Equinox 2023

Now that we are back to our base for the winter, we have stopped blogging regularly.  We are spending our time working through the checklist of things to do, and this is probably not that interesting to write or read about. The weather is still great, tee shorts and shorts.  we don't think that England will be like this when we arrive back. Over the weekend there was a big end of season race, with about 100 boats competing. The guy from the yard was trying to persuade us to enter, saying that it was all pretty light hearted.  It didn't seem so when boats turned up from other ports, with full race crew.  Anyway, we had decided not to participate for a number of reasons. The racing fleet heading out So we will draw this a close for this year, and pick up from a new blog address next year. Thank you for reading.    Miles today                0    Miles in 2023       1349 Steve (and  Tricia) 

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

On Sunday we had the day at anchor as we have arrived back in Corfu Town in advance of our next guest arriving.  The weather is warm and for now at least, stable.  Maybe not so over the next few days. We took the opportunity to spend the day in town, walking through the narrow streets and alleys. Generally getting in the steps that we can’t when we are just on the boat. It was the longest that we had spent off the boat for quite a long time. We had coffee in the crowded tourist area, next to the cricket pitch, and we were delighted to see a team training.   It seems quite incongruous to see cricket played in an area not renown for it. After lunch in the town we wandered back towards where the tender was moored, but then decided to continue on right around the bay, and have a closer look at the windmill on the promontory, and the a drink at a seaside bar and watch a fleet of youngsters in dinghies doing practice races.   Although it is at the end of the season, all of   the bars and r

Friday was a relaxing day at anchor, recovering from the exertions of yesterday. WE went ashore for a walk and some shopping. On Saturday, there was a light breeze first thing in the morning. The anchor came up with no trouble at all, with a working windlass. Wind often funnels through bays and this was no exception, so, as we got outside the bay the wind dropped. Igoumenitsa which is in the bay to the north of Plataria, must be the Dover of Ionian Greece. Ferries are arriving and departing there at least every half an hour, possibly even every fifteen minutes. Most go back and forth to Corfu Town, some to the south end of Corfu and the huge, super fast ones, like we encountered two days ago, turn south, we don’t know where to, but it must be much further away. I spotted a huge fast one starting to depart, so put on some speed to get out well of the way without any angst. It feels much more comfortable to do that. Mid morning I put my hand on one of the instruments on deck, havin

There are some bays on the mainline to the north east of Lakka that have some great reviews as pretty places to visit. It was with a certain amount of caution though, that we set of to arrive at the bay with, potentially the best holding for the anchor. Lots of the bays in this area have Posidonia grass on the seabed, which is great for marine life, but not good for getting an anchor dug in. It was again champagne sailing conditions, with flat water a nice breeze under a beautiful blue sky. To start with the wind was coming from directly the direction we wanted to go, so we zig-zagged, tacking and not making a lot of progress, but the wind direction changed and we able to have a superb sail across. There are a group of small islands with sand bars between some of them on the coast, to the south of Igoumenitsa. It is all very picturesque and understandable it’s a popular place to visit. You have to try to drop the anchor in a small patch of sand, rather than on the grass and this is