Short and medium term goals are important when you are cruising. In the longer term, the whole purpose of a voyage tends to be less concrete. For now, Venice has been the object of this…

I have written before about great arrivals – Sydney, Rio, New York and Archangel’sk. Unquestionably, Venice must be added to this list. Tired and relieved to have finally arrived, we motored along Canal di San…

If you ever wondered how Venetian gondoliers learn their trade, I can tell you. At Certosa Island, beside our berth, a young, pheromonal Italian lad is sculling up and down under the close guidance of…

We didn’t join the tourist queue for a ride in a gondola, but sitting in the shade with a campari spritz I could watch these boatmen all day.  Gondolas look so ungainly, but in the…

I had not appreciated that all transportation in Venice is by water. Beautifully varnished water taxis, service barges, ambulances, fire fighting vessels, vaporetti, cruise ships and garbage boats bring whole new meaning to the concept…

Venetian customs and immigration formalities are easy, once you find out how to do it. In most countries there is a designated anchorage where vessels must stop, displaying a Q flag (“my vessel is healthy and…

Tourism and Venice go hand in hand. With a shrinking resident population (currently 56,000) Venice receives more than 22 million tourists annually. Locals here say that the parlous future of this city is defined by…

This can no longer be ignored. Her favoured drug, of course, has always been the iPhone. In our previous post there is a picture of Miss Perfect seated in the dinghy with her eyes glued…

Jasper is a keen soccer player and after much effort he managed to infect us with a modicum of interest in the game. Sadly he has had to fly home to Sydney, back to his…

Before she left Venice Maxine insisted that we get up at 5 am and take Tainui out for a photo shoot in front of the Doge’s Palace, before the waterway got too busy. It was…

At noon, central Venice is unbearably crowded. Morbidly obese Amercans named Chuck and Darlene with Very Loud Voices; bewildered and tired backpackers with dangling sneakers; Japanese parties with matching cameras and all making V signs;…

Last night I sat in the cockpit with a glass of red, marveling at the spectacular light show as a line of black thunderstorms approached from the northeast. Continuous sheet lightning with little thunder, reminding…

I ought to be able to report that provisioning today was a tedious business. It was not. I wandered through San Pietro and found myself at a cafe watching the Italy-Uruguay match. With the aid…

I had two jobs on today’s list – visits to Grand Scuola and the church of San Rocco and the inevitable SIM card nonsense at a Vodaphone shop. In San Pietro I was waylaid. I…

After a hearty Tainui breakfast (coffee, a cigarette, Metamucil, fluoxetine and paracetamol) I let go our lines at dawn and Tainui slipped out of Venice on the last of the ebb. A grey morning with…