Bringing Back the Fanny Pack

May 5

The much awaited weather window finally arrived this morning allowing us to join the congo line of sailboats departing Marina Di Ragusa.  Ostinato's destination, south, to Malta. While the winds had

stopped howling, the seas had yet to catch up with the idea resulting in a sloshy roll that lasted the entire 8 hour trip and laid me horizontal for much of that time. Neighbor and friend Bill had arrived the day before so King had plenty of willing hands should they be needed. It would be a stretch to call this a shake down cruise since what wind there was was on the nose and the sails never saw the light of day.  At 1700 sharp we were anchored in the Blue Lagoon at the western end of Malta enjoying an adult beverage while we soaked up the golden hued landscape and crystal blue waters surrounding us. We were finally off the docks!

Our first anchorage of the 2016 season....The Blue Lagoon

May 6

While Malta is part of the EU it still requires vessels entering its waters to check in so King had us hauling the anchor up bright and early and heading toward the island of Gozo. Apparently it was too early for some members of the crew because the little grey cells had not fully ignighted.  Things like how to tie a proper knot was just not ready to surface.  As we headed toward the dock the first fender fell off and began swimming toward freedom.   Not to worry, King circled around and said crew plucked it out of the water with perfection. Fenders were quickly moved to the opposite side, per the Big Guy's request and with loud grumbling from the crew due to the little notice and being cut no slack as he zeroed in on the dock from the other direction...just as we touched, another fender jumped off the boat.....and its lines quickly wrapped the prop.  The Big Guy was not amused. Off he stomped toward Check-in, grumbling something about digging out his diving gear. Now we were all in snarky moods.  

Unidentified crew
practicing his knots

The little grey cells must of been dormant on other yachts this morning as well as divers arrived on the dock behind us within minutes of King's grumbling request to get the diving gear.  Mask, snorkel, fins ....the diver was in and out in less than a minute. My eyes never left the little operation and as soon as he was out of the water I began my pleaB for help.  After a quick conference with a buddy we got the verdict....."YES!" He would dive for us...€40. Ouch....unnamed crew quickly decided it was well worth it to keep King out of the cold water. ....and not have to listen to him moan all morning. A thumbs up put the diver in the water and under the boat in a flash. 15 sec later he surfaced with the prized fender....a little worse for wear but aren't we all....as quickly as the diver had arrived, he was gone, pulling himself back out of the water on the opposite dock to wrap himself in warm towels. When asked how to get them the money we were told "it is nothing, no charge".  Welcome to Malta!   Off to Valletta we sailed.  While some got reacquainted with their knots. 

The weather still hadn't settled so we decided to look for a tie up that would allow us to explore Malta without worrying about dragging from hither to yon. There was, however, no room for the wide girl on our arrival. With King's typical "ostinato" he finally found a spot on a dock that was still in the process of being built. While it didn't provide a lot of protection from the NW, it kept us in one place. Here we bobbed, jerked and swayed for a week while we explored every major tourist attraction on Malta. When not being entertained, we explored the supermarkets and multiple marine stores.  I spent an entire afternoon in the Gala Supermarket. They had Pam spray!  If you had told me 10 years ago I could get giddy about Pam .....It's so often the little things.  I was so excited, I text messaged King!

The dock Ostinato was tied to was marginal but the view of Valletta was first rate!

Inside the gates of Valletta

May 13
The winds have turned full circle back to the NE so it was time to move to the southern coast. We enjoyed a sweet sleigh ride to Marsaxlokk where we creeped in as far as we dared and anchored in 10 feet of swimming pool clear water.  Minutes after we got the anchor down, SY Maltese Falcon sailed into the anchorage.  Mario and Lillian are Canadian but are from Malta originally and a wealth of information on what to do in Malta.  We later found several other MdR alumni in the market. Apparently the place to be.

Marsaxlokk town quay and Saturday market

The trading of burgees at the Royal Malta YC
(King modeling his fanny pack)

From Marsaxlokk we continued our bus riding exploration....sightseeing, shopping and sampling the local dishes. On Sunday, Marsaxlokk has a huge market which we fully explored from one end to another.  As usual, we bought way too much fruit, strawberries, peaches, white grapes (seedless yeepee).  Fortunately, something we never tire of.  And did I mention the tomatoes and beautiful asparagus?  MMmmmm.  Besides fruits and veggies, King also purchased a fanny pack.  It matches Bills.  I explained to them both that fanny packs had gone out of fashion in the 90s.  When that didn't work, I reminded King of his "man bag" that he had purchased on the Rhine (never to see the light of day) but there was simply no changing his mind.

Our last day was spent roaming around Valletta.  Besides last minute shopping, we had a destination, the Royal Malta Yacht Club, where we hoped to exchange our ABYC burgee for one of theirs.  It was a successful trip!


The bus trip to and from Marsaxlokk takes close to 45 minutes and today the return bus was late....Not just late but VERY late.  The crowd was not a happy bunch.  The time came and went that would allow us to use our 2 hour ticket.  Along with others, I complained to the "guy in the green vest" and was assured he would tell the driver so there would be no additional charge.  1 1/2 hours later the bus arrived and was stormed by a mob daring the driver to leave the bus.  The "man in the green vest" was of course nowhere to be seen.  The driver did not take issue with my claim for a free a free ride....nor anyone else's for that matter.  Off we rumbled, swaying and bouncing along.  About 20 minutes into the trip the stop buzzer started going off.  The driver would pull over but no one would get off.  This went on for another 10 minutes getting more insistent as time passed.  Finally, the driver stopped the bus in the middle of the road and exploded out of his tiny cabin in the front, screaming "who's pressing the button?!"  The passengers, ranging in age from 15 to 80, all sat in shocked silence.  After searching each passenger's face in hopes of uncovering the guilty party, he turned to go back to his seat.  Halfway there .....buzzzzzzz.  He swung around in rage, hair standing on end, spittal flying from his mouth.  He stomped down the aisle eyeing each passenger and pushing the buttons on one side, then the other as he moved to the back of the bus.  Each one providing the expected snappy buzz.  No one breathed.  At the last row of seats, he turned, defeated, head bowed, shoulders slumped, as he quietly made his was back to the drivers seat.  The next stop was ours.....I'll be damn if I was gonna push that button.  Thankfully, there was a large crowd waiting at our Marsaxlokk stop.......probably really angry because they had been waiting for over 2 hours for the bus......poor driver.  There were plenty of seats for them because the rest of bus load decided they had enough and all piled out.

It was such an ordeal we decided to eat on shore tonight.  "Yea" cooks night off!  I ordered the special

at the local waterfront restaurant. It started with fish soup which smelled lovely but upon close inspection, I'll be darned if I could find any fish in it. The meal was a steal for €12 so I felt a bit silly complaining....especially after the "free" bus ride but it was quickly remedied with a new bowl and 2 healthy pieces of fish....along with a main course of calamari, grouper, octopus, fries and salad.  yumm.   

May 18

The Blue Grotto has the bluest waters we have ever seen

The weather forecasts have been entertaining but lack any consistent information that you might use for planning. Our planned Friday crossing has been moved  to tomorrow.....and the winds are shifting to the south. Back around the island we go. We are all excited as Bill gets to practice his fender tying.  He go a C.  Nothing fell overboard....but me fears he is not practicing as much as he claims.  We traveled along the south coast heading west with the wind on our nose....checked out at Gozo and then moved to the north coast traveling east....and the wind was on our nose!  That's just mean.  

We finally put the anchor down in St. Peter's Bay. The bay is full of hundreds of empty buoys.  The problem is you have no idea what size boat they will hold so we carefully anchored in between them.  It ended up being a rolly, uncomfortable night.

May 19
Up at 7 with plans to move back around to Marsaxlokk.  The weather continues to be weird with the forecast being more wishful thinking than anything near reality.  The good news was we did not have any mooring balls underneath us so once the anchor was up, King, with Bill and me on the bow pointing out floating mooring lines, weaved his way back out of the harbour.  We headed east but after one last look at the weather forecast, it was decided that maybe it was time to jump back to Siracusa, Sicily.  The winds should be light and by afternoon "forecasted" to back around to the south.  Sounded good.  As if we needed any encouragement, a text message arrived from Namir one of the yachts we sailed with across the Atlantic.  "Where are you?"  They were sitting in Portopalo.....A quick course adjustment and Portopalo here we come!

Its always special to see Joanie and Bob.  We came across the Atlantic together and met in the Azores,  again in Turkey and now Sicily. Like us, they are headed west again.

The market was full of fish.....

.....and fruit!

The boys

The boats of  Marsaxlokk 

Acting Your Age

We turned the clocks forward an hour before crawling into bed last night.  Not only did we gain an hour of much needed daylight but the morning was transformed from rainy and cold to sunny and.....well, cool. You could feel the marina come to life. Decks were being scrubbed and sails were dragged out from their winter storage to flutter in the wind as they were hoisted up the main halyard.  Everyone wanted to be outside today. Talk magically turned from what are your plans for the winter to where are you heading this summer.  

Sue pretending she knows how to sew 

Spring fever has settled in on Ostinato too. King is in high gear, prioritizing jobs on his never ending jobs list. The sewing machine seems to be permanently ensconced on the back deck to keep up with the jobs King keeps inventing for me.  Sewing does not come to me naturally. I knew this early in life when my 1st sewing project in Jr High Home Ec, a mandatory gathered skirt, fell apart immediately upon its completion (no one wore those anyway!).  Sewing is so far down my list of things to do that it has taken me 3 years to start a shade cloth for the plexiglass port over the helm. If not for our neighbor, Helen on Dakini, it would still be just a thought. Even so, in the time it took me to complete that job Helen created two mainsail bags and was working on dinghy chaps. Somehow she manages not to laugh at me (out loud) and cheerleads me on. 

Our winter sailing break always goes by way too quickly and this year our time in Marina di Ragusa, was no different.  When we arrived at MdR our first task was to apply for our Italian residency permits. We were a bit frantic as we only had 8 days to file our paperwork after arriving in the

Getting fingerprinted for our residency permit

country and we had consumed 6 of them battling headwinds and rain sailing down Italy's east coast to reach our new winter home in southern Sicily. Lucky for us, there were a few sailors at the marina that had gone through the process before us who kindly laid out the multiple steps necessary to reach success.  Almost a month after submitting our paperwork, we made our first trip to Questura (i.e police headquarters) which was a bit intimidating. We arrived 15 minutes before our appointment with Silvia, from the Marina, as our translator. Waiting outside the locked fence we chatted with people from all over the Mediterranean who were also hoping to become new Italian residents. Our appointment time came and went. Twenty minutes later a uniformed man unlocked the gate and the crowd surged forward. He called each name that would be permitted to enter.  We had already decided if one got called we would drag the other along but there was no problem; each of our names was call one after the other. Once inside, you waited again. While there was a large lighted number system, it didn't work so we sat. Our Italian was limited to boungiorno and arrivrderci....counting was still on the horizon so bringing Silvia along to know when our number was called immediately becaome a very good move.  Finally, we moved up to the window and watched the man on the other side thumb through our documents.  He asked a few questions which Silvia handled with ease, took our thumb prints and pronounced we were  "OK".  Our next stop, fingerprints and pictures, was completed that afternoon. A month later we received a text message to return to the Questura to pick up our residency permit.

The crews of Lazy Tern and Ostinato do
 selfies on the "train/ferry" to Naples

Train rides the ferry from
Sicily to Italian coast

Thankfully, we arrived early enough in the fall to be able to do some great "land cruising" in amazing places like Naples and Pompeii with David and Liz on Lazy Tern.  Getting there was half the fun, bus to train, train rolled onto ferry and then rolled off and became a train again and finally a wild taxi ride to our hotel.  A fabulous experience but we ended the trip on a down note after we boarded a crowded train and pickpockets did everything but turn poor King upside down and shake him.  New phone, earbuds and billfold disappeared without him feeling so much as a tug.  Of course, this is the same man that can be standing on top of my feet and not notice so they really didn't need to be that talented.  With great reluctance, King has finally gone back to wearing a money belt when we travel.

Bodies capture the horror of the eruption of Vesuvius

Oh my!  that's what a  calzone
 is suppose to taste like!

A few weeks later it was on to Rome, Florence and Venice thanks to €15 Ryanair flights that made it impossible to resist.  Each city had its own very special charm.  In Florence, we were able to sit with obstructed views in front of Michelangelo's statue of David and explored the Uffizi to find Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.  No crowds, no lines and at the end of each day we returned to our room to find a tray sitting on our bed with a note and a special wine inviting us to rest from our hard day of sightseeing before dinner.  Our B&B in Venice gave us the key to their sister hotel's roof top which had a refrigerator full of prosecco and a view of Venice at sunset that made you want to stay forever.  The roof top became a nightly ritual.  In Rome, we rented an apartment just on the edge of the tourist area that allowed us to become part of an Italian neighborhood, eating with the locals each night.  While it was a most magical of "vacations from our vacation", we awoke on our second day to the news of the tragic massacres in France.  Suddenly, there was a significant increase in police presence at every tourist area and we became much more watchful of our environment.

Our view each night at Sunset in Venice as we enjoyed a bottle...or 2 of prosecco.  A cruise ship is passing by at the top

While there are only a small handful of boats from the US in the Porto Turistico in Marina di Ragusa, Thanksgiving was a marina wide effort.  A local restaurant cooked the turkeys and each boat bought a dish.  I made stuffing  which not only made King happy but also the young American boy visiting his grandparents for the holiday.  We were told he had  bemoaned there would be no stuffing.  Another American boater had scraped up enough cans of cranberry dressing for everyone at each table to have a bite or two.  Perfect!  The room was packed and the food was great.  How special to us to have people from so many other countries celebrate an American holiday.

Shell Point neighbors, Marcia and Carl arrived soon after Thanksgiving and we were off again to explore southern Sicily from The Valley of the Tombs in Agrigento in the west to the ancient city of Siracusa to the east.  As is no surprise to anyone that knows Marcia and Carl, we had a hard time keeping up with them.

Finding the UNESCO logo in Agrigento was a great surprise

December was a mix of day trips exploring Sicily and celebrating the holidays.   Sailors from each country took their turn to share Christmas traditions.  

We joined our Scandinavian neighbors for
the annual candlelit celebration of Santa Lucia in Dec

Christmas was spent with catamaran neighbors on I Dock. Since we didn't have left over turkey from our Thanksgiving dinner, King desperately wanted to cook a turkey so we offered to bring the bird.. At the grocery, King used his handy dandy phone translator for the order..... 8-10 lb.  The butcher said "Si, Si, no problema". Christmas eve we arrived to pick up the bird and the butcher proudly presented a beautiful fat 15 lb turkey. No way that sucker was ever going to fit in our tiny boat oven without some major amputations....don't need those legs.... Whack! off they came, wings...whack, whack!...... There is always something special about Christmas on a boat and this get together was no different. Great food and friendship. We ate till we could no longer move and then we were introduced to a new card game...."F--- the Neighbor".  I think Marcel made that up.  In any case, plans were made before the night ended to meet again for New Years Eve.  

Leo checking for presents under the tree.  

Marina di Ragusa square at Christmas

Ostinato was decked out for the holidays

Last year while we were in Turkey we enjoyed the marina's monthly trip to the symphony so when an opportunity for a musical evening was announced on the morning net, we jumped at the chance.  It

The teatro dei Donnafugata

ended up being a small group of 10 made up of Dutch, Germans, Canadians and Americans. Jack, an 80+ year old sailor from California and the only one that could manage a few words of Italian made all the ticket arrangements.  The venue was in the tiny 18th century teatro dei Donnafugata in Ibla Ragusa.  We squeezed into the hard seats in the back as all of the padded seats overflowed with annual subscribers.  The evening was kicked off by introductions of what was to be played that evening and, we assume since everything was in Italian, a big welcome to The Americanos.....yes, we all became "Americanos".......a round of applause.  King and I attended three more concerts in Ibla and each evening "The Americanos" got a round of applause.  They we all so kind. One night King and I were sitting in plastic chairs that had been situated across the front so a few more could be squeezed in and a man sitting in "front row center" (we will call him the "Godfather") invited us to sit in empty seats beside him.  He spoke no English and we spoke nothing recognizable in Italian so we smiled at each other a lot.  When the ticket holders of the seats arrived, he banished them to the plastic seats!  Which they took without as much as a whimper.

A night at the symphony in Ragusa Ibla

Suddenly, it was mid January and the day had finally arrived to empty the fridge and freezer and dig out the suitcases.  It was time for our annual trip home.   We hitched a ride heading for the Comiso airport to board Ryanair to London.  There we would spend a few days visiting old haunts before continuing back to the States.  Liz and David our St Kats neighbors  and now MdR neighbors (Lazy Tern) picked us up and took us to their new lux flat outside of Cambridge

8 a.m. we were 5th in line for Miss Siagon
 = 4 front row tickets!

. We had decided ahead of time that we didn't want to be like old fish (3 day smell) so the plan was to spend a couple of days with Liz and David then move on to the Cruising Association headquarters in London to bunk for a few days and then back to Liz and David's till we could find seats on a Delta flight home....or we wore out our welcome, which ever came first.  So, after a few wonderful days of fine wining and dining, we took the train into London.  The CA was a perfect location, enabling  us catch up with friends from Ipswich "the other Ivor" and Denise, stop by our favorite pub for some fish and chips and hit the streets early to continue our tradition of getting up at the crack of dawn to stand in line for "day of tickets". This time for Miss Siagon.   David and Liz joined us for the theatre and also a reunion at St Kats Marina with marina staff and the few liveaboards who are still wintering there. It was nice to catch up with Gus and Helen (Wings) for dinner and quick visits with Wendy (Scooter) and St. Katharine dock resident expert Chris West. Our spot in the central basin was empty which I pointed out to the marina manager hoping he would say "Yes, it's waiting for your return!" but that didn't happen......then, before you knew it,  after ducking helicopters at the theater and wandering the British Museum for the 100th time, we were back at David and Liz's for more pampering. The Buddy Seat gods continued to smile on us and opened up business class for our return home on our first choice departure date.  Hoping that means we get to go back to visit Lazy Tern's land base again.     

We really look forward to our annual visits home.  We cram our schedules full but we never seem to

Best part of going home is 
getting to do your "dad" duty

get to see everyone we want to see. This year we added some long distance travel; King to Oregon to see an eye specialist and family and me to West Virginia to stay with old friends Suzy and Bill and reconnect with Sydnee who I hadn't seen since high school.  How is it she looks the same!?!   Since I've been gone my high school has been made into a condo, my Jr. High is boarded up and my elementary has simply  been vaporized!  The saving grace was that the Midway hotdog stand was still there.....and yes, I had a few.  All of this made our Tallahassee time even more precious. We did manage to cram in a belated Christmas celebration, family birthdays, attended grandchildren's theater (they were the best of course!), take the kitties to their annual vet visit (MK and Zig now run when they see me coming), enjoy lovely dinners with friends and neighbors at Shell Point and were poked and prodded and declared healthy by doctors across the state for another year.  King's  only limitation after treatment for back pain was to "act your age".  Hmmmm .......good luck with that.   All too quickly, it was time to go. How can that be?

Our other actor, George (right)

Julia in a play of sounds only......
gramp's was front row center, of course

The plane loads back to Europe were over flowing. March is spring break and it appears that Europe was this years destination of choice. The further into March, the fewer seats available. We needed to catch a ride back quick. My business class seat was looking extremely unlikely. The plan had been to fly to Rome and then catch Ryanair to Comiso but by the time we reached the airport our names had slid down the standby list to # 12 and 13 for 6 seats and they were over sold in the back!  Yikes. At the ticket counter we changed our destination to Frankfurt.  Still crowded but at least we had a chance we would get on the plane.....and we did yea! and in business!  Thank you to all of those people that changed their tickets at the last minute whoever you are!  It was not without drama, of course.  There is no way for 2 people to gracefully drag 6 suitcases.  It becomes especially daunting when you must catch a bus to change airports.  It helped that each bag had already been hand inspected, piece by piece, and labeled as such by the fine folks at the Tallahassee airport.  We watched as they carefully looked at unusual items in all 6 bags.  At one point, I began offering explanations for why I would be packing a bottle of pickle relish but I just stopped when they pulled out the hooka compressor and still appeared unphased by it all. While I find it hard to believe, apparently, our luggage is just not that strange.....or else they have gotten use to our annual trips home...."oh, it's those people again"...."must be spring".

We arrived back in Marina di Ragusa at 11 p.m., 24 hours after we had departed Tallahassee.  As we parked the rental car the conversation began...."Do you have the gate key?" to my reply  "No, I thought you had it." My only regret is I didn't get a picture of King climbing the fence.......but I do have one of him not acting his age a few days later.

King.....Acting his age?

It's the end of April now and each day our numbers dwindle in the marina as boats depart on their summer adventures.  Last night, after the Tuesday night Happy Hour at the Stella Marina Bar, we joined friends to attend a ukulele concert in a local bar in near the town square.   Yes, I said ukulele  concert!  Now, I'm all prepared for Tiny Tim and Tip To Through the Tulips but what we got was a singer with a voice like Carly Simon singing everything from folk, to rock and roll, to punk. King and I lasted till just after mid night and then decided in was time to wander back to Ostinato cause in a few days we will also be leaving the dock for new adventures.  The plan is to head to Malta, Albania (to restart the 18 month Vat clock) and then cruise the west coast of Italy, along with Sardinia and Corsica.  After that.....well, who knows.  The original plan was to winter in Cartagena but there seems to be efforts at work that will lead us to return to Marina di Ragusa for another year.......only time will tell.

The steps in Caltagirone
known for their ceramics
You can stop and shop on your way up
to catch your breath

Mr Etna from the train to Naples.... 
before she blew

King, cheating in the maze.
Not acting his age.... again.

Trying to find out way out of the stone 
maze at Castello di Donnafugata home of 
retired Mafia boss in TV's Montalbano 

This is Eddie, a boat cat at MdR.

He stops by to say hello and get a pet most mornings.

The art covering the walls in the ruins of Pompeii was amazing

While some of us did a daily walk to get a little exercise, others enjoyed Tia Chi on the beach

The caption sez
KNOW THY SELF

The young girls loved the
Swiss Guards at the Vatican

Rome at night was so worth it .....even in the cold

The backstreets of Venice

Mama Mia

As has been throughout most of our summer, the sails remained stowed and we motored the short distance from Cavtat, Croatia to Montenegro.  King called a few marinas while in transit in hopes that we could tie up and check in with no fuss.  The .Montenegro Marina quoted double for Catamarans.  That was met with "no thanks", actually it was more like "tell your boss he charges too much".  Consequently, we decided to take our chances at the main port where the big ships check-in.  The biggest problem here is they have huge black rubber bumpers which I'm sure are great if you happen to be a very large black ship but not so great for cruising boats, especially white sailboats.  Getting our fenders located in just the right spots to fend off was shear guess work.  Fortunately, the wind was light or it would of been impossible.  What little wind we had died as soon as we were secured of course.  The only problem checking in was they required a  boat operator's license.  Of course, we don't have boat licenses in the states.  Any fool that can turn a key can drive a boat.....no matter, King was told "anything that looks like a license will do"  so King retrieved his RYA Inland Waterway certificate and stamp, stamp "Welcome to Montenegro!"

The cruise on to Koto more than made up for the not so glamours entrance.  A spectacular fjord that reminded us of Norway.  At the end sat our marina which overlooked the UNISCO designated old walled town of Koto.   During our 2 days there we strolled the castle and did a bus trip to Perast to visit the island and its richly decorated church that according to legend was built by fisherman dropping stones where a vision of the Virgin Mary was seen.  Unfortunately, the weather turned a bit wild after that so, while not nearly enough time to explore, when a small weather window appeared we decided to grab it.

The night view was spectacular!

you never know what might be lurking in the moat

The Lady of the Rocks in Koto Bay

After multiple calculations and much debate, King convinced me that it was actually shorter to cross directly to Italy vs sailing down the coast of Montenegro, Albania and back to Greece to cross.  The difference, of course, is one required an overnight and the other we could day sail.  I caved.  The wind was still howling when we untied from the docks and we were unsure what conditions would be on the outside of the fjord so checking out was tricky.  While we could checked out in Koto we would have to leave the country immediately so it was decided to travel to the mouth of the bay and spend the night in Herceg Novi to ensure the weather we were seeing on the computer matched what was happening at the mouth of the fjord.  The marina there had space but the wind was still howling when we arrived and would of made med mooring worth the price of admission.  We nixed that idea and found space to anchor just off the marina in 40 feet.  Within the hour the wind laid down to a whisper and we settled in for the night.

Hat, binoculars, pilot book, clothes you can sleep in....must be an overnight crossing

September 22 - Ostinato departed Montenegro at 0830.  Not much wind but confused seas made most of the day less than fun.  By evening, however, Ostinato finally found a more comfortable ride.  The wind was light so while the sails were up the engines remained on.  It was a non eventful crossing, which isn't a bad thing.  Ostinato arrived in Gallopolli at 1600 the following day.  We called all the marinas listed in the Italy pilot guide but none had room for us so what to do.   I had the yellow quarantine flag flying.  We had to check in.  Our only option was to find the Harbour Master's office.  King pulled Ostinato into the quay and I jumped off to tie her off.  I barley had the bow line on before men in uniforms started pouring out of the building and, with much hand waving, saying "you can not stay here!  Government dock"  I pointed to our yellow quarantine flag and responded "OK, ....where do you want us?"  After much murmuring and second teams running information back and forth to the building, fingers pointed to an empty space on the quay near the "old town" where the fishing boats were moored.  The men who were enjoying their evening fishing in that spot were not thrilled about our arrival but took their displacement in stride.  Here we spent the next 3 days checking in.  Yes, it took 3 days.....but it was a pleasant 3 days filled with catching up on lost sleep from the overnight and exploring the old city that was conveniently right at our back door.  The best part was hearing "Mama Mia" coming from the fishermen as they chatted while off loading the catch from their boats.  We really are in Italy!

September 25 - Our check-in at Gallapoli started the 8 day clock in which we had to apply for residency.  With the D-Visa, we acquired last spring in Miami, this would enable us to stay in Italy all winter AND travel other Schengen countries for a year vs the current 3 month limit.  King estimated if we day sailed it would take us 4 days of hard sailing to reach Marina Di Ragusa, the small beach town where we will winter.  The delayed stamping in also delayed the clock but it would still be a rush.  The first port, Crotone, was a 70 mile day so we were up at 0515 and off the dock at 0600.  Not enough coffee in the world to make that feel good.  While we left in light winds we soon found great wind from the NW providing a beautiful downwind sail resulting in our arrival at the marina at 1700.  The next morning we did it all over again to Roccella Ionica.

Off the SE coast of Italy near Roccella Ionica 

September 27 - A gale was forecast to be heading our way in the next few days.  If we were going to arrive in time it meant another over night jump or leaving the boat somewhere on Sicily's east coast and driving into Ragusa to file our papers.  In the rush to make a decision, we had forgotten about the Blood Moon. Lucky for us, we decided to jump and oh what a fabulous night! Between the eclipse and the fact that we actually got to sail, it was perfect.  Heavy dark clouds surrounded us all day but once the sun slipped below the horizon they opened a narrow path leading south with the moon lighting our way.  Best eclipse ever!

What a spectacular night to sail!



Our first glimpse of Marina Di Ragusa

September 28 - ......Marina Di Ragusa was a welcome sight.  The weather was sunny and the winds had turned with us as we curved around Sicily's southern coast allowing us to sail all the way in.  It was a perfect last sail of the season.  After topping of the fuel tanks we were led to our new home......in between two 45 ft Lagoon catamarans.  Once we were squeezed in, (med moored, of course) King got to work putting the passerelle out.  The quay was so high that we had to crawl to get off the boat and slide on our butts to return.  The quay was less expensive than the floating docks.....and close to the heads but this was not going to work.    No problem, the lovely ladies in the office found space for Ostinato on I-dock and we were soon settled in to our berth for the next 7 months.  Wow!

This year's neighbors are made up of Swiss, Dutch, Aussies, and Brits....and that's just on I pontoon.   As is the case with many marina's with a winter cruising community, there are lots of activities to keep us entertained over the winter including dinners, happy hours, Italian lessons, and trips to the symphony in Ragusa.  We also hope to spend lots of our time this winter exploring all of the wonderful cities Sicily and Italy has to offer.  So, while our sailing may be over until next May we plan to continue to have a few adventures this winter.  Stay tuned!

Porto Touristico Marina Di Ragusa 



The "run way"