DOLPHINS, RAINBOWS and SQUALLS – days 60 and 61

DOLPHINS, RAINBOWS and SQUALLS – 23 and 24 June, days 60 and 61

Saturday morning in the Porto della Grazie Marina at Roccella Ionica was beautiful. Unusually Anita woke early despite that we had taken a lovely walk of 3 km  each way in the moonlight to the town late on Friday evening, enjoying the pines, oleander, frogs, sounds of cicadas, and waves laping the beach. She went off for a run on the beach while I studied again the weather and decided tactics to move to the next sheltered place across the wide Bay of Squillace which has a reputation for squalls. We will go, motor the first ten miles along the coast then turning into the bay we can enjoy an East wind to sail north up the Bay. At the North coast we can then have the forecast east wind to sail to Le Castella.

There was a fiesta for schoolchildren who piled onto five volunteer boats to have an on the water experience. It was very festive. One boat was the lovely Lipari 40 catamaran built by Fontaine Pajot, and sailed by an Australia lady. What a lovely home. We can dream.

We prepared ourselves and boat and left the fuel dock at 11.45 having bought 10 more litres of petrol (two cans) at a massive 1.85 per litre. In Malta the price is 1.31.

At 7 am there was little wind of swell but leaving so late the sea and wind had built creating short waves which really slowed our progress. It took 3.5 hours to motor to the Point, instead of 2 hours which we could have done in calm sea. 

We were grateful for heavy rain which flattened the waves.
The tank was getting low and I thought we could clear the Punta Stilo, but off the town the motor stopped. The mainsail was up the whole time, reefed, but I opened a small amount of Genoa so Anita could steer away from the beach as I filled the tank. Being a new motor and tank I have to get used to the gauge. In flat water we motored more than an hour from the Low indicator, but in waves the flow stopped.

I don’t remember exactly when but the new rope of the lazy jacks snapped at it’s fourth outing. It looked flimsy compared to the old one whose outer layer was torn but core still good after 18 years. The Chandler in Malta recommended this rope for lazy jacks. The thin steel wires were flying around in the rigging wrapping themselves around things.

The East wind did not materialise until 17.30 by which time we had used a lot of petrol motor sailing.

Two small dolphins appeared briefly at the side of the boat. Anita was thrilled. She had never seen one close up. Later more came. You cannot appreciate the joy of the dolphin human connection until they come and play around the boat.

We sailed well and arrived as it was getting dark outside the marina of Catanzaro Lido so anchored close to the beach by the protective wall of the port. I could not see any other shelter along that north coast of the bay.

At 5am we woke and were soon motoring East enjoying a wonderful sunrise. The mountains to the west were covered in black clouds and we enjoyed seeing a rainbow. By 7 am we were sailing fast with Anita steering. As we came closer to Le Castella we saw one yacht motoring to the bay to the north of us and others anchored there. We turned to take the same shelter before the strong wind warning kicked in at 10.00.

I was worried about not being able to drop the mainsail as one of the blocks of the lazy jack system had found it’s way between mast and luff of the sail so I could not see how the sail could come down. As we approached the land the sea became more calm and wind less so we turned the boat into the wind and luckily the offending wire and block came out of the way and the sail came down. We anchored at 0900 and after cleaning up from two hard and wet sailing sessions relaxed.

 Later we anchored between fishing harbour and small leisure harbour of Le Castella, and enjoyed eating our pasta supper in the cockpit.

NIGHT SAIL TO CALABRIA WITHOUT GEORGE, SUMMER SOLSTICE AND UNSETTLED WEATHER – Days 58 and 59

NIGHT SAIL TO CALABRIA WITHOUT GEORGE, SUMMER SOLSTICE  AND UNSETTLED WEATHER – 21 and 22 June, Days 58 and 59

We could have stayed a week in Siracusa, as we did in 2016, but we have small sailing mountains to climb to take the rest of the 300 nautical mile journey to Greece. In particular there is a deadline of a family visit in July which seemed so far away but with challenges of unseasonal weather and many high winds from the North it becoming increasingly difficult to find weather windows and sheltered anchorages to break the journey.

Thursday and Friday offered such a weather window to take the longest step from Siracusa, Sicily, to the East coast of Calabria which is beautiful but lacks places to anchor and to find shelter. The shortest plan at just under 100 nautical miles was to anchor next to a marina at Roccella Ionica or if the anchorage was experiencing swell, to pay to be inside, at 57 euros a night (reducing). Having already spent 6 extra weeks in a marina, and having bought a new outboard motor, saying and paying in marinas is not the plan.

After thunderstorms of Wednesday Siracusa was still threatened on Thursday but the weather radar showed the forecast to be inland from the coast. A southerly wind was expected at about lunchtime and we weighed anchor (raised it) at 13.30 under a dark sky. “George” the autopilot again refused to work leaving us the job of steering by hand. That is tiring and restricts our ability to be fully on top of navigation and other tasks.

Earlier the Guardia Costiera (Italian Coast Guard) came to each anchored boat to take some information. They were pleasant but I do not always find them to be helpful. Anita took exercise on her step machine before as we prepared.

It was a good start. We were making 3.5 knots in the right direction without adverse swell. As we distanced from the land there was some rain, but thunder and lightning stayed over the land. I was resting on the bed while Anita was steering when the wind came round a full 180 degrees, so I came up to keep the boat properly trimmed. Anita has sailed with me for two summers but has not had much steering experience, nor had she made a night passage.

In the late afternoon the wind strength and direction changed giving us three hours of fast sailing before dying back for the evening which is normal. Mount Etna appeared in the distance and the sun was setting next to this giant volcano.

We continued good sailing with comfortable following sea until 0250 when the wind died and we needed to start the motor. It stayed on until we docked at 11.30. We had made good 60 miles under sail in about 13 hours which is not especially fast but the boat is laden with water and provisions.

The sunset with Mount Etna was wonderful, but so too was this Summer Solstice dawn and sunrise revealing the beauty and ruggedness of the Calabria landscape. The swell from the south stayed with us making potential anchorages unavailable so we entered the marina at Roccella Ionica for one night and check the weather.

It is a small and sweet marina with lovely shade on the shore under rows of pine trees. The pontoons have English style finger pontoons which is unusual for the Mediterranean.

We checked the weather predictions and with low pressure systems passing over the area we don’t see the solution yet to moving on to Greece. To someone on the land the weather is hot and windy. To us it creates major challenges.

TO SIRACUSA THEN REST DAYS - Days 55 - 57

TO SIRACUSA THEN REST DAYS 18 – 20 June, Days 55 - 57

It was a calm night at Portopalo di Capo Passera. We awoke to small swell from the East which left mono-hull neighbours rolling, whilst our stable catamaran base was comfortable.

My first job was to don snorkel mask and fins and scrub and scrape the underwater surfaces of the hulls which have been in the water for a year. It was tiring work and much head down and after an hour I came up having only completed one hull. My balance felt affected so I slept for an hour. Around midday we weighed anchor under sail and headed slowly north in the light winds. After an hour and a half it was necessary to put the motor on and motor sail or we would not have reached Siracusa before dark. George, the autopilot was again not functioning properly but I managed to get him to steer for a couple of hours with my close attention to sail trim and balance to keep the course.

We arrived at 18.00 to clouds and anchored in the huge natural harbour away from the lovely town. As the sun drop low it fell below the clouds giving us a magical sunset, as fish were jumping and old fishermen motored slow past us trolling a line, as we have seen before here.

Monday was a rest day. We really needed it and didn’t even leave the boat. I cleaned more of the hull bottom but with less energy. More can be done tomorrow.

Our Tuesday plan was to go ashore to the excellent market to buy fresh fruit and vegetables but as we prepared to leave the wind piped up, and thunder, heavy rain and lighting passed over the area. We took an early siesta and went ashore about 16.30. Not finding the “dinghy dock” we tied to steps between two large Lagoon catamarans and soon we speaking with Andreas the owner, and his “crewfinder.com” crew of Jono (NZ) and Rebecca (England). They kindly took our computer to charge it while we were ashore, and asked us to buy milk for them. First we bought 21.5 litres of petrol (1.67 euros per litre) and put it into the dinghy which we had padlocked to the steps.

Old Siracusa is such a beautiful place so we revisited the small garden of ancient ficus trees, and strolled through some atmospheric streets before taking a snack in a café near to the Temple of Apollo then walking some distance to but a few special items from Lidl and ARD supermarkets.

Back at the quay we had tea with Andreas and crew and a good chat. His RIB dinghy and 15hp Honda outboard had been stolen the night before from the anchored boat. He reported it to the Police and a fisherman had found it so boat and dinghy were reunited. It is important to secure the dinghy at night, and even at daytime.

SAILING AT LAST - 17 JUNE - DAY 54

Finally we leave the Marina di Ragusa and head East with strong following wind,

WIND APP, RECYCLING and NEW YAMAHA CONNECTED – Days 52 and 53

WIND APP, RECYCLING and NEW YAMAHA CONNECTED – 15 and 16 June, Days 52 and 53

We did not manage to register in the WIND shop the other day to the My WIND app which we need to monitor wifi useage and to pay for the monthly service. The man said try tomorrow. At home on Friday we tried and received a message to enter the code number sent to us by sms. Ha! - Difficult when the sim card is in a portable modem. We tried putting the sim into a phone since the package allows calls and sms, but no sign of any sms from the company. It is all too complicated, and familiar – how many times in Malta have I been into a Vodafone shop before everything worked? The only solution was to drive again 30 minutes to the shop in Ragusa. Now we can see it working. The final challenge will be that it works for us in Greece, as it does for friends.

Our winter Marina di Ragusa live-aboard community have been great in many ways. One is that people put things they don’t need under the pagoda on the main pontoon. We all live in small spaces and need to clear clutter. I am happy that we found a number of items there which have been useful to us. Other useful items have been found at the rubbish and recycling bins, including packaging material. Today we cut some into shapes for our needs and Anita for fun made me a hat from an off-cut. That material has good insulation and my head was warm in the cool wind!

On Saturday finally the new outboard motor was delivered and connected. Electric start will be really easy to use. High thrust gearing and larger propeller will be more effective. The alternator will put some charge back into the batteries. The Yamaha dealer network is widespread should I need it. I will take the manual start Parsun to Malta to sell to a local person who is happy to pull to start and have a local dealer for servicing and spares.

We made final cleaning and provisioning and are ready to start our journey tomorrow morning. The wind is favourable in direction, starting light and increasing again in the afternoon so we plan to leave early and get away from this windy zone. As well as the cost of motor and making new cables we had to pay for another half month in the marina, further depleting finances, but we enjoyed the facilities and location for a little longer.

STRONG WNW WINDS, LED LIGHTING and CROCHET, 14 June, Day 51

STRONG WNW WINDS, LED LIGHTING and CROCHET, 14 June, Day 51

I have lived on the boat for enough years in Malta to know that the prevailing wind direction is from the North West and I know where to anchor to be comfortable and sheltered from that wind. Once at this time of year I was anchored without moving in my “hurricane hole” just East of the Mellieha Bay Hotel for 6 weeks. It is so sheltered that the actual wind I experienced was often just half the strength of the wind out in the bay.

Marina di Ragusa is only about 50 miles from Malta so experiences similar winds. Now we are experiencing the common situation of strong winds blowing out of the South of France, squeezed between the Pyrenees and the Alps. These NW winds continue with force past the south of Sardinia and funnel down the gap between Sicily and Tunisia. On Thursday these are showing as the strongest winds across whole of southern Europe. In the marina we are protected from swell but we don’t have the cliffs and shelter afforded by cosy anchorages so being on the boat in the heart of the marina we feel the full strength and coldness of the wind. It would be more comfortable in a sheltered anchorage.

Since replacing one light in the Galley with an LED one I have been puzzling for a few days why another light did not work. Eventually I found the two reasons and set to repairing it. The non-working light needed a solder connection and I thought it was time to find an LED replacement to make less drain on my 12 volt system. The Chandler outside the marina had just one and now we have better light and can use less power. If we still have the boat next winter we need to change the other 6 cabin lights to LED and perhaps navigation lights too.

Anita continues her fascination on creating clothes and other items from crochet so we have stocked up with a few balls of yarn for the quiet bays ahead. Once cruising the acrylic paints and canvas will come out again too. She is especially happy when creating art.

The new Yamaha outboard motor is scheduled to be delivered and connected on Saturday so in theory we can leave on Saturday afternoon, but with wind forecast of Force 6 gusting to Force 7 it may be prudent to start the first sail of the year on Sunday instead.

CHEESE, GAS REFILLS and the WIND WI-FI PACKAGE, Days 48 - 50

CHEESE, GAS REFILLS and the WIND WI-FI PACKAGE, 11 – 13 June, Days 48 - 50

Living in any place for a few weeks allows one to have new or different food experiences. We love cheese and we have taken to eating two types here in Sicily. Living in Malta we are used to cheese pastizzi filled with ricotta, but we did not image that we would be buying fresh ricotta here and just eating it cold with salads, bread, biscuits etc. To me ricotta was something to cook with, and we just didn’t buy it. Now we love it and it is such good value at under 5 euros a kilo.

Visitors to Italy like us are used to Parmisan cheese to grate over a hot pasta dish, or even to buy ready grated. It is a tangy hard cheese. Here we find many hard tangy cheeses and at under 8 euros a kilo we are buying Grana Padano, and slicing it for salads and sandwiches. It is delicious.

Italy is a tomato producer and when we find tomatoes which smell good, we love to eat them with fresh basil leaves. We have three good supermarkets in Marina di Ragusa but apart from a small weekly market we don’t find good supplies of fresh fruits and vegetables, and sadly some of the tomatoes are tasteless, and some cucumbers even taste bad. Anita describes them as “grown with chemicals”. We choose what we enjoy, and actually have started to drink regularly diluted apple cider vinegar before meals, which Dr Lidia in Malta had recommended to me a few years ago.

The week started calm and we put up the full cockpit waning to provide welcome shade. Happenings away from here caused some ongoing worry, especially as a money transfer from about three weeks ago appeared to be lost and the transferee company claiming it had not been received. Their bank also reported on enquiry a different amount credited from that sent. Worries drain energy and leave us just wanting to relax.

Strong west winds are forecast from Wednesday for a few days as we await the new motor, and have to find a weather window to depart and get round the corner to the less windy East coast of Sicily to start our journey to Greece, so we took down the awning and made things secure on deck.

The other wind in our minds is the WIND Giga International wi-fi package so we went inland to Ragusa to fill two gas bottles and visit the proper WIND telecoms shop and get proper advice which the local telecoms shop Video Piu had failed miserable to achieve, as they sell products from various mobile companies alongside scented candles. They do not have the training and knowledge to service our needs and were keen to deny the existence of the package we finally took today instead selling us a TIM package which is absolutely not right for our needs of internet wi-fi when in other countries.

Our WIND wi-fi is working, and thanks to sailing friends who are using it abroad at 20 GB a month and who guided us past the bad advice from Video Piu.

THE WIFI SAGA, CROCHET YARN AND RELAXING IN THE NATURE PARK - Days 44 to 47

THE WIFI SAGA, CROCHET YARN  AND RELAXING IN THE NATURE PARK - 7 – 10 JUNE, Days 44 to 47

We have time to relax while we wait again for the new engine. The mobile wifi remains a concern not helped by seeing that Vodafone Malta charged us an extra 20 euros last month for going over the 5 GB abroad limit. We can monitor usage in Malta with their app but not abroad. So on Friday we took a walk, stopping on the way at Video Piu shop in Marina di Ragusa, not to complain again about their blatant mis-selling, only to ask again how to get into the TIM app to check our usage. Again there was no success so the staff asked me to return again with the computer. We left and enjoyed a delicious Sicilian ice cream and continued along the sea front before sitting in the shade enjoying the energy, sounds and colours of the sea in the strong wind. We also paddled before a little food shopping and return to the boat.

In the evening e went on-line to check the nearest proper WIND mobile dealer and found a shop in nearby Santa Croce Camerina, also an interesting nature reserve at the nearby coast.

We were ready to go out earlier than usual on Saturday to try our luck with WIND, as at least two friends are getting a 20 GB service a month OUTSIDE Italy and that will be good for us.

We found the larger Video Piu shop in Santa Croce where we were told are more technical people regarding phones and wi-fi.  The woman there did not think that what our friends are doing is possible but they did tell us that the TIM app cannot work for us as it is only for monthly contracts. The fact that they did not know that in the Marina di Ragusa shop just highlights that they don’t have enough product knowledge to be selling phone and wi-fi packages, nor should they be so incompetant to sell inappropriate products to us and to other friends.

We asked where Anita can buy yarn for crochet and the helpful girl pointed us in the right direction for a good “merceria” shop. Anita was thrilled at the quality of products and came away with many balls of the yarn for using over the weeks ahead.

We used our Tom Tom gps to take us to a parking place in the nature reserve shown in Google Maps, but as we came to the edge of the reserve we saw gates and had to park outside and walk. Inside was an oasis of peace and calm, beautiful pine and eucalyptus trees, and wonderful fragrance of pine. The sounds of the heavy seas breaking came over the dunes and through the trees. We stopped to eat lovely take away food from a bakery in Santa Croce, then lay on the wooden benches to relax, watching the trees swaying above us in the wind. After a while we walked along the beach before finding a sheltered spot in the dunes to strip off and soak up some sun.

It was a wonderful afternoon and Anita was so happy to be in the forest, a place she feels particularly at home in.

Sunday was the first calm day after the previous windy ones so we relaxed on the boat enjoying this lovely location.