06 April 2011; At Sea.

 Today we had a restful day at sea and apart from all onboard taking that rest, the wind did the same and the sea was as flat as a mirror with only occasionally a little ripple. The cold wind of yesterday had left the skies crystal clear and that made it possible to see the mountain tops of Corse at almost 40 miles away. That is quite unusual as the Med. with its warm temperatures tends to be quite hazy and the proximity of Africa adding quite often sandy dust to the air. There was none of that today. It was not very warm but beautiful weather nonetheless. According to the weather chart, it is supposed to remain like that at least for two days more and that would mean a wind free day in La Spezia. That will be most welcome, as we have to anchor there and the anchorage is not that wide. So I keeping my fingers crossed and hope that the weather guru’s have looked into the right crystal ball.

We sailed the whole day on a North Easterly course from Mahon to La Spezia and that keeps us away from any land until about 10 pm. Then we will pass Cape Corse, the most northern part of the island. As most of the shipping traffic follows the coastline of Italy, France and Spain where the big ports are, we hardly saw any ships. It would only be a cruise ship that would be on such a strange run from Menorca to Italy. Another odd thing is that this area of the Med. does not have a name. All around Italy the seas have their own specific name. Tonight around midnight we enter the Ligurian Sea located under Genoa, West of the Italian mainland we have the Tyrrhenian Sea and on the East side the Adriatic Sea. There are local names to the south of the country as well. But here; the stretch of water between the East coast of Spain and the West side of the islands of Corse and Sardegna there is nothing. It is just called the Mediterranean Sea. Only when you come close to Marseille then the name Gulf of Lions pops up. I would not have been amazed if they had called this whole area the Balearic Sea of something but for some reason or the other that never happened.

We still knew where we were of course; regardless of sailing through a nameless area or not. We did so with the enormous speed of 10 knots an hour. Going full speed would have meant arriving around 6 pm. today in La Spezia. Hardly anybody would go ashore, providing that we would be able to get the Customs out to clear the ship. On top of that, La Spezia is an industrial city and not known for is exuberant nightlife. Thus we spent a relaxing day at sea and used the time to recharge the battery’s as we have now four hectic days coming with four Italian ports in a row. It could have been even more, as Genoa, Livorno and Elba are close by as well. However as we are supposed to sail the whole Med. Including Egypt and Israel, so we can only pick a few.

Although the sea might be empty, the air is not. The area is quite well guarded by all sorts of control stations that monitor shipping. The most active one is Cape Ferrat located to the south of Monte Carlo. Although they are a French coastal station, its seems that they have decided that this whole sea area belongs to France and so ships up to 40 miles away are being called for their details. This is becoming more and more a useless exercise as everybody with an AIS receiver can now see most of the ships details but they are still doing it. Thus in the early evening, when we were more then 50 miles away from the coast, we had to tell to a French station that a Dutch ship with mainly Americans onboard was travelling from Spain to Italy. How about that for an international mix.

Tomorrow we will be in La Spezia and we are anchoring as the docks are reserved for the cargo ships, it will be easier to get into downtown that way anyway. It should be wind still and sunny but chilly.