Tuesday 3 October 2017 – Venice – Certosa Marina

Well, we made it here, but it hasn’t been clear sailing, so to speak.  We woke up to a totally grey sky and it was cold.  For the past few days although it has been cold the sun has been shining and bringing some warmth.  Without that it was miserable..

The weather forecast didn’t show rain but looking at the sky that seem rather optimistic.  Nonetheless we set off.  We are anxious to get to Venice as that has been the goal throughout.

We left the marina just before half past 9.  I didn’t make any lunch.  I didn’t have enough bread to make sandwiches and we thought we might get in by say 2:30, time for a late lunch.  The trip was cold and boring.  It was persistently grey with no wind all the time.  There was even the odd spot of rain, but nothing to worry about.  As expected we just motored.  At about 2pm we got to the turning to go into Venice.  I don’t know what we expected, but it wasn’t what we got.  The channel to the city from the sea is huge.  There was a tide running against us of 2 knots.  It took over an hour to get to the lagoon!  For most of the time we couldn’t see anything that looked like the city, which was confusing.  It is bad enough coming into a new port, but when it doesn’t look anything like you expected and the visibility is rubbish it is a worry. 

But we were not going the wrong way.  We finally saw lots of Vaporettos and knew we were going the right way.  We even thought we caught site of the Bell Tower in St Mark’s square.

The island of Certosa, where our marina is was one of the first things we came to.  But going straight there was not what Richard had in mind.  He was determined to take a detour right up to St Marks Square, saying this was a once in a lifetime thing to do in our own boat.  The problem was that the weather was still rubbish, it was getting very late and we hadn’t eaten, and the lagoon was amazingly choppy (which in the light of the constant traffic was not surprising).  Mind you the number of boats around is still nothing compared with Chichester Harbour on a racing weekend!  So we did get up to St Marks and within sight of the beginning of the Grand Canal.  We took the obligatory photos and then headed back to Certosa.

For a change when I rang up the marina on the VHF I got a reply and eventually a man in a rib came and took us to our berth.  The berths are alongside finger berths, which we could have handled ourselves (well, maybe) but the marina man and a neighbour did all the tying up.  The pontoon is rather low, so I need my fender step.  It has been buried in the bottom of a locker for 3 years, so it is a bit deflated, but I am able to get on an off.

Just after we tied up, the rain came.  That makes a change for us to be tucked away inside before it starts to rain.

My first impressions of the marina are not great.  I am sure a lot of that has to do with the weather, but there are other problems.  Firstly the toilet and shower block it very far from the pontoons.  They say 300 meters but I think it is more like ¼ of a mile.  The second problem is that this is another place where you are not allowed to discharge any detergent into the sea.  Given how far away the facilities are this is going to make staying on board for any prolonged period difficult.  They don’t have their own pump our facilities and say they send someone from outside to do it, at a price!  I don’t think I want to stay here under these conditions for 8 days.  So maybe we will leave early and take a motor trip on the mainland before we fly home.  But of course we must first put the boat to bed as it were.

Having made the long walk to the facilities, at about 5pm we stayed around, had showers a drink and dinner at the hotel where we were the only people in  the dining room.  Well, they do admit that it is now out of season.  The weather is supposed to get a bit better tomorrow, so perhaps we will go to the centre for the day.