Greece to Italy - and Dolphins
Ile Jeudi
Bob and Lin Griffiths
Mon 11 Jul 2011 14:43
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37:02.44N 15:17.92E
Saturday 9 to Monday 11 July 2011
Distance Run 335 Miles
Since leaving the UK in September 2004 we have not
needed to sail for longer than 48 hours at a time (across Biscay, Menorca to
Sardinia, Sicly to the Greek Ionion Islands). To contemplate crossing the
Atlantic we need to prepare ourselves for 3 weeks at sea. For various
reasons we prefer to attempt this on our own but know this will be tiring based
on our 48 hour experiences. We have met many couples in the Aegean who
were completing round the world trips which they had undertaken as couples and
they all preferred it that way to the tensions that can arise when taking on
crew (whether they be well known to them or not).
All of these couples have said to us that the first
48 hours are the worst and that we have not yet let ourselves pass through the
barrier where you settle down into a routine. Indeed it was talking to
these couples that motivated us to leave the Med for a while and cross the
Atlantic. This passage will be 3 or 4 days
so we were interested to see whether we settle down it is any different to the
48 hour trips.
We left at 9am on Saturday and motored for the
first 4 hours. We were able to sail from 1pm and continued to sail until
6pm the following evening (Sunday) when we put the engine back on for a couple
of hours to charge the batteries and then we sailed again through the
night. By 9am Monday morning the wind died and we had to motor all
day. Although the true wind never got over 11 knots and was usually about
8 or 9 it was mainly coming from ahead of the beam. This
means the wind we were experiencing, the 'apparent' wind, was nearer 11
knots which is the windspeed we need to get going under sail.
Due to the wind dying out we decided to head for
Syracuse which is a natural harbour on the east coast of Sicily. We were
both disappointed to stop and felt that had we had enough wind to sail we would
have been happy to carry on, so maybe there is a chance we will be comfortable
with longer distances (even though this trip was only 2 and a half
days).
We anchored in Syracuse harbour at 10pm on Monday
evening.
Lin comfortably reading as we heel gently to
the wind:-
 We were joined by Dolphins for a while on the
Sunday. They always bring joy to any trip when they play around the
boat. I was too slow with most of my photographs but a couple just about
worked:-
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