Vieste Italy
Arwenofbosham
Rob and Jacky Black
Thu 5 Sep 2013 12:27
VIESTE ITALY
Our journey overnight to Italy was brilliant for the first 6 hours and rather uncomfortable for the last 3! We were able to sail most of the way with 2 reefs in the mainsail and a partly furled jib. We were cracking along at over 7 knots at times and the seas were reasonably flat with small wind waves from the NW. However as we closed the coast the seas built up and the wind died making our passage lumpy and much slower! We arrived off Vieste at 0700 and had to hang around for the marina pontoon to open! The outer harbour there is very shallow in places and there is a huge expanse of quay on the port side, which several boats had tied up to – apparently free but with no services and a long walk round into town. We eventually moored up stern to the floating pontoon with 2 mooring lines and water and electricity on hand. We explored the town a 10 minute walk from the boat, and bought some supplies, the ‘marina’ operated by Catrine was good but showers were extra (3 Euros) so we used our own. With the CA discount we paid 50 Euros per night which included services. We were able to get the empty gas bottle refilled (Catrine offers this service) and we also found a good computer shop to get an Italian Vodaphone simcard for our phone and a new power cable and inverter for the big computer as the old one had packed up! We were both very tired after our overnight crossing – perhaps were getting too old for this now?
We left on Thursday 5th of September to sail to Bari a large port some 50 miles to the south east.