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A WEEKEND IN THE MED, MAY 2006
PART TWO: JANAS AND NAPOLEON BONAPARTE (continued)
Text and all pictures © matt@hhvferry.com except where stated

Top: The Moby Fantasy and Calabria in the shipyards at Genoa, seen from the departing Janas.

Above: The Via Adriatico arriving in Genoa.

Leaving Genoa for the shipping enthusiast is always an experience, particularly as you pass the shipyards to the east. All the ships previously mentioned were sailed past at close quarters and it was difficult at times to know which direction to look such was the array of impressive passenger shipping on display. A pleasant and unanticipated sight earlier had been the arrival of the Adriatica freighter Via Adriatico which links Genoa with Sicily. Unlike a couple of her sisters still in the Tirrenia Group’s combined fleets, she actually has the full Adriatica colours although alas not the winged lion on her funnel. Other arrivals during the afternoon had been Grimaldi’s Majestic and GNV's La Superba so the ferry terminal was also well stocked with ships come our departure time.

As we headed out to sea, we settled down in the card room for a quick game whilst we waited for the restaurants to open at 7.30pm. This they duly did and immediately the self-service was deluged by a long queue stretching back all the way from the servery area forward, back beyond the entrance at the aft end of the space. We continued playing for half an hour or so, waiting for the queue to die down but it never seemed to. About an hour later when we finally decided it was short enough to be worth waiting, the reason became apparent: there was only one crew member serving food, no clean knives or forks and a full restaurant. The food itself was very cheap compared to most companies: pasta, fresh fish and simple meat dishes were available and to their credit the food quality was more than adequate. [continued below]

Click here to continue the report

A post dinner G&T in the amidships bar brought us back into contact with Tirrenia’s serving system whereby you order and pay for your drinks from one counter before heading over to the main bar servery to hand over the chitty and have them prepare it for you. This was another manifestation of some of the eccentric qualities that seemingly betray Tirrenia’s state-owned status. They have a modern fleet but dedication to customer service still seems lacking. Although not full, this was a reasonably well populated Friday evening sailing yet the aft Show Bar remained resolutely shut, meaning the central bar area was pretty much packed throughout the evening and again in the morning. The slow service at the cafeteria likewise indicated that perhaps the satisfaction of passengers is not always the focus of the crew’s attention; indeed you could likewise question why, when the boarding time was stated as 5 o’clock, the two restaurants were not open until some two and a half hours later. And this is without mentioning the departure time issue, where presumably some passengers rush home or leave early from work to get to the ship by 6pm only for it to then be seemingly standard practice for it to sit in port for more than another hour. Although the ship was sparkling clean inside, the outside decks were another matter with areas roped off and almost all caked in salt which on most operators of such modern ships nowadays you would expect to have at least been hosed down at some stage in the past month or so.

The Janas herself is a well-fitted out ship but curiously uninteresting. She ticks all the right boxes for modern cruise ferry design, with contemporary décor and furnishing but without any of the wow factor that the best of the type have. This is perhaps as Tirrenia would want it – efficient passenger transport without some of the fripperies of cruise ship pretension that Minoan, Superfast or, more relevantly, GNV offer. To me however the ship and her crew seemed respectively uninspired and unenthused and one felt that a little bit more could be achieved with not much effort.

Arrival at Olbia the next morning was on schedule at 7.15. Already in port were the Moby Aki, Lloyd Sardegna’s Golfo Aranci and our ship’s half-sister Nuraghes: the latter presented a rather more massive appearance with her extra deck compared to our ship and berthing next her this was underlined as her equivalent passenger decks were several metres higher, although admittedly she had fully unloaded by this stage. Another of Tirrenia’s apparently unsuccessful fast ferries, the Capricorn, was laid up on the far side of the harbour: these ships seem to lie scattered across various ports of Italy’s West coast, never two in the same place but all out of use. [continued below]

Above: The Majestic.

Above and below: On nearly adjacent lay-up berths are The Tadla and the Taurus.

Above: A final view of the Scotia Prince, dwarfed by the Fantastic on the adjacent berth.

Above: The Isola Delle Stelle of Lloyd Sardegna, once the Bayard of Fred. Olsen.

Above: Displaying her new Looney Tunes livery, the Moby Fantasy was laid up awaiting the start of the new season.

Disembarking from the Janas I was pulled to one side after a customs dog began sniffing rather too enthusiastically at my rucksack; a second opinion was called for and a subsequent dog seemed equally excited by its smell. Richard casually sidled away in the direction of the terminal building, clearly wanting to put a reasonable distance between himself and his likely criminal companion. The police officer asked, “Do you have drugs?”
I replied “No”
“If you say ‘no’, and we find them, you know you will be in big trouble”
“I don’t have any”.
“But if you admit now, hand them over, there will be no problem”
“Ah”
I suddenly found myself thinking that perhaps it would be safest to admit to possession now just in case some had inadvertently found its way into my bag. But I held my nerve. Slowly he unpacked the rucksack item by item, although it wasn’t much of a thorough search: I have come to the opinion after several of these searches from the Moroccan, Spanish and Italian police that if I was interested in drug smuggling, the best place to hide them would be in film cartridges as, despite the unusual volume of these I usually have with me, they are neither questioned nor competently searched beyond a quick shake. The dogs’ enthusiasm unanswered, the officer carefully repacked my bag and let me on my way.

By this time however, we had missed the connecting buses to Palau and, with a broadly blank face at the terminal’s information desk when enquiring about onward buses from there which would arrive at Porto Torres in time for our late afternoon departure, we decided to give our planned couple of return sailings over to La Maddalena a miss and play it safe (and leisurely) by heading direct to Porto Torres.

After a train and then bus journey (interrupted by a stopover in Sassari) we stepped off our bus in Porto Torres and right before us was the sight of the Napoleon Bonaparte reversing onto her berth, some distance away from the other ferries at the main passenger terminal on the other side of the harbour (one could make out GNV and Tirrenia funnels but not much else). After photographing her towering over the neighbouring fishing boats we headed to a restaurant for an early lunch on its terrace with a view of the NB in the distance. Fully replenished, it was time to head towards our ship. SNCM’s base in Porto Torres is not signposted at all other than the huge presence of their ships which, although obviously a clear indication in itself, does not remove the slight doubt as to whether you should present yourself first to the main ferry terminal. This is not the case however and SNCM have their very own little terminal in the guise of a ramshackle concrete building which gives all the impressions of having once been a public toilet block. Wandering in here to try to check in and ascertain boarding times I was screeched at and shooed out by a female staff member who slammed the door shut and, from inside, flicked a switch which brought some metal shutters crashing down for an additional layer of protection from enquiring passengers.

This seemed slightly peculiar, but admittedly there were a couple of hours until departure time. It did however give some time for a thorough investigation of the little terminal. Round the back there was another door (or more precisely, an opening for a missing door), which revealed a room curiously filled almost to its roof with refuse. From here the screeching lady could be heard involved in an intense argument with another member of staff. Happily, after another half hour of waiting, the shutters came back up and we were able to check in, with boarding following soon after via the car deck. After some previous encounters with SNCM where carefully laid-plans have been undone by strike action, this was already an excellent start. [continued...]

Above: The Golfo Aranci and, just beyond, the Moby Aki at Olbia.

Above: The laid-up Capricorn.

Above: Nuraghes at Olbia - one feature she shares in particular with the Janas is the complete lack of any forward-facing windows other than the bridge.

Above: The Napoleon Bonaparte towering over everything else in the old harbour at Porto Torres.

Above: SNCM's charming little Porto Torres terminal.

Above: Waiting.