Going to Italy soon

Today my brother and his family are leaving by ferry - so it is just the two of us again.
We plan to go from mainland Greece back to Zakynthos and tomorrow to Italy. Somewhere close to Messina straigth.
 
We will have no phone signal for the next couple of days, but we might post our geographical location from sat phone.
Weather forecast is OK, but as they say: in Greece you either have no wind at all or too much wind and when you have it, it is on the nose. W, NW to NNW is forecast for the next few days, our route is W to NWW, so we facing some beating again.
We tried gennaker yesterday and it was a lot of fun until we had to switch to 95% flok again.
The small sail is ideal for heavier winds. Unfortunately we would need to sheet it further forward then we can. It is reasonably OK, but I can not get the shape I wanted. I might need to rig some attachment point forward of genoa track. 

After the passage we plan to explore Italy a little  - Sicily and Sardinia.  As we are mostly alone and there are cheap plane tickets to those places from Venice friends are welcome to do some holiday with us.
Current plan is: get to Sicily on August 2 or 3, spend some time there and be on Sardinia in Cagliari arround 15 of August, leaving Sardinia by end of month from Alghera.

Bye for now.

Pictures of Greek islands

Let the pictures talk ....

Little village of Aios Nicholas in the north of Zakynthos ... we had a great meal in the evening on this very beach ... lovely

Northern and western side of Zakynthos is full of cliffs and caves

Greeks say this is one of the most beautiful beaches on the planet .... quite true ... sandy beach, big rusty wrack on it, incredibly blue water, white cliffs 200 m high, and a cave here and there (admiral took a swim in one)....

Little town of Poros on Cefalonia

Even in middle of high season you can find a bay only for yourself.....

.... if you are prepared to share it with the goats....

Hot wave in Greece

We are still in Ionian see, it is beautiful here, but incredibly hot, even sea is warm - up to 30 degrees C. 

Kerkyra town looks best from water ....

Captain enjoying emerald water on Paxos

West coast of Paxos ans Antipaxos is full of cliffs and caves - and captain wanted to see them all

Finally sun went down and temperature dropped from 35 to 31 degree C

First days in Greece

We arrived in Greece on wednesday in the evening, after a hard and bumpy ride. We left Cavtat in rain and it was raining almost the whole first day, with lightning and thunders occasionally. In the night got even worse, along with the rain came the waves and several thunderstorms. It wasn't till 3 in the morning that things calmed down a bit and Tomaz finally got to bed. Morning was calm, no signs of turbulent night. At the noon the wind picked up and got stronger and stronger and we reached Greece even earlier than we calculated. And the best thing was the welcoming committee - flock of dolphins, playing around our boat for minutes as we were approaching Ericoussa. And we slept long and good that night ....

Via Inmarsat:

GPS fix

Lat: N 39 52' 40''
Long: E 19 34' 53''
Time: 17:13:52 UTC
Date: 06-07-2011
Altitude: 0 m
Velocity: 0 km/h

Accuracy
Horiz: +/- 24 m
Vert: +/- 64 m

Please note your reply is limited to 160 characters.

Sent via Inmarsat. The mobile satellite company

Via Inmarsat:

GPS fix

Lat: N 40 26' 17''
Long: E 18 59' 54''
Time: 08:18:17 UTC
Date: 06-07-2011
Altitude: -10 m
Velocity: 0 km/h

Accuracy
Horiz: +/- 32 m
Vert: +/- 80 m

Please note your reply is limited to 160 characters.

Sent via Inmarsat. The mobile satellite company

Via Inmarsat:

GPS fix

Lat: N 41 4' 59''
Long: E 18 34' 24''
Time: 00:55:11 UTC
Date: 06-07-2011
Altitude: 6 m
Velocity: 0 km/h

Accuracy
Horiz: +/- 56 m
Vert: +/- 64 m

Please note your reply is limited to 160 characters.

Sent via Inmarsat. The mobile satellite company

Towards the Greece

So, an hour ago we left Cavtat and we are heading directly towards Greece. Weather is rainy and cold, hopefully it get's better as we get south. We'll be sailing far from the coastline, so that means no internet or mobile for couple of days. We will try to post our position from sat phone. There are still some Croatian stories to be told .... we will "catch up" with everything in Greece .... once we catch up with sleep :-)