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

ROME!!

We made it into Rome, and up the river late Sunday night, ready for the bridge to open at 6:30 the next morning.

Like clockwork, it opened and we met up with our sailing friends on s/v Imagine. Please see their blog at the bottom of our page, they are ‘close’ to finishing their circumnavigation in a few months and we met them in Israel right after they’d come up though the Red Sea. We were tired from a long week of sailing and it was great to meet up with friends, and they’d had all the ropes figured out for shopping and getting into Rome and back.

We are moored in a river near Fiumicino, not far from the airport, and about an hour outside the center of Rome. It’s a small boatyard owned by two brothers, who let cruisers use their dock for very reasonable prices, and it’s probably the only way a family of our size would be able to see Rome without costing a fortune. The Adams had been here almost a week already and were planning a road trip up to Tuscany and Pisa and Florence, and invited us along. So we would save the sights of Rome until after the road trip and after a day of rest, we were on the roads going 10x the speed of Mehari. It was strange moving that fast after putting along in Mehari for the past few months, but no one was complaining! It was really nice sitting in a quiet car with no diesel engine rumbling, and with air conditioning!!


We'll send some updates from the road trip and some photos........


~ Hems

Capri -

The myth……..the legend……..the really, really, overcrowded, hangout for the super rich!

We made it along the Amalfi coast, amid 25-30 knot winds coming off the HIUGE mountains surrpounding us and were absolutely in awe of the houses perched up there with cool roads and bridges clung to the hill. But, once we were close enough to anchor in an exposed and rolly bay, we spotted some mooring balls that we could just tie up to instead of trying to anchor. We pulled close to tie on, and the spotter boat sped over and let us know it was 100 Euros to tie up to the mooring for the night. 100 Euros!!


We chuckled, as that’s almost our food budget for a week, we were certainly out of our class here! We decided to keep on moving along the Amalfi coast and try it out at the island of Capri, another few hours away.

By the time we made it over to Capri, it was late at night and we were weaving in and around HUGE mega yachts. Maggie spotted one with 7 stories, probably a private owner and out for his annual two week vacation on board. We moseyed our way to the cheap seats, the anchoring near the beach, and after several frustrating attempts, settled in for the night.

The next morning, we were awoken early by Italians, on holiday, zipping around the bay, stirring it up. WE had breakfast and moved to a corner of the bay, and after swimming, snorkeling, and rolling around from all the wakes, we’d had enough and pulled up anchor and set out north again. I think we’ll be OK once August ends, and the thought of being tied up in the nice calm river near Rome was really appealing! So, when in doubt, sail on…..so we did another 30 hour haul north.

See you in Rome!

Stromboli - The world's oldest lighthouse

It has been called the world’s oldest light house, because ancient sailors from the Western Med, would be able to spot it sailing toward the Messina straight. The apostle Paul would have certainly seen it on his sail from Malta to Rome, and we timed it to sail by at night as we headed from the Aeolians back toward the mainland of Italy.

It didn’t disappoint! We started toward the north of the island and could see close to 20 boats ‘parked’ up ahead. It felt a bit like a drive in movie. All the boats were just sitting, too deep to anchor, so just sitting idle watching the show on the mountain top.

Every 10-15 minutes, a huge blast of lava would shoot up and out of the mountaintop spraying lava and rocks down the hill. On the larger ones, you could watch and hear the rocks tumbling all the way to the sea. It sounded like a low rumble and boats were advised to keep their distance, obviously, from the smoldering boulders. Pretty cool indeed!

We stayed for an hour or two and then by 11:00 we needed to make our way towards the mainland, another overnight sail, putting us closer to Rome. We had a long week of motoring/sailing ahead of us, and wanted to keep moving.

From back on the mainland ~

Hems

The excitement of the day!

Dad went for a morning snorkel and came back with an exciting find....A bright red live starfish!!

The girls are so excited to hold it and even Miles enjoyed the way it feels when it tries to stick to the palm of your hand……Although he keeps trying to grab one of the legs and pull it off!

The girls decided “she” needed a name and made a list of possibilities. Some of the names Included: Hot Tamalie, Rosie(Lily’s Vote), Cinqo(five in Spanish)and Tinkle Wiz(Zoe’s creation)  I suggested we name her something in Italian and  Lily asked me if I’d look up the color red in our Italian dictionary….the answer is “Rosa.” Lily said that is sounded really close to Rose and so it sounded perfect! So this is her official name J Sadly, since she’s alive, we have to drop her back in the ocean when we leave this bay but we took lots of pictures for memories. Here’s a few of Rosa with the Kids….Enjoy!

Italy "cruising"

Greece! We miss you!!

This week we logged some long miles.  We arrived in Italy last Monday, and since then have been surprised at the difference between Italy and Greece as far as the "cruising" goes.  What a difference! It’s obvious that the whole idea of cruising is new(er) to Italy, because the coast is not set up at all for cruisers, the landscape is very straight and long, no bays or places to anchor.  They are in the process of building marinas, but are expensive and usually full.  To complicate matters, marine charts show the word ‘marinas’, but are actually towns.  The word marina in Italian is used to mean a village on the sea.  So….there may be an actual marina there or there may not, most often not.  Sound bewildering?  Try it at 3:00 in the morning after you’ve been awake and sailing for over 24 hours.  So we’ve been powering around 'the boot', covering almost 400 miles in less than a week, which is not a fun pace.  Sailing overnight seems to work better, one because the wind calms down a bit, and two, the littles’ can sleep and wake up somewhere new, and don’t spend all day bouncing around inside and watching movies like couch potatoes, although it leaves the rest of us….Emma, Maggie, Levi and Rachel and I, a bit groggy. Then, once we recovered, we do it again!

So we arrived in Sicily yesterday and are as far down as a town called Syracusa, on the Southwest corner. This is an amazing town as well as huge historical significance (what isn’t over here?) 

This city was a rival to Athens for the center of the Greek empire and there was a huge battle here for that status in 715 BC. The brilliant scientist Archimedes was living here and designed a cool, ancient defense system. He developed a contraption of mirrors and lenses and was able to harness the sun’s rays and set fire to the sails of the invading ships. He was ordered to be captured and taken alive to Athens, but a random foot soldier got over-excited and killed him, wanting fame of his own.    

From here, we will go the very South-west point of the island, what looks like a very mellow anchorage (we hope!) and from there, it’s ‘only’ 60 miles to Malta.  Although with our station wagon, that’s still a 14 hour day! So we’ll see you then……

~Hems

Birthday party!

Today was Lily’s birthday, and for anyone that knows Lily, this is pretty much the highlight of her year! She’s been counting down since the day after her birthday last year and I think she’s woring on plans for her 9^th birthday now. She’s turned 7 today and we had a great day making her feel special. I tried to negotiate with her to have one more year of being 6 and then next year she could go straight to 8, but she wouldn’t have it. It would have given me another year to adjust that these kids keep growing too fast, but there’s no stopping it, and I’m afraid it’s happening much faster than I like. L

So Rachel started her day with pink pancakes, and Maggie and Rachel made her chocolate cupcakes, with pink frosting, and we had a tea party for lunch. For dinner, she wanted hamburgers and of course, macaroni and cheese. With the wind howling outside all day, over 20 knots, and the seas stirred up in no shape for comfortable sailing, we had a relaxing day celebrating with her and watching movies.

We love you Lily and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

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