Corsica and Elba Cruise 2016 (lots pictures)

[pks1702]

Fantastic post.

The images and colours are stunning, some superb anchorages.

Thanks for posting

 

[jfm]

That Seabob seems to go well. I noticed you can set the max depth for a dive but are there any other safety features (such as a 'dead man' -type switch with the Pilot Belt)?

Hi K. To make it go you have to squeeze the trigger on the right handle - as soon as you let go of the trigger it stops, so that is the "dead man" feature. It works well

I bought the pilot belt but haven't used it yet. I might soon. I've had a tough time on Seabob generally - tough on wallet I mean. I have had the orange one for nearly 2 years and it has been brilliant, justifying (in a man-maths way) the €8k price tag. Literally a few days before we left for Corsica it broke - water got into the LCD display. It was 2 weeks inside warranty so I gave it to the Seabob dealer in beaulieu sur mer, a nice crowd, and they will try to fix it over next few months. I needed one asap for our holiday and there were zero in stock in France, so the dealer got me a nearly new but second hand one in 48 hours for about 80% of the new price. Annoyingly it is red and red+ orange isn't a combo you would choose, but no big deal, because they solved my problem (for another large payment).

The new (secondhand) one is F5S not F5 like my previous one, and it is a LOT faster. It is 680 vs 480N of thrust, and 4 vs 2.5KW. (It is a few kg heavier because 38 vs 23Ah of battery). It begins to make your arms feel tired so I might try the belt, maybe next season.

According to Google, the manufacturer Cayago doesn't have a great reputation in making warranty repairs and they prefer to blame the customer, but I'll see how it goes and report back.

It's a great toy though. Really quite powerful. Swimming under the boat as shown in the video is very easy - you just point it down and pull the trigger. Later on I did the whole length of the boat, pretty easily. It has loads of settings and a PIN number so you can limit the depth and speed for children. We also did a load of flyboarding before the Corsica cruise - I have pictures/drone pics to post later

 

[alt]

I have no words!

Makes me wonder why I leave my boat on the West of Ireland. I need to make more time for living and less time working... the joys of being 'young' grrr :/ Maybe next year

 

[petem]

Looks like you had a great time JFM, I'm vvvvvvvvv jealous!

I always think that Girolata looks great, deffo on my bucket list.

 

[Pinnacle]

Thks J. Great post.

I was standing in the lifeboat station at Cromer today. I can report the the sea was not blue..........

 

[Nick_H]

Great pics and video John, mostly areas we know well but a couple of bays I don't think we've yet visited. I think the weather has been very settled generally across the western med this summer, we also had light winds going west as far as Marseille, and also around Antibes.

I particularly like the pics where the boat appears to be levitating!

 

[rafiki_]

Great vid and pics JFM. Beautiful islands and coves. The Seabob looks fantastic fun too.

 

[MapisM]

Maybe all Italian companies are really mafia money laundering businesses and their customers are incidental to the operation?

Naah. If that would be true, the Country would be much better off, financially.
It's just that we are romantic folks, more focused on lifestyle rather than on making money...

 

[scubaman]

The new (secondhand) one is F5S not F5 like my previous one, and it is a LOT faster. It is 680 vs 480N of thrust, and 4 vs 2.5KW. (It is a few kg heavier because 38 vs 23Ah of battery). It begins to make your arms feel tired so I might try the belt, maybe next season.

Thank you for the info. You could tell that it's fast by the way the operators skin flapped on his back on the vid .

Seems a nice toy and looks right at home in that environment. A bit pricey though for what it is if you compare it to a dive scooter. Looks great fun in any case.

 

[Andrew M]

Lovely, lovely set of photos and report, thanks for taking the time to do it.

The places and the boat just look stunning.

Andy

 

[Portofino]

Echoeing others - great pic ,s and vid s
We are still here - from when we saw Match - last week - still entertaining various sets of family /friends until - 5 Oct

 

[FirstMate II]

Another amazing report . Great Photos

 

[BruceK]

Wow. Great seas, magic boat, fantastic scenery. You have it all plus the ability to get that fantastic shot of it all on the camera .... which I am really envious of. Thank you for sharing. It's an inspiration to visit them for myself.

 

[benjenbav]

All looks wonderful, including the weather. I guess the rainy days and Mondays didn't show up.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Great report jfm, thanks for posting. Looks like you had a fantastic time, although dropping c.€8k for a 'spare' Seabob shows true commitment to the cause . To solve your colour mismatch - why not get them both painted to match (see what I did there?) the mothership, like the Laser?

Sorry for the nerdy question - but in this pic, can you recall what height your drone was at? Looks high....

 

[jfm]

Yup - the cause of making a lot of profit for Cayago!

I am going to see about disassembly this winter - if I can I will get the red one painted. I'm pretty sure they are all painted anyway, as opposed to a native colour dye in the plastic mouldings. If I can disassemble I can bring the parts back for painting at Uk prices
I'm thinking metallic yellow

I'm pretty sure that picture is 100m altitude. a couple of days later, at the rocks nr Porto/Girolata, I wanted to go higher and I went into settings mid-flight and remember changing it from 100m to 200m limit. Thus, I'm 100% sure it was 100m limit on the day that picture was taken. And that pic is at its highest part of the flight, so I can say 100m with confidence. FWIW Cavallo airport was very nearby, erk

That pic shows need for polarising filter, which I haven't got round to buying yet

 

[RobWales]

Yes Rob the hard top was added later. When Match was built the hard top option for sq78 was being designed and drawn, but wasn't ready for my boat, so they fitted it after 2nd season on the boat. Thread here http://forums.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?421121-Fairline-Squadron-78-refit-fit-Hard-Top. It's a really nice addition. You're right that it wasn't installed for the Clarkson movie, but it was for the Caspar/Joe movie

Is the Casper/Joe vid out there in the public domain per chance?
(Great read on the roof thread btw)

 

[Hurricane]

That pic shows need for polarising filter, which I haven't got round to buying yet

I think the polarising filters work but it is difficult to say without trying the same shot with and without the filter.
I bought the pack of 3 filters that were recommended on another thread - 1 is a polarising filter and the other 2 are Neutral Density filters.
The polarising one has a built in ring that you can twist when the filter is fully tightened.

For shots other than into the water, I've been using the ND8 filter and I'm not sure it is doing what I expected.
I was hoping that it would reduce the contrast between JW's stark white gelcoat and the surrounding image.
I'm probably going to go back to the supplied filter for shots that I don't need the polarising filter.

I'm actually a bit disappointed by the quality of the single shot image.
I'm using raw images and correcting them in Photoshop's Camera Raw pre-processor.
When I researched the problem, it seems that there is a lot of vibration which can't be corrected.
OTOH video images are superb.
Maybe the next generation drones will produce better still pics.

This is the best still pic that I've managed to do with the Phantom so far.
(Taken with the polarising filter and converted from raw using Adobe Camera Raw)

 

[jfm]

Is the Casper/Joe vid out there in the public domain per chance?
(Great read on the roof thread btw)

Full video has to be bought but the official trailer is here and my boat is in for a few seconds early on then at 1:50 in the video, with nice Antibes old town in the background


Thread here http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthrea...t-on-movie-Leicester-Square-premier-next-week

 

[Truro Ex Pat]

Great post, I was going to ask about the marina’s and cost, I know you have already said you had to book via an agent but is it possible to book berths for 18 meter and what are the costs is it totally mad! or just a bit insane!
We are down in Spain and wondered about Italy but just know nothing about the marinas and the area and is easy to get into marina or almost impossible?