4) Fiumicino, Italy

Fiumicino, Italy 41° 44.832 N 012° 15.496 E

Bonifacio, Corsica, France 41°23’N 09°08’.8E

Today is the day we depart.

My day started with working on the Fiat.  I had put an epoxy mixture on the rear bumper on Friday and now it was ready to sand and paint.  Miraculously, the mixture cured hard enough to sand.  Of which I sanded and shaped it and painted it with a tiny little paintbrush and that was that.  It worked!

 
 The departure from the marina went well considering the size of the vessel.  The guys from the yard came out to move the boat that was side-tied to us and stayed on the dock waving until we had turned around and headed down the river toward the fuel dock and eventually the Tyrrhenian Sea. 

 

We spent about an hour and a half at the fuel dock taking on fuel.  This vessel holds about 300 gallons and we took on about 500 liters.  All I know is that the fuel went in and we moved on.

We planned to arrive at our destination of Bonifacio, Corsica at daylight and our 1:15 pm departure today could not have been at a better time for that.  We anticipated calm seas the entire leg and it was actually flat, calm.  So calm it was bordering on surreal.  We immediately fell into a watch schedule of 3 hours on during the 9 pm to 9 am period and then 2-hour watches from 9 am to 9 pm.  It worked out really well.  The watch schedule is designed to move forward 1 hour each day so we each will get to see sunrises and sunsets.  The sky was brilliant with stars.  The Milky Way was clearly visible and falling stars seemed to be on a regular schedule.  Venus rose bright in the southwest soon after sunset but disappeared quickly as true to its nature.  Mars rose in the east and was obvious to spot because of its red nature.  It too was brilliant in color and shine.  John said that he saw it set at dawn when we were approaching Bonifacio.         

On a side note, a German guy owned the boat that was tied behind us.  We did not think much of him as he was the guy that complained to the management that he did not like the way the night watchman would sing on his rounds.  I thought it sounded great!  Well, it turns out the boat he now owns he sailed on when he was a kid with the previous owner, his grandfather.  He spent months trying to locate the boat and he bought it.  It has many years of neglect and will take about $240,000 USD to restore.  

3) Fiumicino, Italy

Fiumicino, Italy 41° 44.832 N 012° 15.496 E

Before I arrived in Italy Alan and his wife Danielle arrived and spent time with John and Nancy.  Somewhere in that time they were out and Alan was driving the car.  The driving here is difficult and you must be very aggressive.  John is quite good at it.  Alan failed to run a stop sign on the freeway turn-off to the marina and got rear-ended.  Yes, he failed to run a stop sign and got rear-ended.  You must be very cautious if you plan to stop or slow down at stop signs and red lights.

During the last few days of preparing the boat for the Saturday departure I was going to do an epoxy repair to the bumper.  John has a long history of fixing rental cars before he returns them, as he has been almost everywhere there is.  When cars get damaged in these places the rules don’t apply about whose fault it is and he has learned to fix them himself.  Not only was the bumper cracked in two places someone tried to break in through the passenger keyhole and destroyed that, too.  I tried to take the inside panel off to remove the lock and bend the door metal out but gave up halfway in.  I applied some epoxy from the boat to the bumper and let it sit overnight.  John spent most of Thursday looking for paint to match the car and he actually found it!

Cute, huh?  It looks fast sitting still in the parking garage at the Panorama grocery store.

We planned to go food shopping for provisioning today and now it is tonight.  John and I headed off to the Panorama and several hundred dollars later and a huge overflowing basket we were on our way back.  We bought some great stuff.  It was fun shopping for food with John.  He says, “buy it” for just about anything you see or want and even the stuff you don’t want just to see if you really don’t want it.  We were a spectacle in that store.  It was so obvious that we were American and on a shopping spree.  The people were really good to us.

2) Fiumicino & Rome, Italy

Fiumicino, Italy 41° 44.832 N 012° 15.496 E

Rome, Italy 41° 53.638 N 012° 29.707 E

The flight to Fiumicino, Italy from Frankfurt, Germany was about 90 minutes.  My luggage made it!  It is strange that there was no customs to go thru and I didn’t get a passport stamp.  But, uh oh.  My luggage was too heavy for me to carry and I needed a cart.  I wandered around the cart rack and asked a lady if she spoke English.  Luckily, she spoke a little and I managed to convey that I needed a cart and did not know what the procedure was.  She was kind enough to explain that it required a Euro and I asked for change.  She was kind enough to give it to me, a value of about $1.20 US and would not except an exchange of cash.  She said to consider it a gift and if she was ever in the US maybe I could return the favor in kind.

John and Nancy were there to meet me.  A short chaotic 10-minute drive in a little 4-door Fiat brought us to Marina Nautilus where S/V Amor Fati, 58’ Bruce Roberts designed motor-sailer was located and we were at the marina.  This was a regular run-of-the-mill marina with no frills and all the dirt and noise located on a man made canal that branched off the Tiber River.  Amor Fati is tied to the dock and the crew of the boats tied to us walk across our deck to get there. 

John working on the engine in the belly of the beast.

Marina Nautilus

Tiber (Latin Tiberis; Italian Tevere), river in central Italy, third longest of the country, rising in the Apennines of central Italy, near the source of the Arno River.  It flows south in a picturesque, winding course across Umbria and then southwest through Lazio, to empty via a delta in the Tyrrhenian Sea near Rome.  The Tiber delta has two channels: the Fiumara, which enters the sea near the site of the ancient port city of Ostia, and the Fiumicino, an artificial waterway used by ships.  The Tiber is 252 miles long; the principal cities on its banks are Città di Castello, Rome, and Todi.

The main tributaries of the Tiber are the Nera and Aniene rivers.  The Tiber deposits much silt near its mouth, and navigation here is only possible with frequent dredging.  Smaller craft are able to use the river from the sea to the confluence of the Nera, about  50 miles north of Rome.

I was on California time, which was 3:18am, and the local time was 9 hours ahead and was 1:20pm.  Not feeling too tired and when asked if I wanted to go into Rome I was agreeable.  We packed in the little car and made our way to the local train station.  After a 35-minute train ride with multiple stops we walked through some terminals and transferred to the subway that serves Rome.  We got off at the Colosseu station and walked up the stairs to Rome.  The first thing I saw directly across the street was the Colosseum!  What an amazing sight to behold.  Civilization had moved in and run over this ancient city.

  

We then proceeded on a walking tour of this part of Rome.  John and Nancy were my unofficial tour guides and having been here many times before they were well versed in the history of what I was seeing.  Here’s a small bit of that day:

Foro Romano ruins currently under excavation.

Piazza Venezia

Fori Imperiali

Fontana Di Trevi (Trevi Fountain)

 

Pantheon

Piazza Di Spagna (The Spanish Steps)

Piazza Barberini (where the Internet café was located)

Piazza Di Spagna (The Spanish Steps)

 

1) Frankfurt, Germany

Frankfurt, Germany 50° 02 N 8°34 E

The 2:30 pm flight out of San Francisco on a United 747 elapsed 10 hours to Frankfurt, Germany.  Four movies, lots of very good food and then the sun came up.  My body clock said 12:30 am and the local time was 9:30 am.  Made it through customs easily and the security guys had to work a little harder.  They needed to have my cameras and electronics disassembled and run thru the x-ray multiple times.  They did a very thorough search of my carry-on bag and laptop. 

So, here I was in Germany at the airport with a 90-minute layover and nothing to do.  The only thing I had in mind was to get an authentic German beer.  Well, as good of a beer that can be had at an airport.  The only beer I could find was Beck’s.  Not much better than in the states.  But, at least I had a beer in Germany!

This information is a guideline for the journals, pictures & videos.  For me the trip started in Germany, headed west and ended on the Pacific side of Panama. 

10/05 Germany

10/05 Italy

10/05 Corsica, France

11/05 Menorca, Spain

11/05 Mallorca, Spain

11/05 Alicante, Spain

11/05 Aguadulce, Spain

11/05 Gibraltar

11/05 Canary Islands

12/05 Atlantic Crossing

12/05 Barbados

12/05-01/06 Martinique

01/06 St Lucia

01/06 St Vincent & The Grenadines

01/06 Bequia, St Vincent & The Grenadines

01/06 Mayreau, St Vincent & The Grenadines

01/06 Union Island, St Vincent & The Grenadines

01/06 Grenada

01/06 Bonaire

01/06 Curacao

01/06 Aruba

01/06 Cartagena, Columbia

02/06 San Blas Islands, Panama

02/06 Portobelo, Panama

02-06 Colon, Panama

02/06 Panama Canal

02/06 Panama City

All the pictures and videos were recorded by me using (3) different digital cameras.  The editing was done on-board with a laptop computer.  I managed to accomplish most of the editing during the periods when the boat was stable and comfortable.  The edits underway were sometimes difficult and some of the journals reflect this aspect of the trip.