Thursday, September 15, 2011

Ciao Italia!

It's hard to believe we’ve been in Italy for two months already! (Except for a small detour to Malta for a couple weeks) And while Italy isn’t really a boating or cruising destination per se……as we’ve mentioned in other blogs, our overall impression of Italy is fantastic. Whatever it misses in "cruising grounds" it more than makes up for in sheer epic places like Rome and Florence. The history is out of control. The people are super friendly and helpful and we absolutely loved staying near Rome and taking a road trip north into Pisa and Florence. It was really great staying on the river in Fiumicino and a big thanks to Max and Enrico for all your help and letting us stay, I hope our paths cross again!!

So, after dragging our feet a few days waiting for what looked like the right weather sending us west, we left under the bridges at “0-dark-30” Friday morning. Once we were through the two bridges and into the ocean, we were treated with some big leftover waves right on our nose as we headed out and through most of the first day of the passage. This was to be our longest passage to date with almost 400 miles to go and while we were going through the Bonifacio Straight, the passage between the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, we weren’t planning to stop, just continue on to the island of Menorca, Spain.

The trip was pretty uneventful, with the typical range of weather for the Med, rolly waves the first day, very light winds on days 2 and 3, too light to sail, so mostly motoring and then medium to strong winds the last 24 hours which we were able to sail, but with 20’ waves coming from the side, made it pretty uncomfortable and we all skipped a couple meals and were really glad to pull into a flat anchorage on Menorca at 0600 on day 4. Having an amazing sunrise out at sea didn't hurt one of the mornings!


A big breakfast was had by all followed by some mid-morning naps!

So, we’re in the Balearics and after a day to catch up……we’ll be exploring the islands.

Thanks for your love, support and prayers!

~Hems

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