Serenity: Rome to Elba

I arrived in Rome at Fiumincino airport, at about the same time as Chris & Desi were arriving in Campino airport. Car hire for a day was a great idea, as the shops were a 3 mile walk, note to self " check that the car hire company is on the terminal" unfortunately it was 10 minutes away by shuttle bus, easy you would have thought but with nobody in the car hire area in the airport knowing the car hire company it took half an hour to find it. On returning the car we found that the 10 minute taxi ride to Tecnoma marina from the airport was going to cost €45, Chris and I had a very enjoyable 1 1/2 hour walk back to the boat. I asked Desi, who was on the boat to BBQ the sweetcorn so it would be ready when we arrived, forgetting that Desi had no idea where anything was kept, which included the torch! Desi managed to light the BBQ in the dark, but the corn caught light. When Chris and I returned to Serenity, we found some very black corn, but after the outer leaves were removed, perfectly cooked corn, and a very welcome beer,thank you Desi, life saver.

Porto della Concordia 02/08/17

An unfinished marina at the entrance to the river Tiber, a safe port with no mooring fees! The traditional fishing huts still lining the bank.

Santa Marinella 03/08/17

Anchored just off the Marina wall for the night, Chris with a well deserved coffee.

Cala dell Cannelle 06/08/17

We sailed to Orbetello and then on to Cala dell Cannelle on Giglio. A beautiful bay and very popular with the locals.

Pen Shell

These shells were anchored in sand at 7metres, Desi looked them up in the Cruising Chef and found that they were a delicacy in the time of Nero. So we just had to try one! the article also explained that the only part you can eat is the adductor muscle, the rest was disgusting, a smelly brown mess, so that was soon discarded and the white meat fried in butter, very good albeit a little tough.

Sunset in Giglio

I finally found a dive centre to fill the fairly empty dive bottles, I keep 50 bar in them for emergencies. I was told that I could have the bottle filled at 08:30 the next morning, so decided to take Serenity into port Giglio and have breakfast there while the filling was done. On arrival we were told to leave, but after some bargaining, we were allowed to stay for 15 mins, we were there for 40mins, much to the announce of the harbour master, but did just manage to have a wonderful breakfast of ekoori (curried eggs) produced by Chris in record time. It always amazes me at the dive tank pressures, a full tank is at 200 times atmospheric pressure(3,000 psi) and contains several kgs of air.

Happy Skipper

Porto Azzuro 08/08/17

A very safe anchorage, we needed water and supplies, but the marina was charging €90 a day, so we stayed on anchor and made many trips ashore by dinghy. We managed to get 100 litres of water, 40 litres of fuel and a full week of supplies.