After an unbelievably rocky stay in Leuca, we had almost flat water on a quick run to Gallipoli. One of the reasons for coming here was that it was supposed to be a great place to spend some time . . . no one mentioned that there is very limited (if any) docking space.
It is worth noting that our boat is, well, big. It is only 14.5m (47′) officially, but the real issue is that it weighs 83,000lbs with full fuel and water tanks. That means that even if Marina management doesn’t think carefully about where they put us, we do. It’s a lot of weight when storms blow through. Our objective now is to find a place to hole up for a month, drive to interesting sights and food, and while Jinhee heads to Chile, Toronto and Florida, I can ride my bike with the boat safely tied to a dock. Worry free is the key.
Gallipoli does not offer any space for that!! We arrived here around 2pm, couldn’t find a reasonable berth anywhere and are now anchored out in the harbour for the evening. There is no wind, no waves and it is a beautiful, if cool evening. We didn’t put the dinghy in the water to go into town (it gets dark around 5pm) and have decided to just move on to Taranto tomorrow and then we can visit Gallipoli on the way back through, or by car perhaps.
Tonight turned out to be a great evening to sit at anchor and catch up on things. I washed the foredeck and repaired a few minor annoyances while Jinhee did some work with our greatly improved telecom solutions. After the work, we enjoyed a light meal on the boat in calm waters.
Given how quickly the weather changes and the proximity to Jinhee flying out of Rome, it is important that we get into a decent harbour, and preferably find a dock for a few weeks in the next two days. That will give us plenty of time to drive through some of the sights that we want to see (Pompeii and Naples primarily), and hopefully find some wine that we can store on the boat as well.
It is clear after out stay in Leuca, that we will not be using that as a jumping off point for the trip back to Greece, so that means that our trip back is likely to be long, partially in the dark and hopefully with reasonable seas. We will be watching for the right weather window early in December.