August 20, 2019
After some boat cleaning and maintenance the following morning, we were ready to set sail by early afternoon for Monaco. It would be short and sweet, just 12 miles up the coast. The plan from there was to anchor in a nearby bay and to dinghy into town to take Monte Carlo by storm for one night before leaving the following evening for our overnight passage to Corsica. As neither of us had ever been to Monte Carlo, we were both curious to see what this reputedly strange place was all about. It was a bit bittersweet to say goodbye to our beautiful spot off Paloma Beach (especially since nothing had gone wrong with the boat here), though we were excited to be moving onwards to our final stop along the Riviera before crossing to the French and Italian islands.
I am very unhappy to report that when we attempted to unfurl our mainsail, it again got snagged about halfway out. It appears our sail woes are not yet over. We couldn’t understand it - we’d removed all the battens, which seemed to have been the offending items, and gotten the rip repaired and the sail reshaped. Upon closer inspection, it did seem as if the top of the sail was a lot baggier than the bottom, and we could not for the life of us get it to go into the mast smoothly. It had all these ripples and folds in it and just looked a mess. After persevering with it and using the Wheel of Death when it occasionally snagged, we did manage to get the whole thing out. What a royal pain. We are not sure what to do from here, but we'd have to do something, as not being able to furl your mainsail in even moderate winds is a huge safety hazard. Both of us at this point are wishing we had gone lower tech and just gotten slab reefing. The purported convenience of in-mast furling was not turning out to be convenient at all, and we missed the days when a simple manual hoist of the halyard would reliably get the sail up and down, no matter the wind conditions. In reality, our issue is likely not with the in-mast furling system itself but more to do with the fact that our mainsail is almost ten years old and at the end of its life. It appears our last-ditch effort to prolong its life didn’t work as well as we'd hoped. It wouldn't be an issue for this sail, as winds were light and we only had about 10 miles left to go. Our overnight crossing to Corsica would be a different story however, and we are a bit wary to tackle it with our sail in this condition. First things first though - let's get Florence to Monte Carlo and get her safely anchored up.
As we sailed along the coast into Monaco, we could see the architecture begin to change. The chateaus of the French Riviera were becoming replaced by larger buildings and eventually by a mass of high rises. It appears we were approaching the infamous Monte Carlo! While it didn't look like the most charming place, it certainly looked novel and well-worth exploring for a night. And how many people can say that they sailed their boat into Monte Carlo for a night out on the town? Not wanting to deal with the large, soulless-looking and no doubt extortionate marina, we sailed passed Monte Carlo to a bay about a mile beyond. While it was a large bay, it was also quite deep and most of it appeared to be weed rather than sand. It took us a couple gos to be comfortable we were dug. There was no wind to speak of, so we couldn't use our usual technique to anchor and had to instead use the engine to reverse on it (this is indeed how most people anchor I believe). Once dug, we decided to warm up for our evening excursion with some cocktails and music before going for an evening swim. I will say, diving into the ocean with the high rises of Monte Carlo looming in the background was a singularly cool experience.
It was time to get dressed up for our night on the town. After a quick rummage through my closet, it became clear I didn’t have anything that could remotely be considered Monte Carlo appropriate and certainly nothing in the way of shoes other than sandals. Perhaps I had been a bit too mercenary when cleaning out my wardrobe for the boat, keeping only a handful of shorts, t-shirts, and sundresses. I'm not complaining, as it has actually been one of the aspects of boat life I've unexpectedly really enjoyed. The freedom of not having to buy expensive clothes and not worrying about what you look like at all times (or ever) has been so liberating. And my complexion seems to be thanking me for basically not ever wearing makeup. Though on the odd occasion where dressing up is called for, you are a bit scuppered. I ended up just going with the shortest dress I could find and figured this would likely fit somewhere at the far end of the Classy/Slutty fashion spectrum of Monte Carlo. For his part, Stephen spent about 20 minutes digging under the floorboards for his one pair of proper shoes, as we assumed the hotels and casinos in town might turn away a bloke in flip flops. Scrubbed up and dressed in our not-so-best, we hopped in the dinghy and began the mile-long journey towards town. It was dark at this point, but the town was lit up like a Christmas tree, so we could see clearly on our approach to a little beach tucked right up under one of the high rise hotels. We tied the dinghy around a rock and crept up into the town, feeling a little bit like trespassers. How many people arrive to Monte Carlo by dinghy? I assume it's more common to arrive by Lamborghini. We waltzed hand and hand into town to check out the ridiculousness that is Monte Carlo. We strolled around the marina and a section of the Formula 1 race track. We then ventured to the famous casino, which we decided to forgo in the name of saving our luck and our money for Florence, both of which we would undoubtedly need.
We sauntered into the neighbouring hotel's swanky bar, which looked the picture of an old-school, New York-style hotel bar, with the deep velvet banquettes, dark wood, low lighting, and live jazz band playing. We perched at the bar to order a couple cocktails at the very reasonable price of EUR40 a pop, which we sipped sloooowly, knowing it would be one and done, enjoying the jazz. We saw at least 3 poor gentlemen get turned away at the door for wearing shorts and/or sandals, which we found funny as they let me in wearing a scrap of cheap fabric and sandals - different strokes, I suppose. It was getting a bit late at this point, and we were starving and not willing to sell Flo to pay for another round, so we decided to move on.
We wandered along the main drag again and found a lively-looking restaurant with sidewalk seating and good music. We split a pizza and some wine while enjoying the top-notch people watching along the sidewalk. It amounted to one of the more interesting parades I'd seen. I'd like to say we spent the rest of the night going full Wolf Pack - getting sloppy drunk, hitting the blackjack table hard, and waking up the next morning in a trashed hotel room with Mike Tyson's tiger, but alas it was not to be this time around. It was past midnight and Team Florence had to be semi-responsible and head back to the boat for a mini dance party on deck before hitting the hay. The following day was our overnight passage to Corsica, which would be about 100 nautical miles and through a stretch of water that can experience some serious seas. The thought of attempting that crossing hungover sounded like hell on earth, so Florence's crew were soundly asleep below deck by 1 AM, like the lame-asses we are. We can now tick Monte Carlo off the list - I can't say we'd be in a rush to go back, but it was a cool experience nonetheless.
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