Friday, August 4, 2017
We arrived in Santa Maria di Leuca on the heel of Italy in the evening the day after leaving Dubrovnic and then day sailed via Crotone and Rocella Ionica ( pizza is sold by the half metre) along the foot of Italy before crossing to the wonderful city of Siracusa. We felt G&A-M HAD to spend a day in Siracusa – and it's a great place to arrive late at night as the bay is reasonably easy to enter, there’s lots of room to anchor and the ground is great thick mud so the anchor digs in and holds solidly. Another reason for not leaving the next morning was that the engine didn’t start! The previous Volvo engine just had a simple key – turn the key to start. Simple. Now Volvo has an electric start panel and a black box computer. And gremlins. We’d had a previous experience of this problem so I’d bought a replacement start panel so I could unplug the installed panel and plug in the new panel. But that made no difference – the gremlin appears to be in the black box not in the start panel electrics. So the technical solution is to get a really big screwdriver and short across the terminals of the solenoid switch to bypass the start electrics. Started! Well actually on second attempt as it only worked if we didn’t first press the start button on the panel but just switched, waited for the pre-heat then shorted the terminals. If we pressed the start button, then it seems as if it didn’t start with the button the clever computer closes the system down so that then trying to short the solenoid doesn’t work (although maybe moving on to short the starter itself and bypass the solenoid as well as the switch might have worked. Anyway, I hate overcomplicated, unnecessary electrics).
Dinner in style at Crotone Marina
So we had a wonderful lazy day in Siracusa, great food (Siracusa has great restaurants as well as great historic sites) and a trip to the market in the morning before heading to Malta. Very little wind so we motored sailed all the way (80M!) with Mario, a member at the Royal Malta Yacht Club, on Jannisah for company on the crossing. Entering Grand Harbour at night with its impressive forts floodlit is always a special experience and it was great to be back on our berth by 2145 Monday night in time for a wee dram to celebrate our safe return on the balcony.
Finally it was time to head back to Malta and with Graham and Anne-Marie aboard we left the ACI Marina near Dubrovnic (after re-fuelling at 0700 – in fact we were moored up on the fuel dock before 0700 waiting for them to open so we could leave as early as possible but of course the fuel attendant arrived a little late and then they found there was no electricity.....), checked out of the Customs and Immigration office in Gruz (the commercial port) by 0900 and were on our way to Italy.
We’d not left Dubrovnic immediately G&A-M arrived as a storm was forecast overnight – and given the rain, thunder and lightening during the night we were glad we’d waited. The delay in re-fuelling and checking out also probably worked in our favour as the swell had still not died down and we had a very bumpy exit from Dubrovnic. During the course of the day the swell subsided and the wind built to give us a good sail but during the next night more storms (unforecast) came through and we were treated to some heavy rain and more thunder and lightening. With a full main up the quickest easiest reaction when the storm arrived quite suddenly was just to drop the main (with thanks for our lazyjacks/UK Sails sailbag which gather the sail so no-one has to go forward to the mast and the Ronstan batten cars which make it easy to drop the main even downwind). And sailing downwind under jib alone turned out to be really pleasant, relaxing and more easily managed! H says we should do this more often!).
Nick and Lindy joined us at Trogir for the next leg to Dubrovnic. This was a get up and go trip every day but we did find some lovely bays to swim in and we visited Korcula town though, like Hvar, was completely swamped with tourists.. Lynn and Simon came aboard in Dubrovnik for a few days sailing around the southern islands, particularly Mljet . We had variable winds over these two weeks but still some very enjoyable sailing and we visited some beautiful islands and anchorages. The historical highlight for me in this area was not the walls of Dubrovnic (now apparently most famous as a location for GofT) but the walls around Ston. The narrow shallow channel up to Ston was also a memorable experience! Everyone was very quiet as Helen read out the depth while we sought the deep (well 3m anyway) water channel between the mud banks of the river. We draw 2 metres so not a lot of room for manoeuvre.
JULY RAB TO MALTA
Southbound! Left Rab and returned to Zadar via, Cres, Molat, and Preko. Suzie joined us in Zadar for the next leg to Trogir (near Split). Some of the best sailing of the whole trip – 20knots downwind is perfect for ALMA and as Suzie knows the Sweden 45 very well, we could relax and leave her to sail the boat. Visited some idyllic spots and some crazy places – especially Hvar which seemed like the Adriatic’s answer to Ibiza. But we were able to watch the Lions final test match against the All Blacks in a bar there so we put up with the 16 to 21 year old yuppies.
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