Coleman Sailing Trip 2018

The weather has been very settled, hazy sun, no wind and hot.  So we were really sure that we would have a quiet night, despite the port official’s general warnings.  However in the middle of the night the boat began to rock back and forth quite strongly and worst of all the boom kept moving from side to side on the track. I had to wake R up to do something about it.  There seemed no reason for the rocking and we just went back to sleep. In the morning the weather remained as settled as ever.  So we didn’t even try to put up any sails.  We are headed in the direction of Pula.   We were here last autumn and thought we would try another port just past it.  The attraction of the other port is that they do gas cylinders and we are one week into our last one, so we must get a spare otherwise in a couple of weeks we can only eat cold food!  However, there is a suggestion that this other port has a n...

As I said yesterday we were not sure where we would wind up today.  We both wanted to see Rovinj, another ancient town with walls and Venetian buildings.  ACI are building a new marina here and all their literature says it will be open for this sailing season.  However when we tried to ring them we think all we got through to was a builder.  The pilot book says there is an anchorage which is suitable for a lunch stop over.  The Bora can get bad here and better shelter is needed for the night.  Richard’s idea was to pop in and see what there is and then decide.  So we set off just after 8am and got here at about 11:30.  As ever there was no wind except for about an hour when there was 10 knots on the nose.  When we got in we saw there is a town wall with rings and buoys to pick up for the bows.  Now this reminded me of Hvar last year where we had to be rescued before we hit another boat....

For the first time since joining the boat we have begun to think this may be a pleasure trip. We were up early and rushed to the office which does yacht services to get an engineer to look at the engine ignition.  After sounding dubious to start they said someone would be around after 9am.  Sure enough at about 9:30 an electrician came (with a lady to translate) and went over the ignition panel.  He turned the engine on at least a dozen times and it started every time with no problem.  He said he disconnected and reconnected all the wires from the back and could find nothing wrong with it.  All we can think is that in unloading stuff out of the locker we must have knocked one of the wires (which apparently are on push in plugs) out and when R fiddled with the wires he put it back in.  Anyway it seems to be working fine.  They didn’t even charge us for coming.  Something rare around here. So we had ...

We got up fairly early so that we could get to the service department to book an engineer to come at look at the engine ignition.  At first there was no one there so we were given duff information.  Later we found the office open but there were no workmen, only admin to book appointments.  Well, that would have been OK except they made it clear that they had a whole day of appointments booked for Monday and were unlikely to do our work then.  We put our name down in case, but it looked hopeless. We walked to a little supermarket and bought a few more things.  The problem of provisioning in Venice hasn’t really been solved because we keep finding small shops with not much merchandise and which are quite a way from the boat which means carrying heavy shopping a long way. So we are not sure what to do.  Richard has tried to take the front of the ignition panel off to see if he can find the loose wire, but the screws are r...

Well we finally made it out of Venice, but it has been a close run thing.  On Friday the mechanic came to sort out the water pump. He did not install a new one. All he did was change the switch. So now the pump does not short out, but it judders as the water goes through almost as if there were an air bubble in the system.  He insists this is alright and is caused by furring up of the pipes restricting the flow. We don’t believe him.  I think it is just because the pump is too strong for the water system.  I guess we will have to get someone else to give an opinion. It was boiling hot on Friday.  We spent the latter part of the morning cleaning the outside of the boat.  It has a lot of stains I couldn’t get off completely. However with the hot weather we didn’t fancy spending too long on it.  We made dinner reservations for our favourite restaurant on the Lido. Then we decided to go shopp...

Well, we are still here in Venice and it doesn’t look like we will be able to leave before Sunday (though Saturday is still a possibility).  The weather has been hot and sunny and is getting to me. I fell asleep twice today! The saga of the works goes on.  We waited most of the morning for anyone to turn up and then walked the ½ mile to the office to find out what was happening when we were told the engineer and rigger were on the way to the boat.  So Richard rushed back to the boat and I loaded up the Times on my ipad. The only internet here is in the hotel so we have to come down to do anything. The upshot is that the water pump has to be replaced for a less powerful one.  The engineer is coming to do that tomorrow morning. Will we be charged for this twice?!  We can see another argument looming. The rigging in another problem.  After he put the main up Richard found that he could not rig the reefi...

Well here we are back on the boat.  For two days it has been something of a roller coaster ride. The journey was not helped by the fact that there was a strike by French air traffic controllers which made it impossible to fly over French air space.  The effect of this was that our flight was delayed by nearly two hours.  We knew about some of the delay before we set out, but it was still a drag. We didn’t get to the marina until after 6pm.   When we got there we found the boat in the water but alongside the boat yard.  So immediately we had to move it to its proper berth. Everything on the boat was in a mess with cupboard contents all over the place and cushions all out. We found that the restaurant on the island was not open, so we had to go out on the Vaporetto to get something to eat.  By the time we got home we were exhausted but still had to sort the cabin out and make up the bed so we could get som...