deva in paradise

...began on a gray morning at the place where we arrived a week earlier, the customs dock in Zelenika, Montenegro. As in Croatia, the official process required us to proceed from the customs office to the boat and directly to sea... This was not exactly convenient as we hoped to get an early start but at least the little shack was open at 5 AM so we did not lose any daylight,. This was important since the Fall days are only about 10 hours long and we have learned it is best to negotiate port departures and arrivals and high density traffic in daylight whenever possible. We were allowed to complete the first half of the clearance procedures in the nearby building the night before, leaving only the final document stamping for the morning....

Across the Adriatic Again

The passage across to Brindisi Italy would be our third and final crossing of the Adriatic Sea in two months, and the longest, at 110 miles. The weather was as good as we had time to wait for, with favorable winds, but light and rainy at times. Thirty miles and 6 hours into the passage we hit a particularly dark patch. We had been rolling around in bigger waves than we like due to the light winds and we were not making good speed. This is when Mike called Debby to the cockpit to have "the talk"about whether we should turn back and wait for better weather...Debby said, " There is no way I am going to be out here for 60 miles and wind up in the same place we started not to mention clearing back into and then again out of the country. Let's think logically about this". We knew we were going to have light winds, but that they are supposed to pick up around noon, we knew there was going to be rain so the dark clouds were expected. If our course isn't good we can head up and make landfall in Bari or we could fall off and make it to Otranto." and so we continued sailing. As predicted the winds picked up and through out the night we weaved our way between many large ships. Thankfully most of them had AIS (automated identification) tracking so we could easily determine how close they would pass and make adjustments. We arrived in Brindisi at 1 AM in a downpour after 19 hours of sailing, soaking wet and exhausted. We just dropped our anchor and went to sleep. Fortunately the Italian officials were not as militant about the official clearance immediately upon arrival. We heaved anchor and motored into the old port mid morning to find the "Capitaniere" to process our papers and stamp our passports.... The old town quay turned out to be a pretty good spot to tie up as it was close to town where we could get a new sim card for our Mifi gadget, which is the mainstay for our internet connection and weather forecasting.

From then on it was our goal to go South as quickly as possible, with the days getting shorter and cooler, and the weather windows farther between. Our first stop after leaving Brindisi was Santa Maria de Leuca, on the tip of the heel of the boot of Italy. As with many of the Italian ports we visited, most of the tourist oriented businesses were closed for Winter.. so we were left with little else to do but wander the mostly desolate town. Two of the more impressive landmarks were a massive lighthouse about 160 feet high, and a marble staircase near it constructed under orders of Benito Mussolini in 1930 as a ceremonial gateway to Italy. We hiked the waterfront to see some caves in the limestone cliffs overlooking the Gulf of Taranto.

White Horses On a dark blue sea

Sailors of centuries past described breaking peaks of waves as "white horses" when it was sunny, or "gray beards" when the the seas were big and the sky gray. We sailed out of Maria de Leuca with a golden glow on the horizon behind us. As the sun came up we gazed out at a windswept sea, with "white horses" as far as the eye to see. That would be our next passage of 75 miles.

W had such great visibility that about halfway we could see the land ahead on the West side of the Gulf 40 miles ahead of us. Astern was the Cape of Maria de Leuca, and beyond it the mountains of Albania, more than 60 miles away. For a little while we could also make out the Northern headland of Corfu, where we departed Greece weeks ago. This great visibility would not last, however, as we encountered stronger winds laden with salt spray, and the familiar sandy dust from the Sahara in the atmosphere above. Deva showed her speed as we covered the 75 miles in a little over ten hours, arriving at the little port of Crotone, where we tied up at sunset.. By then we had gotten used to the inevitable wait for weather to improve for our next passage. This time it would only be two days...


A Castle from Aragon

We broke up the next stretch by taking a short hop to LeCastella, only 20 miles away. There is little else in Castella except, as its name would suggest, a rather well preserved 16th century Aragonese castle. We had a time before sunset to visit the castle and learn a few things about the Kingdom of Aragon. Most people have heard of the Roman, the Byzantine, and the Ottoman Empires, but it is not widely known that there were also several smaller empires that sprung up after the Goths laid waste to
the larger ones, the Aragonese and the Venetian being two of them. The Aragon Kingdom consisted of several Mediterranean Islands (The Balearics, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily) and southern Italy, and was ruled from Spain for about 200 years. The little castle of LeCastella was built around 1510, at about the time that Catherine of Aragon married King Henry VIII of England. Interestingly, the castle was excavated in parts by recent archaeological teams and ruins were found beneath the castle of an earlier Byzantine fort. A glass floor was put in so today's visitors can look down several centuries into the older structure...Our next leg on the toe of the boot of Italy took us to tiny port of Rocella Ionica, with barely 30 feet between walls at its entrance. As the name suggests, we were no longer on the Adriatic, but the Ionian Sea.. It would be our jumping off point to the island of Sicily.

Between Scylla and Charybdis on the Straits of Messina

This passage would not seem like a major waterway, but for an enormous volcano on its West side, strong currents, and a lot of ship traffic in the middle. Homeric legend depicts the Straits of Messina as a maelstrom of natural and supernatural phenomena. According to legend, it was the place that Oddyseus had to choose between the Six headed man-eating monster, Scylla on the East side and the boat-destroying whirlpool Charybdis on the West. While some are inclined to dismiss these myths as devilish folklore, there are some scientific explanations. One, the stratovolcanic Mount Aetna, 11,000 feet high, capped with snow, and spewing smoke every day... Secondly, there is the current flowing between the Tyrrenian Sea and the Ionian Seas, which for Mediterranian standards can be very strong and induce whirlpools on the downstream side of the Strait. The volcano effect on local weather is similar to what we have seen in Hawaii and Indonesia, where the winds are blocked next to the volcano, and then funneled and accelerated on each side. So if the wind in the region is 25 knots from the West, it will be 5 knots in the lee of the mountain, and 45 knots on the North and South sides. Add to these phenomena the ability of volcanoes to create their own lightning storms, and you can easily understand how legends are born.

We set sail from Rocella thinking we would sail about 75 miles in a long day hop and pull into the port of Riposto, on the shore of Sicily not far from Mount Aetna...but Mother Nature had other plans... As we sailed along the coast of mainland Italy, the wind was a light Westerly, followed by a light easterly, which proved to be a countercurrent or a back eddy to what we would see in the Strait. Sure enough, as we cleared the headland of the "tip of the boot" of mainland Italy, we found ourselves in gale-force Westerlies, with frothy whitecaps as far as the eye could see. We had another cockpit conference, to ask ourselves if it was more sensible to turn back to wait for lighter winds. Instead we chose to continue in the hope that the wind would subside as we got farther South into the lee of the volcano.

It didn't. By the time we arrive to the shores of Sicily, we were driven some 20 miles farther South than we intended, because we simply could not go so close into the wind and sea. At about 10PM we sailed into the peacefully sheltered Bay of Augusta, not far from the ancient city of Syracusa.. We could breathe a collective sigh of relief that we were finally on the island which was our final destination for this season.

Syracusa

Augusta was a peaceful anchorage but with no place to land and no facilities. We pulled up the anchor and sailed an hour or so to the larger medieval port of Syracusa. We had to round the ancient walled part of the city to get into the protection of a marina. As usual, the forecast called for 3 days of gales from the South, so it made sense to book ourselves in for the duration. Syracusa proved to be a delightful place to visit, with an old city inside the castle walls, similar to other places we have recently been. Built 2700 years ago before Roman times, it was the second largest city in the "Magna Graecia" after Athens. The town square today has a very large cathedral with marble statues and a large fountain. A promenade had been recently added on the sea side of the walls, with restaurants and coffeshops all the way around the perimeter of the city. Syracusa also has a large open air market with plentiful produce and seafood and dry goods. It reminded us a little of the bazaars in Turkey. Syracusa has a statue on the waterfront to its native son of centuries ago, Archimedes. A brilliant mathematician, engineer, inventor, and philosopher, now famous for having developed the manner in which volumes and weights of fluids can be determined, and for the invention of various fluid pumps. Archimedes Laws of fluid dynamics are still the basis for much of modern mechanical engineering, in such things as internal combustion engines. He also developed exponential notation that scientists and students use today all over the world. Archimedes was slain by a Roman soldier at the time that the city was taken by the Roman army in 212 BC. The soldier alleged that Archimedes was more interested in his scientific work than paying respect to the new Emperor. One of the more interesting things we did in Syracusa was to visit the museum of Archimedes and Leonardo DaVinci, where the many inventions of both men are on display.

We spent the better part of four days roaming the many small streets and alleyways of Syracusa. On ancient walls could be seen the many inscriptions and crests of Empires past. The flags of ancient Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Ottoman Turkey, Venice, Aragon, and fascist Italy all flew here. Flags that are irrelevant today except in the context of history.. Many thousands of lives were lost in the wars started by their political leaders over territory, religion, and material wealth. Today these emblems are gentle reminders of the ageless curse of tribalism upon humanity.

Onward to the South Coast

With a short weather window we sailed from Syracusa thinking we could hole up in the little bay of Porto Palo on the Southeast tip of Sicily before the final push to Licata where we planned to leave the boat for 3 months. Porto Palo is a port dedicated to the fishing trawlers that ply the waters between Italy and Africa. Surely enough, it was full to every shore with large commercial fishing vessels, most of them on permanent moorings. We had to squeeze between several other boats to find a few square meters to put our anchor down. It turned out NOT to be a very protected anchorage and the winds increased overnight to gale force and we had a 3 foot chop all around us. When daylight arrived we picked up anchor and moved closer into the Bay, but there was either not enough room between the other boats or it was too shallow, so we returned to the same spot and put two anchors down, expecting more strong Westerlies. Surely enough, the wind blasted into the harbor at nightfall, and we spent a second sleepless night pitching and rolling at anchor. The following day was forecast to blow strong from the West again, exactly the wrong direction for us to go West. When the sun rose, contrary to prediction it was eerily calm so we decided to make a run for a more protected place however far we could get. As it turned out we made it 30 miles West to the wonderfully protected marina of Ragusa. The big swell caused waves to break near the entrance, but a small boat came out to escort us into the safety inside its breakwaters.

By this time, with the many weather delays, we were running out of time on our EU visas. We had just a few days left to get the boat pulled out of the water and winterized at Licata, where we had a spot reserved for our boat. So after just one night we got underway from Ragusa for the final push. We arrived in Licata just one day before we were scheduled for hauling out the boat. We paid a visit to the boatyard where the boat would spend 3 months on the hard, but were surprised to find only one other boat in the yard... and construction debris scattered all over it. There was no slipway to bring the boat into for the haulout, either. We asked a man who seemed to be a supervisor, just in case we were in the wrong place. He called the owner, who verified that we were going to be hauled the next day. When we asked where it would happen, the man pointed out into the water and indicated that we only had to get the boat a few meters from their crane, a rickety steel home construction-type affair, and they would pull us out of the water. Then, he explained, a wheeled dolly would rol the boat across the debris field to a spot yet to be determined between rusty oil drums and scraps of metal. It took just a few seconds to survey the scene and decide that we could not leave our DEVA there....

We had to develop an alternate plan, and the best one we came up with was to leave her in the water in the very protected Licata marina. This would be the first time in several years that we had left the boat in the water while we would be away for 3 months, but we had no time to go anywhere else. So for the next few days we picked the best spot in the lee side of the floats and put out extra lines and fenders. We booked a room in a nearby lodge while we did our customary winterizing, cleaning, and stowing the boat for the season.