Porto Palo, Sicily.

Current position at anchor in Porto Palo (South east point of Sicily): North 36*40'105 East 015*06'790

It was a hard decision but today we left Siracusa and one of our favourite anchorages in the Med. We were up early enough to head into town to the market to do a final stock up on yummy cheese and fresh fruit and vegetables. It's amazing how lively the city is at 8am with the cafes full of Sicilians drinking coffee and meeting up with friends before work. Our favourite cheese guy was as lively as ever and we were even treated to a free Sicilian sandwich and glass of red wine...Yes for breakfast - Sicilian hospitality will be hard to beat!

After a quick drive through the anchorage to say goodbye to our friends on other boats, we picked up anchor and sailed out of the Port around midday. It was a 25 mile motor sail down the South East coast to Port Palo on the Southern point, a big harbour with two giant break walls protecting us from any Swell from the South. We dropped anchor in 10 feet of water in lovely sticky mud and are snuggly settled in for what we hope to be a peaceful night.

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Siracusa, Sicily.

Current Position at anchor in Grand harbour, Siracusa: North 37*03'504 East 015*17'026

After arriving in the port of Siracusa a week ago we've been completely immersed in the Italian culture. The city was built on an ancient Greek settlement founded in 737 BC by the Corinthians. Home to such sites as the ruins of the Greek Temple of Apollo, extensive Paleo-Christian catacombs and The Fountain of Artemis in Piazza Archimede, it's an amazing city to stroll around and explore.

The colourful morning market has provided us with a tasty array of Sicilian treats including roasted mozzarella, Green & black olives, Tortellini Pasta, Salami and Italian Sausage. We've gotten our fix of Pizza and seafood pasta in a great local restaurant and the coffee shops for great frappes and deliciously fresh Cannoli!

We finally bit the bullet and invested in a wireless dongle so we can pick up internet on the boat, using a local phone network provider called 'wind' we now have unlimited connection for just €15 a month. Our knowledge of the Italian language is pretty much non existent but with our broken Spanish, the locals limited English and a lot of sign language we seem to be coping surprisingly well.

This has been one of our favourite stops in the Mediterranean so far with the combination of a great anchorage, a city full of beautiful buildings, amazing food and extremely friendly people we're going to find it really hard to leave.

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Underway to Sicily.

Current Position underway in the South Ionian Sea: North 36*57'854 East 019*03'775

After a few relaxing days exploring Methoni and the ruins of the Venetian fort and Turkish castle we are now underway to Sicily. Yesterday we caught the bus to the town of Pilos 20 miles north along the coast from Methoni. We checked out of the country with the Port Police and picked up a few supplies including some local wine, olive oil and fresh veggies. At 7pm last night after a hectic few hours stowing everything away, mounting the wind steering vane and putting the dinghy on deck, we upped anchor and left Greece. It's sad to leave as we've really loved everything about Greece; the people are really friendly, the scenery is beautiful and the food is delicious...we look forward to coming back and exploring again some day!

As for now though we're 120 miles from Methoni on a west bound course towards the town of Siracusa on the east coast of Sicily. We have 178 miles to go and we're sailing along with 15 knots of wind out of the North West, the seas as usual for the med are uncomfortably bumpy but we're making good time at a speed of 5 knots. At this pace we should arrive in Siracusa on Monday morning. The wind vane is steering for us so we've just sat down to watch the sun set while enjoying a hot bowl of Chilli con Carne, the weather forecast is for much the same winds so fingers crossed we should have a very pleasant night!

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Methoni - Peloponnesse, Greece.

Current position at anchor in Methoni harbour: North 36*48'921 East 021*42.587

After a rough sail from Patmos to Naxos Island we were lucky to get a great sail the next day, 55 miles to the town of Adhamas on Milos Island. Milos, the origin of the famous Venus de Milo statue, was as far west as we made it last year before heading back to Turkey so it was a great feeling to be back knowing from here on everything would be new. We spent a couple of days sitting out another 30 knot Meltemi filling the time stocking up on fresh food in the small supermarket, getting Jerry cans of fuel from the petrol station across from the beach and jerry cans of water from the public dock down town. We also squeezed in a bus trip up to the town of Plaka high up the mountain offering breathtaking views of the island.

We caught up with friends Carolyn and Cap'n Fatty Goodlander from the yacht 'Wild Card' who we hadn't seen since last year and who are also planning to cross the Atlantic this year. By coincidence they were in need of a new head sail after blowing theirs out in a strong Meltemi and it just so happened we had picked one up from another cruiser in Turkey. It turned out to be a little too big for our boat but after a quick measurement discovered it would fit Wild Card perfectly and thus the sail has found a new home!

Three days after we arrived the wind calmed down and at 6pm on the evening of the 13th we said our goodbye's and sailed out of the harbour. We had just under 100 nautical miles to our next anchorage of Port Kayio on the southern coast of the Peloponnese. We spent the night sailing with light winds out of the North West and then motoring when they eventually died off. Our first night sail in just under a year and we were blessed with calm seas, clear skies and a beautiful full moon...not a bad way to be eased back in! At 5pm yesterday evening we dropped anchor in Port Kayio encompassed by a stunning mountain range which has created a perfect natural harbour.

After an extremely peaceful night catching up on sleep this morning we upped anchor just as the sun began to rise and motor sailed the 50 miles north west to the town of Methoni. We've just set our anchor amid a small group of international cruising yachts and are comfortably nestled behind the protection of the large Venetian fort that stands out from the headland. The water is crystal clear, 15 feet deep and the bottom is great holding in sand. Our plan is to spend a few days exploring the town and fort while keeping an eye on the weather and looking for a good window to sail the 300 miles west to Sicily.

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Naxos Island

Current Position at anchor on South Coast of Naxos Island: North 36*56'100 East 025*28'301

We were finally able to leave Patmos Island today, with a weather forecast of 15 knots of wind from the North West it sounded a lot more appealing than the 30 knots we've had for the past week. We tried to leave a couple of days ago and after an hour of bashing into huge waves we had to turn around and head back for cover. Today started off well but the winds slowly increased and half way thorough the day we were faced with the same high winds and big waves, by the time the weather had filled in we'd gone too far to turn back so had no choice but to carry on.
We covered over 55 nautical miles in 11 hours with a double reef in the main and a slither of head sail, the boat is caked in salt and pretty much everything down below that wasn't tied down was flung around the cabin...we really can't figure out the Greek weather.
We're now very happily anchored in a beautiful calm bay that we've affectionately named 'sheep anchorage' (due to the huge herds of sheep that cover the hills) and are looking forward to a shower, a hot meal and a good nights sleep. Supposedly tomorrow the weather will be 'even better' so we plan to head on to Milos Island and another 55 mile sail west of here...we shall see if the forecast can ever be trusted!

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