Steve had us up early again and we went on a beam reach for four hours to the northern tip of the Tuscan Island of Capraia.  The steep sides of the island are covered with maquis with little signs of cultivation. After clearing the Formiche rocks we bore away down the eastern side of the island with Porto Capraia on the bow and Capraia village high on the port side.

Once inside the harbour we waited for three Italian yachts to leave so that we could drop our anchor over by the east wall and back up to the west wall by the bars and shops.  The port is small, semi-circular and at this time of the year very quiet.  After lunch most of the crew went walking in the hills while I tidied up the boat and had a siesta.  Tony took his watercolours onto the sea wall and painted the scene in the Visitor’s Log. All afternoon the pied wagtails flew around and strutted along the quay with their tails living up to their names. In the early evening the swallows came swooping around the bay on their migration north.  I like to think that some of these are the same ones that will circle our garden back in Norwich later in the year.

Nagging doubts had been eating away at the back of my mind.   Coming into Capraia the fuel gauge was reading well above full despite motoring for part of the time of the way across.  I felt certain that the tank had been filled last autumn. Maybe we hadn’t used as much as I thought.  The trip back from Isola Capraia to San Remo is about 110nM which at 5kts is 22 hours or 44 litres of fuel if we had to motor all the way.  No problem.

A south westerly blow was forecast for the evening by the Italians on Ch68 but during the day we were motor sailing and still the fuel gauge hadn’t dropped from a point above “Full”.

“Let’s dip the tank” said Steve. He and I looked under the bed in the starboard aft cabin and Steve took the inspection cap off the tank and with it came the sender unit.  We could see diesel and our bamboo dip stick gave a depth of 6 cm which in the very flat tank gave 30/40 litres of fuel left.  Quite a lot but once the seeds of doubt are sown then caution rules and we sailed slowly through the afternoon until the blow came in the early evening and we reached at 7kts with very small sails in 30kts of wind.

Compromis sailed right up to the entrance of San Remo but now I had to start the engine so we could tie up at the fuel berth.  Having got inside the harbour was a relief but not until we were lashed to the pontoon would the nagging doubts be finally put to rest.  There was 20kts of wind blowing off the pontoon and every time we slowed down to come alongside the bows were blown off and we had to go around again. After the third attempt John went on the bow, I drove Compromis straight at the pontoon and he stepped ashore with a bow line in his hand.  The line should have been attached to the boat but it wasn’t.  How stupid would it be to run out of diesel now and be blown down on the boats at the other side of the harbour but we didn’t and the next attempt was successful.  As we tied up to the fuel berth the sun came up and later 140 litres of diesel went into the tank which means that our calculated 30/40 litres was pretty close.

PS.  The sender unit has been replaced but I also run a fuel log as a backup. Should have done that before. 

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