Equinox 2023

It’s 60 miles from Brindisi to Bari and we had in mind to split the journey and travel 40 miles today, the rest tomorrow.  Huge ferries arrive in Brindisi from Igoymenitsa daily. The pilot boards the ship to guide them in, and as they dock, they turn around, presumably to make departure easier. We saw one of these on AIS as we were about to leave, so delayed a few minutes rather than have to wait mid harbour and not get in the way. One of the local yachts was then leaving at the same time as us, which was just great. They probably know the schedule and when is a good time to go between the arrivals and departures of all the various ferries, cargo ships and military vessels that go in and out. Just like crossing the road in this part of the world, go with the local. Once outside the harbour the area was busy with fishing boats. They were all from Monopoli, 40 miles up the coast and just south of our earmarked anchorage. We could get into Monopoli, but it’s only 3 metres deep in the ha

Saturday started and ended with sport. We had our breakfast while watching our youngest son playing cricket in Australia. His team’s home matches are all streamed on the internet, and when we checked he had just gone in to bat. Isn’t technology wonderful, to be able to follow his progress from so far away. After this, the first order of the day was to resupply for the next few days.  One of our great pleasures of our trips is to find the local produce and interact with the vendors.  We tracked down the markets for fish and fruit and veg, both conveniently located next to each other.  We were lucky with the fish market, as although it was still before 10:30, they were closing up, with almost nothing left. You have to be early! There was enough remaining for a couple of meals for us (which were delicious).  In the Fruit and Veg area, we went from stall to stall, buying what we considered to be the best examples of each item that we could find. After this, bread from the bakery and then

There’s a F8 gale blowing out at sea so we wouldn’t be going anywhere on the boat today. It was a day for an inland sightseeing excursion, so we took the train to Lecce. Lecce is known as the Florence of the south. It’s a laid back university city with 40 churches and at least as many palazzi (Steve claimed to be "churched out" by the end of the visit). Lecce’s baroque architecture has the craziest, most lavish decoration imaginable of the local sandstone. Most of the buildings were built or renovated in the 17th and 18th centuries, but some are pre-Roman. The duomo (cathedral) is 12th century. There is a Roman theatre and an amphitheatre. The gate to the city of Lecce The Roman Theatre Close up of the intricate stone carving The amphitheatre was only discovered in the 1930's, while digging foundations. There are roads and other buildings on top of the other parts of it.   An extra special treat was a visit to the private Museo Faggiano. Faggiano Museum" is a p

It was another day to race the weather.  The wind was going to be light at first, but building to force 6 by mid-day, and then on to force 8 tomorrow. We could not stay and see this out in Otranto, there is not enough protection there, so it was going to be Brindisi, 40+ miles way. The alarm was set for 03:30 and the anchor was up by 03:55 local time.  At least we had gained an hour while moving from Greece, so our body clocks thought it was 04:30. We crammed on the speed and motored all the way.  Initially the wind was light and the sea flat, so everything was easy. We saw the sunrise, with rain falling between us and the horizon, but fortunately, other than a few drops, we avoided it.  The wind was coming from behind us and soon we had lines of slate grey waves following us.  For the most part we were moving at almost the same speed as the waves, but at the wind strengthened, they started to go a little faster and we had the experience of Equinox surfing, being accelerated by the

We have found that the most stressful times are when we have to be in a certain place by a certain date, usually because of travel plans.  We try to give ourselves some slack in our planning, to fit around the weather, but sometimes doesn’t work out as you would hope.  The weather over the next 3 or 4 days gets worse daily, and we know that our son has to fly home at the weekend, from Italy.  Therefore we have to make the best choice possible about when to cross the Adriatic.  The answer was today, although we knew that initially, we would experience unpleasant conditions and strong winds. We were up before it was light and left the marina at daybreak.  We could see that the sea state further out was very choppy, so we chose to stow all of the mooring gear and set the sails while we were still in the shelter of the island.  We were glad we did.  As soon as we were out of the lee, it was decidedly rough. We had left Chris asleep below, but he came on deck shortly afterwards, woken by

We had chosen to anchor at a spot close to the airport, rather than going to an expensive marina on the far side of the city. So last night, when our son Chris arrived for a few days, we did the “James Bond” style pickup, in the dark, with the tender from a small quay at the side of a road.  We had said to call us when he got into the taxi at the airport, and as a result he was waiting by the time I had motored over.  We did not even have to tie up, he just passed down his bag and then stepped in. We did not disturb the fishermen angling from the other end of the quay, 5 metres away. After a glorious few weeks since we arrived back at the start of September, we know that the weather is now breaking.  We have asked some of the locals if it is always as good at this time of year, but apparently this year has been exceptional. This is now changing, with the first thing being the forecast of heavy rain later, so we were up and on the move well before sunrise this morning. We had to duck