New Year 2003

After a hectic December we’re back in our burrow in Ameglia slowly readjusting to the pace of life down here.  The weather continues to be bewilderingly changeable.  On our way back from Milan (where we had stopped over after flying back from Cologne) it was warm bright and sunny.  From Genova we sat in the buffet car of the train to La Spezia.  It had everything a buffet car should – an Espresso machine and benches and bar stools set in front of panoramic windows and for local colour a group of spotty young men childishly taking the piss out of every woman that walked past.  My guess was that they were new navy recruits destined for the base at La Spezia - they certainly had the emotional maturity for it.  Anyway, we settled back with a coffee and a salami sandwich each and spent the journey watching a high-speed replay of our trip from Genova to La Spezia in La Fulica in October.  The golden sunshine made the coast look far more seductive than I remembered it, especially the section known as the Cinque Terre or “Five Lands”.  The railway line through the Cinque Terre is one of the most spectacular in Europe, with long dark tunnels suddenly opening out onto spectacular cliffs and seascapes and small towns perched vertiginously on ridges.  In fact the views were so diverting that we nearly forgot to get off at La Spezia station.  At La Spezia I was amused to see that the bravado of the would-be squaddies had melted and they now looked like a party of lost and anxious schoolboys.

That was four days ago, for the next two days it then chucked it down and we hid on board listening to the rain.  There’s no one much around here at the moment except Mustafa, who is waiting for Giovanna to return so he can go off to Morocco for a couple of months.  The atmosphere was best summed up by Mustafa when one morning we observed him sat in the covered area opposite our boat fully togged up for the weather in hat coats and scarves.  Every few minutes he would do all his clothes up tightly, screw his face up with distaste and get ready to launch himself into the elements, only to back away from the brink of the shelter and huddle himself again in the dry.  This happened three times before with a shrug of his shoulders he disappeared in the opposite direction, clearly heading straight back to bed.  On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve we finally plucked up the courage to go out and walked to the shops to buy sparkling wine and other goodies.  That night the weather cleared and after watching the “Shawshank Redemption” on DVD with Italian sub-titles we sat in the cockpit with our wine to see in the New Year.  Sporadic fireworks had been going off all evening but as the New Year approached the whole Magra valley came to life with church bells ringing and rockets and whiz bangs lighting the sky from every village and hamlet.  What cloud cover remained was also lit up regularly by the more profound flashes from major displays presumably at La Spezia, Sarzana and Carrara.  God help anyone in peril on the deep as the fireworks included several hand-held and parachute distress flares, these latter casting a bright red light over the whole valley as they slowly descended towards the river.  We did our best to join in by firing wine corks and responding to the more spectacular fireworks with several blasts on the foghorn.

On New Year’s Day we awoke to bright golden sunshine again and we decided that we really had to celebrate by taking the boat out – the first time since we arrived on the Magra.  Easy you might think, but not so, as the liveaboard yotties among you will know only too well.  If you simply own a boat then going for a sail is a fairly straightforward operation – jump in the car,  jump on board, give the gear a few blasts of WD40, clean the mould out of the toilet and away you go.  Having settled down to not going anywhere for a couple of months, turning a floating caravan back into a boat is a little more complex and involves finding secure places to stow the junk that quickly gathers when you stop moving: hosepipes; miscellaneous ropes; washing lines; books; pots of herbs; bottles of strange booze; loose change; pocket fluff; old bus tickets; etc etc.  In our case this included a candelabra – well one does have standards to maintain.  After an hour of packing and tidying our decision to go out sailing seemed a little less spontaneous, but we managed to feel our way down the shallow Magra without running aground and motored in brilliant sunshine to the village of Lerici in the Gulf of La Spezia.  As we left the Magra the sea was calm, but with a lazy one to two metre swell which La Fulica climbed up and surfed down with an easy motion.  It felt good to be out on the sea again and looking out over the Gulf with its delightful villages and anchorages bathed in bright sunlight under an azure sky and washed by an azure sea flecked with bright white foam around the rocky shore.  Lerici is particularly picturesque, its harbour full of yachts and fishing boats overshadowed by a large and imposing Genovese castle.  On our return to the Magra the white scarred mountains above Carrara showed up crystal clear although more than ten miles distant, their peaks lightly powdered with snow. 

In the ethereal light of a bright New Year’s Day this really feels like Gods own country.  But it’s now the day after New Year’s Day and surprise surprise it’s chucking it down again.  While I’ve been writing this Sue has been heroically dealing with a major knicker crisis.  Either she has fewer knickers than I have underpants or she has a more rigorous approach to personal hygiene, I can’t think which.  Our cockpit is covered with a tarpaulin at the moment to keep out the rain and it is now full of dripping undergarments.  Sue has just finished a bold experiment at drying knickers in the salad washer, but she hasn’t the strength to maintain its spin at above one hundred rpm.  I would offer to help, but frankly it would play havoc with my tennis elbow.  Ah well, back to slumming it on La Fulica ...