69 – Italia Sailing!

One of the best things about sailing with you buddies (besides the sailing with your buddies), is getting great pictures of your boats under sail.  We love our boats and take copious amounts of pictures of them at anchor and in harbors, but under sail is the best and it's impossible to do by yourself.  On our sail from Corsica to Italy's Aeolian Islands, Alison got some great pictures of our boat (in fact, she's taken every great picture of our boat)!  Thank you, Alison!

We had a 3 day sail from Bonifacio, Corsica over to the volcanic island of Stromboli where we'd hoped to drop anchor in a harbor with a view of the live volcano.  Sailing in was amazing.  We could see the lava streaming down the side of the mountain and the smoke coming out of the top, However, the winds picked up as we approached making our proposed anchorage too exposed. So, we headed a few miles south to Panarea Island and found a wonderful protected harbor.  

While we didn't get to see the volcano at night, the wonderful harbor and the beautiful island, more than made up for it.  Alison and I paddleboarded (well, I was on the paddleboard so that counts right?) over the island and walked into town while the boys stayed behind.  The town itself was adorable with several small shops including a produce market, a very decently stocked grocery store and a wonderful bakery.  The only road, while heavy with golf cart traffic, was fun to walk on with views of the sea, whitewashed houses and lots of flowers.  It was great to stretch our legs after the passage and we had a great time walking around.

A little later, the boys decided to go ashore too so we walked the other direction away from town.  This would take us towards the more secluded cliffs, ancient ruins and a working farm we were told had 3 donkeys.  It didn't take us long to find the farm.  The owner welcomed us in and showed us all around.  While very rustic, the house and area around the farm was also paradise.  The views were stunning and the privacy it afforded looked perfect.  While we did see a few chickens,  we never could find the donkeys (we even brought them carrots)!  

 

The next morning, we took advantage of our good weather window and made the crossing over to the Messina Straight.  This narrow - its only 2 miles wide - strip of water separates mainland Italy and Sicily and also connects the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Ionian Sea.  We motored through the swift currents of the narrowest part but were able to resume sailing until we found a great spot to anchor for the night.   In the interest of time, we decided to continue on rather than explore Sicily - I know we'll have to come back one day.

Again, in the interest of time and because we were supposed to have the wind direction we wanted, we decided to take the next 2 days and sail the 142 miles across the large bay that separates the sole of the Italian boot with the heel.  Our sail was mostly good albeit a but tiring but we made it and dropped anchor for the night near the lighthouse of Santa Maria de Leuca.  

The next morning, Dan and Alison decided to slow the pace down a bit so we were once again sailing solo.  We had a pretty great sail north up to the wonderful protected harbor of Capo D'otranto.  Arriving just after sunset, we dropped anchor within sight of the lighthouse and enjoyed the songs of the cicadas who apparently live in the surrounding woods.  Add to that the fact that we had the entire bay to ourselves and we were very happy sailors.  However, the seclusion was short lived.  We'd already decided to stay an extra day to both relax and get a boat chore done so we were still there mid-morning when the day boats from nearby Otranto started arriving in droves. Very soon, our quiet anchorage was transformed into party central.  We finished our boat chore and decided to join in on the fun.   We had a blissful afternoon of swimming and paddleboarding.   As is so typical of Italians, the people we met were wonderful.  Two guys swam out from shore (Pedro said it was only about 600 feet or so but looked further to me) to tell us that they were admiring our boat from ashore and wanted to say hello.  Not long afterwards, another man paddleboarded up to us enthralled with the fact that we'd sailed from Florida. We spoke for quite a long time before he had to return back to his boat.  He returned just a few minutes later (still on the paddleboard) with a bag filled with Taralli (local baked treats something like a savory biscotti) that he said his grandmother had made.  They were absolutely delicious and we're still eating on them.  Italian hospitality certainly seems unending.  

Party time was over so the next day we continued north.  We took 2 more days to sail the next 100 miles up to the town of Bari so we could check out of Italy before setting sail for Montenegro.  Our sail to Bari was a typical mixed bag of good and not so good sailing.  The predominant winds for the Adratic Sea are from the north so if you are sailing that way, you can expect to have a lot of tacking back and forth and we certainly did. The beautiful coastline we were traversing however made the trip enjoyable.  We were excited to see from sea the cities of Monopoli and Pugliano a Mare that we'd visited last March.  While I couldn't really get a great picture, trust me that they are just as beautiful!

We arrived the next day in Bari and were able to get a marina slip for a few days so we could get caught up on some additional boat maintenance and explore Bari. For some reason, we'd skipped over Bari on our previous trip mistakenly believing that is was just an industrial city.  We couldn't have been more wrong.  While our marina was in an industrial port area, we were just a couple of miles away from the adorable old town. It's very difficult to explain but the city is quite different from most others we'd experienced.  First of all, it's very much a local's city rather than a tourist one.  The tiny streets weave all throughout the old town where it's residents all sit out in front of their houses socializing.  Another very popular thing to do is pack up diner or buy something from the street vendors, grab a card game and congregate on the Lungomare.  This boardwalk runs all along the harbor front for a mile or so and is the absolute hub of activity every night for the locals.  It doesn't take long to feel like one of them.  Another thing Bari is very famous for is it's Strada delle Orecchiette.  This is a street (actually there are a few but this gets the publicity) where the local ladies sit outside of their houses and make the local pasta called Orecchiette (it means little ears and that's kind of what it looks like).  It's become so popular that they sell it to the tourists who happen by.  

The marina we found was also great.  We'd planned to only stay for 2 days bur liked it so much that we decided to stay for 4.  We again, got some necessary boat chores (yes, it's unending) completed and made some great friends.  We enjoyed the friendly people who all wanted to talk about our sail from Florida and especially the 2 marina dogs we'd befriended as soon as their humans gave us permission to share treats.  Our stay in Bari couldn't have been better.

Here are all of my pictures:  Italia

As I type this, we are sailing along the coast of Montenegro.  But I'll fill you in on that next time.

Until next post!