Italian Waters!

After giving Maggie and Levi a whole three days to recover from jet-lag, and only having a narrow window to sail to Italy, we finally headed out of Corfu. We were only missing one bag from the airline, and had to wait a few days to make sure we got it. It travelled a bit further than Maggie and Levi, going to Sicily, Athens and finally to Corfu. It was worth the wait because it was holding our satellite phone we’d just purchased and, much more importantly, Maggie’s new clothes form the states. 

Emma and Levi 'raising the flag' ceremony ;)

We really loved hanging out there in Corfu a bit longer and getting some stuff done on the boat. Erik was able to work on some engine maintenance, and finish a few projects, like a water leak under the kitchen sink that has ruined some of the new wood floor L…………BIG L….so fixing that’ll be a project for another day.

After looking at the weather, we saw two days that looked pretty calm, so we went for it. There really is no sailing to Italy from Greece this time of year, everyone says wait for the least amount of wind against you, and crank up the engines. So, we made it an overnighter and Levi and I took turns watching for ships across the Adriatic Sea, a very busy stretch with tankers, tankers, and ferries going up and down to Croatia and Venice.

We didn’t see too many other boats, maybe 4-5 all night. We’d expected more, so that was OK by us.

We’d just about arrived in Italy and could see the lighthouse on the heel of the boot, when a HUGE Italian Coast Guard boat pulled in quickly behind us, and about 10 guys stood on deck checking out our little boat. They announced they needed to board our vessel and check our paperwork, which was fine. It was about 5:30 a.m. and Rachel and the kids were still asleep. So they came aboard and looked inside. It didn’t seem like they knew what to look for, the two that boarded just kinda stood in the main saloon for a few minutes looking around. Then they announced everything was OK and climbed back on their boat, pushed away and zoomed off to find another boat. I assumed they have tightened security with boats trying to come into Europe from middle east countries like Libya, not really that far from us here.

So we came into the first port around the corner, right on the heel of ‘the boot’ of Italy and Levi and I tried to catch a little nap. From the boot, it’s another long day to the next stop across to the front of ‘the boot’ so we spent the day checking weather and realizing a storm was coming in, tucked into the marina for a couple of days to recoup. This is the first marina we’ve been in since we left Israel almost 3 months ago and I can say the hot showers were EXTREMELY welcome.

So……good-bye Greece and hello Italy!

~Hems