POSTCARD FROM LEONIE
Carl and Ginny celebrate their win
us as we sailed away from the prosperous isle, caused by raindrops or ice crystals as Google later informed me but which at the time felt like another good omen. Our first night back on the high seas was spent moored alongside a crane dredger in San Marco di castellabat, a far cry from the luxurious superyachts we were used to neighbouring in Capri. We enjoyed another free berth the next night at anchor in the sheltered, peaceful bay at Palinuro. Our luck ran out the following night when a big swell made for an uncomfortable anchorage at Cetraro. Our French neighbours obviously shared an equally maddening night as the exasperated skipper, just as we left at dawn, dashed out stark naked bar a short t-shirt to angrily adjust something on his boom that must have been making an infuriating noise for hours as the sea surged endlessly against his yacht. After little sleep, it was hard to endure an 11 hour voyage to the next available port especially when we found ourselves sailing in a challenging Force 5 for a couple of hours before arriving at Marina Stella del Sud at Vibo Valentia. In stormy weather conditions, we are quite close to the raging seas in Leonie’s cockpit as it is quite shallow and low to the water. Stella del Sud was a lovely marina with great showers and friendly staff and we stayed for two nights. On our way to the huge container
port of Gioia Tauro, we passed a huge slick of fish scales floating on the sea surface. Away from the main port we moored bows to a pontoon run by an eccentric old man whose idea of security was to ‘lock’ the gate with a thin piece of string (having lost the key).
The old fishing port of scilla was a revelation. Fishermen’s cottages
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Carl on Leonie, moored at Corfu Yacht Cllub alongside the other classic yachts taking part in the Corfu Classic Yacht Race.
nudged the water’s edge with their little blue boats tied up alongside on slipways. Swinging in the hammock chair
Carl had rigged up above the forward hatch as we approached the small harbour, I had my first glimpse of the strange looking local swordfish boats. Part of an ancient tradition, the
boats are specifically designed to hunt swordfish and consist of a 30-metre high mast with a cage at the top where the captain spots his prey and pilots the boat. Extending 45 metres out from the front of the boat is the passarella where the harpooner takes position in a bid to catch the swordfish unawares. As we climbed the winding streets to the castle above the harbour, we watched the two swordfish boats we had seen earlier return to the port, passing alarmingly close to Leonie as they backed into their berths. Scilla is the last refuge before the
strait of messina, the narrow passage which separates the Italian Peninsula from Sicily and joins the Tyrrhenian Sea in the North with the Ionian Sea in the South. It has a reputation for whirlpools and strong currents but it was as meek as a lamb the day we passed through it. What we thought were dolphins turned out to be leaping tuna as we got closer to them. Engine problems followed us to
rocella Ionica, where we discovered the engineer we had paid in Capri to fit our new engine had failed to align it properly, causing excessive vibration to the flexible coupling, which now needed replacing. We managed to order a new one from a Beta agent in Milan. In Le Castella we met young
French couple Jeremie and Isabelle who have taken a year’s sabbatical to cruise the Med. We decided to tackle the 134 nautical miles to Greece in company and travelled to Erikoussa within sight of each other all the way.
By the time we reached the Greek island 28 hours later we were more than 2,000 nautical miles away from home.
The endless days of passage- making were over, a summer of idyllic anchorages and short hops lay ahead. Our first sublime anchorage was in
Kouloura Bay, corfu where we made a pretty picture at anchor next to the historic corfu-based Gypsy moth III, in which Sir Francis Chichester won the first solo transatlantic race in 1960. Little did we know we would also
be racing alongside Gypsy Moth III and 15 other historic vessels in the Corfu Classic Yacht Race a few days later. What better way to celebrate our arrival in the beautiful Greek Ionian sea.•
Two swordfish boats near the Strait of Messina, Italy.
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