RIMINI, ITALY – For Leg Five, Geja and crew will make their way from Venice down the Italian coast to Rimini, a classic Mediterranean party spot. On board for his third straight week is Mats, joined by Henrik for his second stint aboard Geja. Somewhere along the way, Remi will fly down from Norway, completing what will be a very testosterone-filled boat.
(Sunday, August 10) Pretty amazing for Mats, Henrik, and I to start out the leg in Venice, with a most amazing view of St. Mark’s Square from the marina at San Giorgio Maggiore. We fired
up the dinghy this morning for a self-guided tour of the canals. Don’t get any ideas here. You can’t just go to Venice, blow up a toy boat, and start paddling the canals. Only dinghies belonging to visiting yachts may zip around the canals, as we spent the whole day doing today. It’s probably the best way to see Venice, though it takes some practice to navigate along with the gondolas and other local traffic. Interestingly, the gondola tourists were nearly all Chinese. Five years ago, I saw very few Chinese. Middle-class growth in China is very real.
Feeling a bit silly, Henrik and I thought we should mimic the singing gondoliers while paddling around. With Mats filming from a bridge, Henrik and I paddled through while
singing Santa Lucia, an Italian classic that doubles as a Christmas holiday song in Scandinavia. We knew all of two words to the song, but were pretty good at humming the rest. We even received some applause. Our canal tour lasted for hours, hopping off and on here and there. On land there were plenty of other tourists to chat up, and we even gave a quick dinghy ride to a couple of them.
With no groceries available near the marina, we tracked down a nice supermarket in town. Parked the dinghy about 300 meters away, but didn’t padlock it to the canal wall. In Croatia, I rarely lock the dinghy. While shopping, I became nervous that the dinghy would be
stolen while we shopped (it wasn’t). The busy Grand Canal was its usual sloppy mess as we crossed back to the marina, countless bags of groceries piled on the floor.
After last night’s failed attempt at a proper party, we took some locals’ advice and hopped on a short ferry ride to nearby Lido. Like last night, the three of us donned matching outfits. As we stepped off the boat, I asked if this was the party place. “No, get off at the next stop!” was the reply. So we did. The ferry continued onwards, and onwards, and onwards for what could’ve been an hour. Like us, some young locals were sharing a pre-mixed plastic bottle of booze, and they assured us that a good party was ahead. We followed them off the boat, but then onto a bus that carried us another 20 minutes. The bus, full of young people, let everyone off in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. “It’s just another 15 minutes on foot to the club,” they said. This had better be good.
We found ourselves in an enormous, chaotic queue to enter some club where some known DJ was spinning. It started to become obvious that the line wasn’t moving, and that the average age was about 20. Despite the journey to get there, I eventually vetoed this particular place. I
didn’t have a backup plan, but I just felt we had to move on.
Nobody around had a good suggestion for us, so we ended up a little ways away at the Marina Club. Past 11pm and still empty, we didn’t have much faith in the place, which didn’t matter anyway as the guard didn’t like our attire. But the guard relented, letting us into a very upscale and oddly quiet outdoor nightclub. We made friends quickly among the few that were there, certainly standing out as being obviously non-Italian (and wearing matching outfits). A Macedonian hostess assured us that the place would fill up, and indeed it did. Turned out to be an awesome place.
We left at 4:30am, enduring a long, unwelcome walk back to the bus stop. Some locals were waiting for the bus as well, but none could say when it would come. We
waited impatiently for an eternity before we could continue the complicated journey back to Venice. Was a nice sunrise, anyway, when we returned to Geja at 6:30am.
(Monday, August 11) One final morning to wake up to the view of St. Mark’s Square from the cockpit. Left the Venice marina at 3pm to continue this summer’s counterclockwise voyage through the Adriatic. Still inside the vast Venice Lagoon, we motored for four hours through the narrow waterways towards Chioggia, near the southernmost exit from the lagoon. It was an interesting day, motoring past all sorts of watercraft and
island villages. At some point, though, I noticed some smoke coming out of Geja’s exhaust. Was it the grassy patches that we motored through that have clogged something? Sucks to have to think about such things while on vacation.
Tied up in a locals’ marina in Sottamarina, a beach town that seemed like it might have some action. A bit tricky to tie up this far north in the Adriatic, as many of the berths are fixed docks, and the tide goes up and down about a meter. Careful
attention to fender placement and spring lines is needed. We ventured out for dinner followed by some time in a small amusement park. Played some strange slot machines where everyone seems to win, and the prizes are probably worth more than the euro or two that we paid for the tokens. Couldn’t figure out that business model. Turned in early, which was fine by me.
(Tuesday, August 12) Was a pretty rough night in the harbor. At around 3am, the entire local fishing fleet set out, waking us with their loud diesel engines and rocky wakes. Did manage some more sleep, though, before our early (8:30am) departure for the long 57-mile sail to Ravenna.
Exited through the future damn that will eventually block the routine flooding of Venice, out into the lumpy Adriatic. Things calmed, though, for pleasant but smoky motoring. It was then that I learned of Robin Williams’ passing, something that Henrik noticed on his Facebook news feed. I’m a super fan and bummed. Took a swim stop after a few hours, until a westerly wind picked up, giving us great sailing conditions. Unfortunately, the wind later swung a bit to the south, and the seas built. It became an exciting but unpleasant sail for the final few hours into Ravenna, requiring much effort to maintain course and avoid being blown towards land.
At 7:30pm, we were all much relieved to reach the massive breakwaters protecting Ravenna’s large harbor. Of course there had to be two large ships exiting at the same time,
making our entry even more dramatic. Exhausted, we steered towards the marina where our incoming crewmate, Remi, had already arranged dock space. We did hit town and got our party on a bit – there are some pretty hip lounges not too far from the marina. Several clubs exist pretty far down the same road, though Remi and I gave up on the long walk to B.B. King, frustrated to keep hearing that it was still just 20 minutes further.
(Wednesday, August 13) Hot and sticky. Can’t say the weather has been comfortable these days. Did some laundry today, and sadly the dick towel blew down from
its drying line and sank. Remi, who is part fish, swam down into the murky marina water and rescued it, earning hero-of-the-day status.
I let Mats, Henrik, and Remi head to the beach in the afternoon while I tried to diagnose Geja’s motor starting problem. The starter motor sporadically fails to kick on, a major safety issue in my mind (sure, there are a few rare folks that sail around the world without a motor, but that’s not me). I spent the afternoon checking and cleaning all of the wires, but failed to make any
improvement. I guess the new starter battery I purchased two weeks ago in Rijeka didn’t make a difference. By evening I gave up, and joined the guys for an Italian-style happy hour at the lounge down the street. Included with your drink is a generous buffet of really tasty snacks.
Wiped out from the recent days, and bummed to have spent my day trying to fix stuff, I stayed in tonight while the boys went out to play. Looks like we’ll remain here tomorrow night as well.
(Thursday, August 14) How nice to wake up recharged – the night “off” really paid off. I tracked down some boat electricians in the morning, and they came right
away to check out the motor starting problem. Not finding the culprit, they finally removed the starter motor and took it to the shop. Anytime someone dismantles something on Geja, you never know if it can be reattached, a difficult concept to convey from a non-Italian speaker. Can’t say I wasn’t nervous.
I followed the mechanics to their shop, and the news wasn’t good. The starter was bad, and servicing it wasn’t possible. Already noon, and the day before a big national holiday, I was really afraid that I’d be stuck here longer. But the mechanics called around and found an original Hitachi part in a town an hour away. They said they could install the new part at 5pm, with a total labor
charge of 150 euros. With little choice, I agreed. I managed some beach time in between, before anxiously awaiting the mechanics at 5pm. With the new starter installed, I nervously pushed the start button and heard the engine roar to life. Why hadn’t I replaced this 350-euro part years ago?
Having a much better day than yesterday, our whole gang hit the town, bouncing around from place to place and even hosting a small and very late after party on board. Looks like the sleep deprivation pattern will resume – alarms are set for 7:30am
for the 32-mile trip down to Rimini.
(Friday, August 15) Fired up the motor with confidence at 9:25am and left Ravenna after three nights. Never did manage to make the short trip inland to downtown Ravenna, host of a whopping eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The wind blew from land the whole day, giving us a blazing fast flat-water sail down the coast to Rimini. Remi helped out a lot, giving the autopilot a break by hand steering the last two hours. Tried to stop for a swim outside of the harbor, but it was too rough to anchor. Without any bays or islands, opportunities to swim along the Italian east coast are scarce.
Pulled into the channel and scored a very central free spot at a yacht club, bypassing the marina on the right. It’s an excellent marina, with showers and security, but it’s a long walk
to the action. The parking was interesting, though, as we had to lasso the bow to two forward pilings while backing to the quay and fixing those two lines. At least we’ve got four guys on board.
The boys did some daytime recon while I rested on the boat. We hit the town in the evening, searching forever for some recommended restaurant. Found some fun post-dinner action at Dock 26, where a casual little beach bar hosted a dance floor. Strangely, we found Rimini to be full of Russians. We entertained some new friends on board late tonight, though my mood turned very sour when noticing that the toilet had clogged.
(Saturday, August 16) Sadly the toilet didn’t unclog itself by morning. Superhero Remi jumped into the suspect canal water and tried to ram a wire up the toilet discharge outlet to free the clog.
Didn’t help. Henrik departed at 1pm today, and when Mats and I returned from walking him to the train station, we saw that Geja was banging around in her berth from waves making their way up the canal from the open sea. With the rear cleats taking a beating, I decided to relocate to the marina, despite its cost and poor location. And its toilets were for sure functional.
As we untied from the slip with a strong crosswind, some confusion occurred and the windward bow line was released early. This sent the bow crashing into the leeward piling, causing
some damage. After some tense moments, we did squeeze out of the spot, more than happy to settle into the comfortable marina. At the beach near the marina, some guys were actually surfing the waves. No wonder we were rocking around so much earlier.
Mats took off at 5pm, ending his lengthy three-week stay. With just Remi and I, we assembled the two bikes and hit the town in the evening. Strangely, it was a really chilly night. We had to bike back to Geja and put on some warmer clothes if we
were to stay out. Didn’t quite work out as planned, as I passed out and Remi wasn’t far behind.
Kind of a gloomy day for several reasons. The weather itself was gloomy, two of my crew took off, and there was again a serious mechanical issue to deal with. It’s not always paradise in paradise.
(Sunday, August 17) Pancake breakfast. Remi again, with a “protective” wetsuit, hopped in the water and rammed a hose up Geja’s toilet discharge to try to unclog it. Didn’t help. Pretty stressed about this with a girl joining tonight. Remi took off this afternoon, ending Leg Five. I just stayed on board, cleaning up and enjoying a little peace.
It was a pretty intense week. Geja needed more attention than usual, and the guys were so much more in party mode than I was. Didn’t burn much diesel, though, with plenty of wind to get us down the coast from Italy. Just need to get the toilet flowing again for an enjoyable homecoming leg back to Croatia.