. Buono giorno or buona sera. That's good morning or good evening. Covers anytime you might be reading this.
We had a mixed day of travelling conditions leaving Santa Maria di Leuca. We started motoring but a couple of hours later we had the sails up, still needed some motor assistance. This all changed when the wind got up to 12+ knts from the SE giving us 6+ knots of speed. Motors off and not started until we got near the marina. The sea had picked up and the wind gusting to 20+ knts.
Ciro Marina is really not a marina as we know it for visiting yachts. It is small and most of the pontoons are taken up with local pleasure boats and fishing boats. We headed in hoping to squeeze in somewhere and were helped to stern in near the Gru ( that's the travel lift for taking boats out of the water). We had just settled the boat when one of our helpers returned to take our money. He worked for the Lega Navale who look after some of the public marinas. A whole €25 it was ...no power but there was water if we wanted it. We ended up staying the next day as well as the sky was black and the forcast was for thunderstorms and as our next leg would be a long one we decided not to spend it in the rain and storms. By afternoon tho' the sky had cleared and we took advantage of having a look around. The town was almost deserted...Not the cleanest place we've seen with rubbish in the streets and dirty buildings. We did find a supermarket and topped up our supplies. Glen and Liz decided to investigate the other end of town and stayed out until late as the shops were starting to open. They admitted when they got back to finding a gelato shop with awards for the best in Italy and sampling some, so after dinner we all went to the gelato shop. The town was buzzing.....everything starts about 5pm. The shops open, the ristorantes and trattorias open as does the fun park on the boardwalk along with the fast food stalls where both Glen and Gary tasted their wares, like a second dinner. Thinly sliced bacon grilled with spicy sausage, marinated chilli, onions and sauces. Don't know how they fitted it in.
An early rise, with our destination being Capo Rizzuto . The wind was in our favour so along the way we decided to take advantage of it and changed our heading for Roccella another 30 miles on but would make the trip to Sicily much shorter. Murphy's law kicked in once we had committed to the long haul so with not a lot of wind the rest of the day was spent putting up the pole with the headsail. Taking down the pole. Putting the pole up with the spinnaker. Taking the pole down. Putting the pole up with the headsail and so it went, giving us plenty of practice and at the same time refining the exercise. Because of the no wind situation we fell behind in our ETA and eventually tied up in the marina @ 2010, just over 13 hrs of travel. The benign conditions allowed us, apart from the pole drills, to read , snooze and have our espresso coffee.
The change in the Roccella marina was amazing from our last visit in 2008. Then we tied up to a concrete wall with no water or power and the place was still being built. They didn't charge us then. This time we tied up on the same concrete wall but the marina is complete with floating pontoons like at home with no stern in mooring lines. Everyone is side on to the pontoon. How progressive. The rest of the Med could take a note. One mistake they made is that the pens are small and anything over 13 mtrs would find it difficult and would need to use the wall like we did. Even tho' it was getting dark, along came the marina man ( private one this ) on his motor scooter. Where did you come from says he. Ciro marina we reply. Do you have document from there? No we say.Buono Where are you going? Naxos on Sicily. Okay, because you don't want water or power I will only charge you for a yacht not catamaran, which would be €1 for each foot of length plus 50%. Wow! that would be over €60. So he settled for €40. Again the marina came to life after dark and as we had another big trip to Sicily we wanted some shuteye but we were conscious of the foot traffic of the fitness freaks, couples, families and fishing people up and down the walkway.