Life On Sail

  Crazy sailing today! Without sails.. Well, we left our genoa and jib for repair at Chioggia before leaving to Venice. No wind so we changed our way from going to Venice via the sea to going through the laguna. saved us some time. But in the way, we saw a sailboat stuck in the venetian mud. We helped the other boat helping them with additional towing. They gave us a bottle of prosecco. Then arrived in Venice through the gran canale as our marina is just in front of Piazza San Marco! What a day. And it wasn't over as we met with Nico's parent at Piazza san Marco later that afternoon. We stayed 3 nights in Venice, right in front of Piazza San Marco, in the San Giorgio island.  We visited Venice, Murano and Burano! Before parting with Nico's parents once again.  Our stopover in Venice: Our stopover in Murano and Burano:

  First time sailing during a morning fog. It was pretty nice actually, especially after sunrise, the fog was no more. We didn't have wind after 2 pm so we had our engines on for the whole rest of the trip which totaled 15h20mn. We broke a record. We had to arrive at Chioggia, as we need to leave our sails for fixing (UV strips) tomorrow morning. we did 56 NM today. 3.7 knot average...

  55 MN in 13h10 at 3.9 knots average. We left at sunrise and arrived at moonrise! Getting closer to Ravenna, not yet arrived. There was wind at night when we arrived! Ravenna is know for its well-preserved 6th century Byzantine Mosaics, they are part of the Unesco heritage and one of the most beautiful ones in the world. 

  Our 2nd longest navigation, 13h50 long at 4 knots average for just 55,8 NM. We stopped before our destination otherwise we'd arrive at 10pm. We didn't sleep well yesterday because of the swell and started the sailing at 6:30 am. Tomorrow will be the same drill.

  40 NM in 9h50 and 4 knots average. Happy with the 360 camera I have just bought at Brindisi! Can finally shoot wide angle videos of the boat, with our friend from Hong Kong onboard for 5 days. It was a long navigation... she wasnt used to that... as we only did short navigations when island hopping with her and the kids in Sardinia. The visit of Monopoli here below

  No wind today, speed of 3.3 knots, for just 15 NM in 4h40. Boring. We visited Castro

 From Aranella to Palermo was just 3 nautical miles, we don't even count it as a navigation.  It brought us straight to Palermo! We arrived at noon, to what I would call now, the best port so far of Italy and of all our trips so far.  It was modern, with all the amenity, and was at the low season's price. 70 euros.  It's probably double in July-August.  And the historic city is just next to the port.  Here is a Vlog of our visit. 

That's our 87th navigation! and it concludes 6th month of of the sabbatical year as well! Just 8 months ago, end of Feb. we bought our Oceanis 40CC. Time flies!   Very short distance, 16 nautical miles while navigating during 5 long hours.  It was painful with no wind. Nico setting up and removing the spinnaker...  we finally had to find shelter from the swell somewhere nearby instead of going to Sicily. There was no wind at all. So we went back to the lovely island of Vulcano.

  It was a good windy day, which made the sailing more sporty.  We enjoyed the 16 knots squall that brought us up to 6 knots speed.  However, the next morning, it rained. We visited Santa Marina quickly the next day, but nothing worthy enough for me to generate a short vlog of that visit!

 We are going back to Lipari. But this time sailing VOGUE to get there instead of the ferry.  But after going in the water early morning, I got badly seasick. But we had to leave our buoy. It was a 1h20 navigation. we were a bit tired for this morning's activity. We just moored in front of the old pomice quarries. This time we didnt visit the city as we already did. Instead we moored in front of the abandonned Pomice factories.  It was abandoned ever since Lipari and the Eolian islands became part of the Unesco world heritage in 2007.  Check the beauty of those white canyons within the Pomice quarry!

  Probably our longuest navigation, 11h ! And one of the most pleasant one I guess it's because of many things: -no wind, our average speed was 3.1 knots with the Spi -we had 2 stops, one on Isola Basiluzzo (can't remember the name) -the other one Lisca Bianca where there was an underwater volcano. Nico dived to have a look at the bubbles from the volcano activity although it's forbidden to moor there. I took advantage of that to buy fish from the local fishermen touring all the boats mooring around. -last but not least, we only did 34 NM today... we tried 3 spots for mooring. Third one a charm. They were all crowded! we arrived late after 6 pm. For once we didn't visit the volcano immediately, but saved it for departure day. Instead we took the ferry to head to Lipari, the neighoring island, and also the biggest of all the Eolian archipelago. The next day, before leaving, we headed to the top of Vulcano, to walk arount is "gran cratere", towering at 391m. ...

 1 0h navigation for 42 NM is one of our longest navigation. We are now living mainland Italy towards Sicily. But before we hit Sicily we are going through its Eolian islands. We had good wind all throughout, and even got a 12.5 knot squall that brought us up to 7 knots speed. The best part is that we arrived at night time at the Sciara de fueco point where the lava pours into the sea. We could see eruptions every 15-20 minutes. Look at this in the video! Next day we visited the city and of course the Stromboli volcano, getting closer to its crater. We visited San Vincenzo village, then climbed 290m to get to the Sciara de Fueco to see the volcano's outburst. We can't see as well as after sunset but we were lucky enough to see volcanic rocks rolling down into the sea. On the way back we visited San Bartolomeo, very chill and relax village with houses styled like in Santorini or Mykonos. We had dinner then headed back to the boat! What a memorable mooring! with a volcano next...

  8 hours for 32 NM, a bit of engine and luckily some wind! I had the worse sleep yesterday so I slept well during this navigation. We visited Tropea, it is such a beauty! The port is right below Tropea. So easy to get to, which means we visited it as we arrived in the afternoon and again in the evening. The only bummer is that we haven't done any grocery shopping so far... so not much food left on the boat. The autopilot is not fully fixed... hopefully enough for tomorrow's departure to Sicily. Here are some videos of Tropea with the drone!

  6h of engine! There was absolutely no wind. We did 40 NM that day, 8hours of navigation. What a day picking up trash from the sea.

  We finally made it, a day late, to our goal. We navigated almost 6 hours today. At 4.9 knots on average which is great considering we lowered that performance by spinning around to find sheltered mooring spot. We did 28 NM today. Tomorrow we'll be less lucky as there is no wind. So we ll go as far as the wind will take us.

 We wanted to go further but the wind decided otherwise.  We woke up early to sail and take advantage of the wind, but it stopped after 6 hours of navigation.  So we went for a mooring spot.  We arrived at 3 pm. No visits tomorrow. We have to take advantage of the morning wind again. 

 Next morning we didnt visit Sant'Angelo but went straight to Ischia Ponte, where the volcanic island has an impressive castle has been built on its top.  We visited Castello Aragonese then left for an interesting navigation ,  On our way to Napoli, we saw an island from far away, it happens to be Isola Procida.  We changed our heading to have a closer look at this beautiful and colorful village of Corricella.  When we were just approaching Naples, a storm with a good 20 knot wind gust hit us.  But it was just a short event, all went well and we arrived safely at Naples. 

  1h of engine, while waiting for the wind, it did pick up at 2 pm but it was mild. We prepared the spinnaker still, waiting for the wind to actually pick up. It did but late in the afternoon until we arrive Ischia. Sant Angelo. We travelled 6h40 at 3,4 knots and did 23 NM.

  We waited the afternoon to navigate as there was no wind before. We moored next to the Black Pearl, an impressive 106m boat that can go as fast as 30 knots with its 2900 m2 of sails! The equivalent of 6 basketball courts. Brad Pitt was on in sailing around Palermo beginning of august. We did a 25 NM navigation in less than 5 h at 4.4 knots average. With the spi. Here is cute little port of Ventotene, architecture in 2 levels.

  We stopped over at Palmarola but in total, 12 NM were done in 3h at 3,6 knots cruising speed. Beautiful island once again, but this time it's inhabited. So we got to visit the village the next morning.