Syracusa to Italy and around the Italian Boot!

Having spent a peaceful night on anchor in Syracusa, we left early for the overnight cruise across to Crotone, which is at the back of the ball of the Italian Boot.  We had a great sail during most of the day, although the wind dropped at sunset. That said it wasn’t long and we soon found ourselves doing 9.5 knots hurtling through the darkness. As great as it was, it was a bit scary so we soon reefed her back to a comfortable 7 knots.

The wind wasn’t the only thing that made the night sail one of the more memorable, which is a good thing when trying to fight off the waves of tiredness that periodically come creeping up on you. it was a very busy night with us having to cross the path of numerous tankers. Under normal circumstances, these big buggers have to give way to little old us when under sail. That is if the captains are willing to follow the rule book!  Fortunately Seaclusion is fitted with AIS (Automatic Identification System) which is brilliant because not only does it show you the other ships around you but it also shows you their speed and course, and their name so you can contact them if you feel you are on a collision courses, sadly it doesn’t account for stubborn captains as we soon found out when I called one such tanker up to ask its intentions, the answer received was “you are on our port side, you move”. When I pointed out that we were a sailing boat under sail and had priority the answer was still move! So we did!.

We arrived in Crotone, which was a quaint little fishing village, not much to see really, but funnily enough it had an abundance of great fish restaurants.

Crotone

We stayed In Crotone for 2 nights catching up on some sleep and then made our way across the bay to Gallipoli on the heal.

Gallipoli

Unfortunately in entering the marina, we managed to pick up some rubbish around the prop which made reversing a little interesting! That said, once we were safely tucked up, we tested it a few times and the problem seemed to have resolved itself, at least it wasn’t vibrating like it had been.

We had a nice evening on board and then spent the morning doing the sight seeing thing.

We left just after lunchtime to sail to Santa Maria di Leuca, on the very bottom of the stiletto! With half an hour under engine the vibration returned under engine so spent the day tacking in light winds. Mooring again was not so easy as power in reverse was halved,  but we managed it all the same. Grabbed a quick bite to eat and settled in for the night.

Santa Maria di Leuca

Next mooring I donned my bikini and lowered myself into the water, equipped with mask and snorkel  to take a look. Very quickly I resurfaced with a request for our emergency dive gear and a knife! Here’s what I removed wrapped around the prop!.

We stayed a 2^nd night there and left early to round the corner up to Otranto. Forecasted 4 gusting 5 but by mid morning, it was soon up to a 6, on our nose  so the tacking commenced. This is our track for the day.

We finally arrived in Otranto a little weather beaten only to be told there was no room at the inn, but we could stay on the commercial quay for the night. No water, no power and one of us had to stay on board at all times, which laid to bed our hopes to go walkabout and a quick bite to eat out!. Still at least it was free!

We didn’t even need our own deck light as the lifeboat moored in  front of us had two spotlights shining on us, that and the surroundings not being the most romantic of settings we have stayed, we had a lovely dinner on board, down below! We had just turned in when just before midnight, there was a loud and prolonged rumbling noise at our bow. I dutifully stuck my head out of the hatch only to see that a huge fishing boat had rocked up and moored literally 2 foot off our bow. My nose couldn’t help but wrinkle up at the smell and I very quickly ducked back down and shut the hatch behind me! The commotion of the fish being offloaded onto a lorry and the cleaning of their nets didn’t help with our sleep regime, I have to say and we both agreed it was best not to try to flush the toilet given the amount of fish debris they were tipping into the water, didn’t fancy having to remove more fish from our inlets!

Given the position we were in we decided that despite north westerlies being forecasted (we were going north west!), force 4 in the morning, 5 in the afternoon, we would get up at dawn and leave at 6 to try to get to our next port of call Brindisi, further up the Italian coast, as quickly as possible. Well if we thought the day before was hard, we were wrong. Our track says it all.

40 miles in a straight line, we actually did 93, the force 5 was a 6 gusting 7, the 1.5 meter swells were 3 meters swell and more often than not, our decks were awash with water. 14 hours later, drenched and exhausted with 3 miles to go, David said my face said it all, we were having to tack so hard and so often, I didn’t believe we were ever going to get there. Despite knowing  that under engine we were only like to make 2 ½ knots per hour over ground, if we were lucky, we gave up with the sails and finally arrived under engine to moor in 30 knots of wind. My legs were definitely shaking during that one!  At the start of the day, David was convinced that with all the winching he  was doing that it was much better than going to the gym, however after nearly 14 hours of it, he had changed his mind !

Still so tired the following day, when David went to use the handheld VHF  to test it, and kept asking me if I could hear him, and I couldn’t, perplexed at the problem, that was until after about 6 attempts, I remembered we had turned the main VHF’s volume right down on arrival the day before. Worse was to come, there is a legal requirement for all dinghys to have the yachts name on them, it also covers them for insurance purposes etc. So having acquired a black permanent marker pen, I  then attempted to write our boat name on the side of the dinghy, can you spot the mistake ? At lease David got it right on the other side!

Given the persistent north westerlie winds, we decided to stay up in Brindisi for a couple of days, to recover,  and explore this part of Italy by land!

Monopoli

Putignano

Alberobello

Most famous for its hundreds of trulli hosues, some dating back to the 14th century.  By definition a trullo  is a traditional dry stone hut with a conical roof. Their style of construction is specific to the Itris Valley. They were generally constructed as temporary field shelters and storehouses or as permanent dwellings by small proprietors or agricultural labourers. We had some lunch in one and as they combine a number into one dwelling, they are not as small as you think and surprising cool in the heat of June.

Locorotondo

Ostuni

We also stopped in Brindisi for a quick look around, but there really wasn’t much to write home about except its one monument!.

The only other highlight, was having a taxi driver called Roberto, who was a larger than life individual, who reminded David of Buster Bloodvessel, but this one was a DJ, specialising in 70’s / 80’s dance music, right up David’s street, we also caught him doing a bit of Karaoke as well.

Now looking at the forecast with yet more North westerlies forecasted for the next week, have decided to leave the shores of Italy and head over to Montenegro! Next post will be from there.