Postcard from Leonie - July 2014

SOON after setting sail from Menton on a 105-nautical-mile voyage to Corsica a swell rose in the otherwise flat sea that lasted an hour.  

Later, we heard the French Riviera town had in quick succession juddered under the force of two earthquakes, measuring five on the Richter Scale, hours after our departure.

It was the second time we had dodged a drama at the popular resort.  A month earlier Leonie was lucky to escape unscathed from a pontoon fire which destroyed eight boats in 15 minutes.

We were with friends on the other side of town when our live-aboard neighbours phoned to alert us to the raging inferno on the pontoon directly opposite our mooring, some 25 metres away. Thanks to the windless night the fire, bolstered by several exploding gas bottles, did not spread to our pontoon.

Luckily no-one was hurt in the disaster.

We were faced with our own personal disaster 13 hours into our 25-hour passage to Corsica,which threatened to spell the end, at least for now, of our long-planned Mediterranean cruise.

Resuming our trip after over-wintering in Menton was a bitter-sweet experience.  

We were sad to say goodbye to good friends made there including John and Irene who shared with us a love of French wine and walking in the beautiful snow-capped Alps Maritime and fellow classic yacht owner, chef and talented artist Yves Bosio whose lovely parting gift of a painted plan drawing of Leonie we shall treasure.

But we were also eager to continue our adventure.

As the wind ebbed and flowed around us we gradually eased ourselves into the routine of sailing and motoring from place to place. With the setting sun Carl and I took turns at the helm while the other rested below.  

The moonlight picked out a sleek grey dolphin gracefully slipping in and out of the water alongside Leonie’s cockpit 10-mintes into my inaugural solo night-shift, calming my fluttering stomach and filling me with confidence and a quiet awe.

The peace was shattered at midnight with the bleeping of the oil alarm.  

As we were more than halfway into our journey we decided to press ahead rather than turn back.

The oil level had dropped and there was oil in the bilge, which suggested a leak.  

The worst case scenario was a cracked cylinder head which would have meant a costly rebuild or a new £5,000 engine.  Both options would have forced us to return to the UK to raise enough money to fix the problem.

Luckily the wind had picked up again and we were able to sail for the next seven hours.

The rising of the sun brought Corsica within our sight plus two dolphins who swam and frolicked in Leonie’s bow.  

Carl topped us up with oil and in a fickle wind we switched from sailing to motoring, without any hitches, until reaching Macinaggio on Cap Corse at lunchtime.

The next day Carl phoned Beta for some advice as he was struggling to locate the problem with our 20-year-old Beta engine.  

The company’s customer service is excellent and the engineer he spoke to was really helpful, making several suggestions as to what to look for.

The end result was a loose sump nut, which Carl was able to fix himself by the time-consuming but virtually cost-free method of disconnecting the engine’s electrics and its fuel and coolant lines and uncoupling the prop shaft from the gear box.

This allowed us to hoist the engine a foot or so into the air using a block and tackle in order to reach, clean and improve the sump nut seal.  

He put the engine back together again and breathed a sigh of relief when it started.  

After running it in gear for an hour all seemed to be in working order.

Our woes were not over though as during a four hour run to the Corsican city of Bastia the following day the temperature alarm went off.  

We were worried but not unduly so as the coolant level was fine and we thought an air bubble was the culprit.

However it was more serious than that as we discovered during our passage to the Italian Island of Elba a day later when the coolant level dropped several times and again we faced the possibility of another costly solution.  

Relief was ours once more when Carl discovered a split coolant pipe - easily fixable with help from a local restaurant owner at Marina di Campo who sourced us a new pipe length.

We had a memorable night-time arrival on the beautiful Isola d’ Elba.

As a tourist pleasure boat had taken the space reserved for visitor moorings we headed for a vacant bows-to berth but were waved off by a maritime policeman who said the space was reserved.

The only other spot was alongside the quay wall where another yacht was also moored.  

It appeared just deep enough for us but at 1.00am Leonie’s keel started to bump on the bottom.  

The tide in this area had caused the sea level to drop 18 inches.

We had to move.  

This time we moored alongside the tourist boat and slept like logs until 8am when the captain asked us to untie as he was heading out.  

We eventually found a more suitable mooring near to, but not alongside, the quay wall.  

On Easter Friday we sailed to another of the Tuscan islands, Giglio.  

At the entrance to Port Giglio is the sad sight of the cruise liner Costa Concordia which hit rocks and keeled over with some loss of life.

As we rounded the corner to the harbour entrance we found ourselves on a collision path with a big car ferry backing out and had to quickly get out of its way to avoid being mown down.  

Once safely inside the harbour we were directed to a stern-to space by a young harbour officer but decided to enter it bows-to as Leonie does not reverse easily.  

Just as Carl dropped anchor another harbour officer began madly waving his arms at us from the pontoon, shouting unless we came in stern to we must leave the port.  

Then for some reason he changed tack and told us to come alongside on the other side of the pontoon instead.  

This is a busy ferry port and we are moored a couple of boat lengths away from where the ferry docks.  

It was quite alarming to see it come in so close just as we were tying up.

We are sheltering here while a gale rages outside the harbour walls.  

When it abates we will continue our voyage to the Greek Ionian islands via the Italian coast.

First Published July 2014