Pippy gets a diagnosis from the 'one more test' which points to something not quite right in her left inner ear.
We feel happy now to sail on.
We have glorious days ... and
...flaming sunsets almost every day at the anchorage on the north western corner of Navarino Bay...
...while we wait for the right weather window to unglue ourselves from this enchanted place.
...a couple of days of stormy squalls
...magnificent walks ...
We...admire the view from Palaiokastro (the old castle) down to the wetlands, lagoon and upper harbour...
check out...the coastline looking south from Palaiokastro...
Walk around the new castle perched above Pylos township....
Finally we take a flyer out of there and sail north west towards the island of Zakynthos, finding ourselves being headed, so spend a night on the mainland at the port of Koroni. Zakynthos is a short hop the next day and before we know it we find ourselves tied up on the town wall there. We are able to check out of Greece here very easily and without undue paperwork.
The vegetables are quite amazing. These monster onions take our fancy. One onion caramelised, served with mashed potatoes and Sicilian sausages makes a delicious meal later in the week.
On Saturday 24 Sept we leave Zakynthos harbour for the small bay of Keri on the south western tip of Zakynthos island, spend the night at anchor then have an early start the next morning for a 2 day, 2 night passage to Sicily.
We leave in calm weather, motoring for the first part of the passage until we have cleared Zakynthos.
Dinner of pork fillet stuffed with prunes and wrapped in bacon, served with char grilled egg plant and fresh green beans, with potatoes tossed in olive oil and
oregano on the side... not bad for a first night feed.
All goes well until around 3am when we have our first taste of what the passage is really going to be like. We are all hands on deck for a while with lightning and thunder all around us and squalls not far off, however we manage to sail on and avoid any problems.
We share the watches with each couple doing 3 hour shifts.
Day two is gloomy and grey for most of the day but we have a good sailing breeze. We are fairly open about our destination and it varies according to the wind, from Catania to Syracusa and at times we briefly consider the boot of Italy but fairly quickly discard that idea.
We have a hitch hiker join the boat, but Karen chases it off. It tries to come back but Karen gives it another heave ho over the side when it lands on her leg, which is to come back and haunt her later. During the scariest moments to come, she is to be heard apologising to the moth for tipping it overboard. She is sure in hindsight that the pattern on its back was that of a skull!
Our second night at sea is an interesting experience. The lightning and thunder come back with a vengeance and we have forked lightning all around the near horizon on and off all night although still a good sailing breeze to take us on to our destination which is by now firmly set on Syracusa. We consider trying to sail around the bad weather, but clearly that is no longer an option. Around 11pm we realise we are directly in the path of a severe electrical storm. Because we are not able to see what squalls are coming our way, we drop all sail and motor on.
Nick then has to go for'ard to the mast to lash the main down around 10pm as we can hear the wind velocity increasing substantially and we hold our breath until he is safely back in the cockpit.
Soon the forked lightning is sizzling down all around us... (and Karen tells us later she thought she was going to die)! We hastily explain that we would probably be okay, but our electrical systems would be all taken out if we took a direct hit. We don't think it helped much! The remainder of the night is spent motoring steadily onwards keeping a good eye on the radar screen for shipping which becomes more frequent once we are approaching the Straights of Messina. The lightning continues until dawn.
Syracusa finally greets us....
Phew... a hot shower and some clean clothes will do for a start!
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