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We are 70 miles from Sicily, its been a great day with good sailing and
lots of dolphins. 100 more miles to go.

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On our way to Sardinia

Tonight we anchored in a bay near to little village of Scopollo.

Now we're on our way to San Vito da Cabo and from there straight towards Sardinia. We'll post some updates from the passage via sat phone. Bye for now.

Cefalu and towards the west of Sicily

We changed our plans and instead sailing to Ustica we went back to Sicily, and anchored by the marina near town Cefalu. Next day we stayed there and explored Cefalu, which is a beautiful little town with narrow streets.

This is how Cefalu looks from the sea - from the protected bay in north west.

Cefalu from the north - on our way towards west of Sicily.

We had some nice companions on the way, some were swimming with us, while others presented acrobatic show.

Since the sea was very calm and we had some 60 miles to make, so we decided to have a "laundry day".  The only downside was very limited although colorful view we end up having.

My semi-automatic washing machine in right corner left from the table.

Panarea and Stromboli

From Vulcano we passed Lipari and sailed towards Panarea. All the anchorages were already pretty full in the afternoon,

so we "parked" our boat under this rock for the night. Needless to say - we were not alone here either...

Next day on our way to Stromboli we passed this strange rock/island, it's called Bazilucco i think.

From the distance Stromboli looks like an ordinary round island with the cloud over the top. 

It is when you see the north side you realize that "cloud" is actually smoke coming from the crater and there are rocks flying from crater occasionally and rolling down the hill all 1000 m to the sea.

We went back (with dinghy) that nigh and then we could see the whole spectacle "in color" - red hot lava and stones flying from crater, and stones are still red and hot when they hit the sea. 

There was a rowing regatta that evening and all the locals - and many tourists - gathered on the town beach.

We climbed the streets of the old part of small town of Stromboli. Streets are so narrow, you inevitably end up taking photos of other people and vice versa. 

After a steep hot climb to the terrace near the church you are rewarded with a great view of the town, anchorage and a small rock of Strombolicchito.

Hmmm, is it gonna be ricotta or pistachio canolli today?

This is a knob for holding the window shutters in place. It is a gentleman, when in upright position, and a lady when turned upside down.

Little town of Stromboli photographed from out boat - right under the church is the terrace wit great view and delicious canolli.

Strombolicchito - a little less than a mile to the north - or "my rock is my castle".

On our way back to Panarea we couldn't resist to take some more photos of volcano.

Italy - part one

Sunset on first evening of our passage from Greece to Italy

We arrived on wednesday at 6 in the morning, anchored the boat in Taormina bay, then went straight to bed. When we got up at noon, this is what we saw: Taormina sitting in the top of the hill...

... and Etne smoldering away at the distance. Not a bad view to have with the breakfast.

When we gathered our strengths we decided to walk up the steep hill to Taormina.

The trail was long and steep, it was still hot and we were overheating. And the suffering on the photo is genuine ... One of those boats below is ours.

Taormina is a beautiful little town, full of history and charm, it is well worth seeing, but try not to go in August - you can see why ...

Next day we left the Taormina bay and set our course towards Messina straight. We heard (or read) a lot of stories about how tricky it can be, with strong currents, vortices and ferries traveling form Sicily to mainland and back not taking any regard of other vessels. The day started of calm, then the wind picked up, of course straight on the nose, and along came moderate waves. When we got close to Messina, ferry traffic increased, so we were both busy watching what was happening in front and behind us. We watched Messina from the sea and didn't like it to much, so we decided not to make a stop. Once we passed Messina, the wind and the waves died and strong currents and vortices appeared. There were spots where water looked like it was boiling, the rudder got heavy and there were strange things happening to our speed - with the same 2500 rpms on engine our speed went from 6 to 7,8 and then dow to 2,8 knots - and so it repeated several times. I wouldn't want to be there in a small boat with small engine.

Since we did not stop at Messina, we thought to stop for the night in Scylla at Calabrian west coast. The town itself it's a beauty, built at both side of small hill leading to the forth. Unfortunately the quay was small and full and there was no good spot to throw the anchor, so we decided to turn westwards and proceed along Sicily coast.

We spent the night at the city of Milazzo, anchored in small area between ferry quay and a oil refinery. The water was dirty, there was a smell of burnt oil in the air, ferries were coming and going till deep in the nigh, making uncomfortable swells, so it was not most pleasant night. In the morning we decided to escape towards Eolian island right away.

Firs island we visited was Volcano. And it has the right to have it's name - there are rocks, yellow from sulphur everywhere (and the smell of rotten eggs is also there), on the beach there is black lava sand and there is smoke coming from the top and the side of the hill above the anchorage. 

The anchorage was very small - or at least the part of it, that was shallower than 20 m so boats could anchor. This produced some kind of "traffic jam", boats were anchored very close to another (cca 20 m apart), so it was quite fortunate, there were no bumping or accidents. 

Little town, that we visited, was built for tourists and has no architectural beauty, but there is a very good store, so we renewed our stocks, especially from the deli department - Italians are artists when it comes to food ...

The bay was very dirty, don't know how all that rubbish got in the water, it looked like some big ships would dump their toilettes and dumpsters directly in front of the island. Next to the anchorage there was a bathing area, people (mostly Italian tourists) were bathing, not minding the smell and the "floating objects". We were rather taking the shower on the boat to cool down and i was thinking of all that lovely clean blue water of Greek Ionian islands .....

would 

Some more photos from Greece

This is how you moor in Greece - anchor off the shore when the depth allows then back up to the shore and then you need a good swimmer or a good dinghy-rower to get the long ropes to the rocks and tie them. This procedure can take quite some time, sometimes you have to repeat it and tn the meantime the dinner might get cold....

One of my favorite little towns - Kioni on Ithaka. Unfortunately many sailors think the same so the berths near town were all taken when we arrived. So we moored in the bay under the graveyard - at least it was peaceful.

The view from the terrace to the town quay.

The town has several nice places to sit, drink coffee, eat chocolate cakes (sigh!) or have dinner....

After Ithaka we sailed the channel between Cephalonia and Ithaka towards south. Gentle wind from the north was just right for gennaker.

After making stop in Kilini we sailed back to Zakynthos, right to Agios Nicolaos, where we were the night before. We figured out this would be good point to sail of towards Italy. And we wanted to eat some more mousaka and veal with vegetables in Taverna Porto again. Dimitri and his family run the place (as well as the gas station and several boats for day trips) and put a lot of love in the food they are preparing and in the service for their guests - we felt really welcome and among friends. Dimi, a big thank you again from both of us, especially for wonderful bread that kept us going on our way to Italy. We'll be back some day.

Italy

Finally got to Italy yesterday at 6 in the morning - after two days and two nights of sailing. Most of it was good, we even saw a whale (pilot whale?) 15 miles from Zakynthos, we were on a collision course and came less than 2 boat lengths close (unfortunately no pictures). We sailed most of the time, had good wind without much waves and good traveling speed (at about 6 knots average), until afternoon the second day, when the wind died and we had to start the engine. We motored till 2 in the morning, then the wind started again (up to 30 knots) and along came the waves, so last few hours were not very comfortable - to say the least. We anchored in bay of Taormina and went straight to bed.
More on Italy in next post.