Cruising progress 2017 (Click to enlarge)
Current location using Vessel Finder
31st July 2017
Our next stop was at Vibo Valentia on the Calabrian coast, where we anchored off the marina for a couple of days. Mike's laptop had finally died and required a complete rebuild, which was easier to do in a nice flat anchorage. Once that was completed we decided to go into the marina for a night, so we could plug into shore power and get all the necessary updates. The price for this one was less than half we paid in Salerno, so it was a good place to catch up with the laundry, shopping and boat maintenance etc. You may think that being in a marina would be nice and relaxing, but you'd be very much mistaken. We're constantly on the go and it's always nice to get back out to the peace and quiet of an anchorage.
From there we headed out to the Aeolian Islands and visited Stromboli, which is an active volcano. After dark we motored round to the other side of the island to watch the fireworks as the volcano erupted. Quite spectacular but unfortunately we didn't get any decent photos. The next day we motored on to Volcano and watched with interest more crazy anchoring from charter boats, which hadn't realised there was going to be an onshore wind with swell, and mayhem ensued for an hour or so, as they dragged and wrapped themselves round other boats' anchors.
Similar volcanic activity we saw on Stromboli. Unfortunately, our pictures weren't as clear.
We were quite glad to get away from there and set sail for Sicily, then on through the narrow straits of Messina. We saw several very distinctive boats hunting swordfish in the straits. They are controlled by a man at the top of a very high mast and follow swordfish so that a man on a bowsprit can harpoon them. The bowsprit is much longer than the boat and they veer around with no warning, we had a couple of close calls when they spotted fish close to Mistroma.
Our route then took us down the coast to Toarmina, Catania and as far as Siracusa, where we anchored in the bay for three nights. We took the dinghy into the marina and enjoyed our visit to the old town of Ortiga, which is a warren of narrow alleyways and staircases.
We have decided that we will explore the remainder of Sicily on our return journey, so retraced our path and headed back north before sailing over to the Italian mainland, some 106nm. We had a couple of excellent sails and a couple of days of motoring and covered about 250nm to get to the heel of Italy. From there we motored across to the island of Othonoi near Corfu.
We are in Greece! Now that's a sentence I never thought I would be writing in this blog. Before we left Scotland in 2012 we had decided that we did not want to go to the Med and especially we did not want to go to Greece or Turkey; we were quite happy with the Rias in Atlantic Spain and had't really given much thought beyond there . However in 2014 we met Steve & Lynne on Aztec Dream in Portugal, and they persuaded us that we should continue to the Med. We spent the remainder of that season with them and ended up on the Costa del Sol and have never regretted the decision, so thank you both for that. We have done a lot of sailing in both Greece and Turkey on charter yachts back in the 1990's and having read lots of adverse comments on both countries over the years, we didn't want to spoil our memories. However, here we are in Corfu, at the busiest time of the year, so let's hope we haven't made the wrong decision!
