Update From Italy

After a lovely week in Montenegro, we got the forecast we were waiting for, bought duty-free fuel and cast off. When we motored the 8 miles out of the bay there was no wind, so we kept motoring -150 miles to Otranto, Italy. That took 30 hours, but at least we didn't have any wind against us.

The last time we had been to Otranto, Maggie had a look around and liked it, but I never got off the boat, so it was something new for me. She was right.  It's a very old city enclosed by ancient fortifications and a moat, and it is situated beside a harbour with sandy beaches.  The harbour has a sand bottom, so the holding is good, but the anchorage is open to the east and swells come in and can make things rolly.  This time we spent 5 nights at anchor with only one rolly night.

It's a small town so we were starting to get antsy to leave.  Again, we got a good forecast.  We cheered and weighed anchor to head south to Santa Maria di Leuca.  This time, though, it was 15 to 20 knots on the nose, so we turned back to Otranto for one more night.  Superstitiously, we promised never again to cheer leaving a port for fear of offending the local gods.  Fortunately, the next day when we tried again we made the 25 mile trip motor-sailing.  There we re-united with Lazy Bones and Neptune II, who were sailing over from Corfu. You may recall that we were all together in Montenegro but parted ways when we discovered that we needed to have a "boat stamp"in order to buy duty-free fuel, which we subsequently procured when H2OBO stayed behind.

One night in Leuca and we set off to cross the 70-mile-wide Bay of Taranto with a forecast for 10 to 20 knots on the beam.  This time that was exactly what we got, and it turned out to be the best day of sailing that we have had so far.

We raised anchor, set our sails, shut off the engine, set our course for Crotone and made between 6 and 8.5 knots the whole way.  It was exhilarating and makes up for a whole season's worth of motoring.  At 8.5 knots we reefed some sail.  Rather than let our Cape Horn wind pilot have all the fun, Maggie and I hand-steered the whole time - 10.5 hours.

Crotone was the destination because it had a good harbour where we could sit out the high winds that were forecasted for the next day.  And that's how it stands. We are all safely anchored here sitting out the winds.  Tonight we are having the birthday party for Maggie on board Lazy Bones that we were supposed to have in Corfu.  Tomorrow we will venture in to town to have a look. It will still be windy, and we might get a little wet in the dinghy ride over there, but we live to explore new places.

Branko