A fairly leisurely start this morning. After saying our goodbyes to Paulo we finally slipped lines at 0922. The wind had piped up so we had that to deal with as well as the 3kts of current. This time the exit was perfect, but even knowing how strong the current was we had to be careful and use appropriate and decisive manoeuvres to make our exit safe. Once in the river we headed out, past the nets on our starboard side and into open sea. The depth alarm sounded at 3 metres and the gauge went down as low as 2.4.

With strong winds we had a terrific sail all the way into the bay of La Spezia and finally turn to port and into our home for the night of a small bay Le Grazie, where we anchored for the night.

Even though the wind was howling at 25kts plus and from the east, the anchor held firm in the clay/mud sea bed and the movement on Arctura was minimum. A great recommendation from Paulo and an anchorage we will definitely use again.

The next morning, after eventually getting the tender ready, a two hour job, due to yours truly losing the pump adapter and seized bolts on the engine cowling, oh and a sticky accelerator cable. Just goes to show, one needs to keep on top of the smallest of things when surrounded by sea water.

Once ashore we had our usual coffee and sandwich, a total rip off. Two coffees and a couple of sandwiches where €18, they obviously saw us coming. Local butcher wasn’t much cheaper. Advice is, eat on the boat and shop at the supermarket. Our first experience of rip off Italy.

Anyway that said we had fun and after getting back to Arctura and me having to do some work, we readied her for a trip to Cinque Terre, some 12nms up the the coast. We headed through the passage porto Venere, a shortcut and very pretty and even at this time of year we could see hundreds of tourist and holiday makers in the town ashore.

From the sea, Cinque Terre seemed disappointing, but the we were some miles off shore. Probably, better to take a bus ride, maybe next time? So we decided not to stop and headed south for Corsica.

After a sausage and lentil stew, created by Ed, we settled into our usual 3 hour night watch. The wind was wild, gusting up to 30 kts, but this time we were beating into it. after about 3 hours it settle down and became more comfortable.