Friday, December 1, 2017
Jinhee has returned from her travels, and despite the scary headline, it was like Christmas for me!! One aspect of being in Taranto, Italy is that it is a bit, well, secluded. It’s a military town and recently suffered one of the worst municipal bankruptcies in the world. It’s a bit hard to find things, particularly when you are used to living in the heart of downtown Toronto, ON Canada.
So Jinhee brought with her many goodies from the other side of the pond that I can’t seem to find here. Cleats for my bike shoes (cobbled and beaten roads destroy these cleats, and without the nylon grips on the bottom, the risk of slipping and falling is much larger. The last thing I need to do is break a hip!), a variety of supplements for cycling, particularly when riding long distances. She brought some key electronic bits, warm clothes that were forgotten in our last minute luggage scramble on our way here in October.
Did I mention good old Canadian Maple Syrup. Tomorrow morning shall involve a pancake breakfast for sure.
I have been watching the weather obsessively, and have decided that we will let go the lines on Sunday morning to head back to Greece. The weather in the middle of the Ionian sea is a bit weird right now. Twenty knots of wind in the morning, nothing for the evening. Two days of thirty knots, then two knots for a couple of hours, then back to twenty knots. It’s all over the place. This is made worse because of the distance being traversed as well. The total trip from Taranto to Kontokali (Corfu) is about 180nm (about 300km), and covers three very different bodies of water, with the Ionian being the biggest challenge. In reality, the weather is nothing for the boat, but for my seasick stomach, well, I just hope it doesn’t rain much while I am feeding the fish over the rail. 🙂
Tomorrow we will stock up on food and wine, prep a variety of boat systems, and early Sunday, slip the lines and off we go. From there it will be easy until we get past Gallipoli, then it will start to get a bit rough. We have the option of stopping in Santa Maria di Leuca overnight and then starting early again on Monday to cross the Ionian, or we could simply turn to port and keep going through the night while the winds are less than five knots. In reality we don’t even have to make that decision until Sunday night. Jinhee is jet lagged and that may play into the decision, but there is also a full moon and boating at night, in open waters is beautiful in good weather, and even more so with a full moon.
So this may be the last post until we get to Greece . . . unless we have a good haul of wine tomorrow, then maybe that will require a photo.