at this video to see what happends when two buses meet!

Another Day at Sea

The seas didn’t calm back to the previous levels until this morning. We met a couple that had been on the ship five times before and they said it had never been as rough as yesterday. The Royal Clipper crossed the Atlantic just before we boarded and several of the passengers we spoke to said the crossing was much better. They had wind and waves but the wind was not as great and the waves were long period rollers, not the shorter, steeper waves from several directions that were apparently reflecting off the nearby islands causing a confused sea. One person we met was from New York and he recalled one flight where they flew over Long Island Sound and the sun was low on the horizon and reflected off the water just right so he could see the waves. The wind was out of the north and he saw the waves marching south across the Sound as expected. What he didn’t expect was to see a second wave train going north that had been reflected off Northport! The two wave trains were interfering with each other as they crossed, going in opposite directions, in the middle of the Sound. I asked if he had a camera but he didn’t at the time. The lighting was most unusual to be able to see all that but I imagine something like that must happen in the Mediterranean too, especially with high winds and all the islands. The resulting boat motion is very uneven.

The captain gave a talk in the main lounge to a very interested group of passengers. He described the forecast he had received before the storm but he had nowhere to go. We were out in the middle of the Mediterranean without a nearby port suitable for the safety of the ship in 70 mph winds. Being at sea to “ride it out” was the safest choice, however unpopular with the passengers. During the Q&A he was asked what was the steepest roll the ship could take. He answered 77 degrees which would dip the yardarms into the water! I can only imagine what chaos that would cause inside the ship. There are no hand holds in the larger areas of the ship. What to do, stand on the windows? Despite what the brochure said, the ship does not have stabilizers. The captain said they were too noisy and didn’t work very well anyway. The company is building another, larger ship but it’s currently on hold due to the economy. Although the Royal Clipper is currently the largest ship in regular use, it will soon be only the third largest when two others are commissioned.

The wind is still blowing pretty good with whitecaps aplenty but these are conditions the ship was built to handle with aplomb and although the ship is still rolling, it a much more controlled roll and easy to adjust to.

At Sea - Our Port Was Closed!

Around 2:30 am we noticed that the motion of the boat was increasing and we were sliding all over the bed, hummm – what’s happening? We mostly ignored the pitching and rolling and as long as we kept our eyes closed and dozed, we were okay as far as seasickness was concerned. The motion gradually increased as it dawned and the challenge was to get out of bed and on deck successfully. The crew had placed seasick bags every few feet all over the boat but I made it okay to the open deck. The photos do not do justice to how rough the seas were! For a video of the seas, click here. Note that the 439 ft Royal Clipper is pitching pretty good.

Looking out over the ocean, I saw why a 439 ft ship was pitching and rolling so much. The seas were huge, at least 25 ft waves. The peaks of the waves were level with the third deck. The next time we’re in port, I’ll try a measurement. In talking to one of the crew in the deckhouse, he said the winds peaked at 70 mph! We were out in winds only 5 mph short of hurricane force! We all camped out in the lounge near the middle of the boat for the least motion and managed to keep everything down. Movement in the boat was a stagger as the swells hit the boat broadside and rolled it from side to side. Chairs, tables, dishes periodically crashed adding to the general pandemonium. There were a lot of people looking not so good but I never actually saw anyone throw up although they might have done so in the privacy of their cabin.

We took solace in the promise of a calm port on today’s agenda but then there was an audible groan when the steward announced that the port they were scheduled to enter was closed!! We guessed it was due to the weather (70 mph winds!) and now we were faced with two days at sea instead of just one – and in this weather! The passengers were not happy. For a second video of the seas, click here. We later learned that the ship rolled 8 degrees off vertical in the seas. Now that doesn't sound like much but consider that the ship is 54 ft wide and depending on the details of the roll, the up and down motion by the rails amounts to 10 to 15 ft! It's like being in an elevator for 24 hours with it going up and down 15 ft at a time. Worse, the cycles were not predictable. You would think, ah, the seas are calming and then, wham, another series of rolls and pitches!

Breakfast was bread and water but not for everyone. The crew seemed entirely unaffected as were some of the passengers. I guess you can get used to anything. We started feeling better by lunch time and went down from the lounge for something to eat. All the ports in the dining room were shuttered, I guess as a safety feature in case the window was hit by a wave and broke? With that you couldn’t see out and had no horizon to use as a reference to counteract motion sickness. As Ann sat down at the table, the boat started a larger than usual roll and it pitched Ann out of her chair onto the floor and into a lady sitting at the next table. No harm was done but it gave you even more caution. There were people stumbling all over the place (but not the crew – they were steady). However, eventually even I got used to it. Ann was better than me and even returned to the room for our stack of crossword puzzles, I continued to occupy the upstairs lounge. A return to our enclosed room towards the front of the boat where the motion was greater was not in the cards for me although I was able to stomach a short return later in the day as we all grew more used to the motion.

The rolling continued all through the day and night, side to side, fore and aft. Fortunately, we gradually grew used to it and we ate dinner at 8:00 but did not order wine this time. We discussed at great length why the captain didn’t alter course so the rollers didn’t hit the ship broadside which caused the severe roll. We sure had plenty of time, he was only doing 7 kts instead of the usual 12 kts in order to arrive at the next port on time and not early. On top of everything else, we were motoring with very few sails up, in fact we were a sailboat in name only. If we had any sails up at all, it was usually just the jibs and almost never the large, square sails. All this brings up the disadvantage of any type of ship that must sail to a schedule. They have to make ports at certain times. 70 mph winds, no problem – got to go! Needless to say, if it were on our boat we would have stayed in port. That’s the advantage of not sailing to a schedule, go when the weather’s good. It gives you pause about sailing in cruise ships in the future.

Dinner that night was a full affair, no quarter was given to the rolling of the ship with the exception of using low glasses instead of the stem glasses usually on the table. The dinner servings had the usual flair with the courses decorated and displayed to the equal of any fine restaurant I’ve ever been in. Ann and I had roast duck, delicious, and dessert came surrounded by a small cage made of white and brown chocolate. How did they do that? Especially under the conditions that must have existed in the kitchen with the 25 foot seas!

Mallorca, Spain

The day dawned overcast with a threat of rain as we came into Mallorca. We had given up any idea of a small, rural island like the ones we’re used to in the Caribbean. Well, Mallorca was thick with bumper to bumper traffic which we had ample time to experience in our bus tour into the mountains. The threat of rain materialized into reality with a vengeance. It poured! We toured gardens and a monastery in the soaking rain. All the islands we’ve been to have been mountainous and Mallorca was right there too. The scenery offered views of the mountains descending right to the ocean in steep cliffs. The Michelin guide gave the island two stars for views from the mountain road, a rare rating by Michelin.

On the way back, the access road was flooded and we creeped along an interstate type road (on this small island!). On these cruises, the ship leaves on-time, regardless of whether everybody is aboard or not. They do make exceptions for excursions they schedule but not for anybody else just wandering around town. Another couple was on the way back to the boat and discovered that the road they had walked on the way out was now covered with three feet of water. It was now 5:30 which was all aboard time with the boat due to leave at 6:00! Having no other choice, they decided to wade through waist deep water in a dip in the road on the way to return to the boat. Otherwise, they would have to reach the next boat stop some other way to rejoin the cruise.

We had a nice dinner, a bottle of wine and even went upstairs for a nightcap of another glass of wine. It was a quiet evening – or so we thought!!

Cartagena, Spain

We continued making our way east towards Rome via the Spain coast. The unexpected feature of the coast is the presence of mountains right down to the sea. You can always see the mountains as we parallel the coast (and even snow on some of the taller peaks). Today we pulled into Cartagena, Spain. They are very proud of having (according to them) the first submarine in the world. However, the inventor who was a native of Cartagena was excommunicated from the church since God “didn’t mean for man to be under the water”. With that he went to Germany where they apparently didn’t have such compunctions.

The city streets are all paved for walking with no cars allowed. It was a Sunday so there were parades and crowds all around. The street vendors were out in force selling flowers which made for a very colorful scene. With temperatures in the 70’s, it was very pleasant.

It was interesting getting off the dock. We had a 15 kt wind blowing the 400 ft boat directly into the dock. Even with my boat, I’m not fond of that situation. He used the engine to warp off the dock, pushing the aft out into the harbor and backing out. It was tight since he had to keep the bow off the dock as he backed. He was helped by having bow thrusters but even then it was not easy with all the windage he had to contend with. The scuttlebutt is that if the captain puts a mark on the boat, he’s fired! The captain was personally operating all the controls during the maneuver and we made it off without incident.

Puerto de Motril

Leathem and Ann went on one of the tours but we stayed on the boat and took a walk to the beach. This area of Spain is quite mountainous and we could even see snow covered peaks in the distance! One of the things that Ann has always said is how unrealistic some of the painting exercises are on TV when one painter in particular always mixes palm trees with snow covered mountains in the same painting! Ann now has to reevaluate her judgment of that particular painter since we now have hard evidence of palm trees and snow covered mountains existing in the same scene.

May 1st is Labor Day in Europe so everything is closed. It’s still cool but there are a few people at the beach. It’s now a fine sand but rather coarse and the water temperature is around 60F, it hasn’t warmed up yet.

The crew of the ship is constantly busy. On the top deck they were repairing a sail that was blown out during the crossing of the Atlantic before we boarded. They had large waves and a following sea, reaching 16 kts in boat speed at times! When we walk the top deck in the morning, we’ll invariably see some section of the boat being varnished or painted. One constant of a sailboat is that there is always something that needs attention! They don’t varnish the teak deck itself, they have some solution they apply resulting in a natural gray color. I asked about the brand but the sailor didn’t know. All the other teak is kept in tip top varnished condition. When I left the ship for a stroll in the afternoon, the crew had two buckets of paint, one white and one blue. They were looking for any spots that needed a touch up and had small rollers to apply dabs of paint. No marks were allowed to remain. Even the bottom of the launches were a spotless white. I guess when you have over a hundred crew on board, they find ways to keep them busy.