We met in marina kastela for the voyage to begin.
March 2017 3 of us met to get the yacht prepared: The yacht for the trip was a Sun Odessey 49i already tried and tested with two of the crew, so we knew her well and were happy with her capabilities for the crossing, first leg was over to the island of Vis to check out of Croatia before heading direct to ward Bari in Italy.
There were 3 of us on the trip this time but none of the legs were too long and we all felt comfortable with the numbers. The Exploration trips Goal was to discover the islands to the north of Sicily, have a generally fun time and discover a little bit more fo the Italian coast then onto Naples and Pompeii and returning via Corfu then back upto Split in Croatia for he beginning of the Charter Season.
The passage all went well on route to Italy no large storms – good wind that took us practically all the way there, we docked the first night in Bari we planned to stay a couple of nights and explore the town and then sail down little further to a cliff side restaurant for dinner after our stay.
Departed from Bari and instead of heading to the cliff side restaurant that would have taken up almost a whole day and possibly the most expensive marina in Italy we ended up staying in what we believe was surrounded by a rubbish dump and sunken yachts doing our best to finally check into Italy as we were unable to do it in Bari.
From there we carried on towards the Messina straight keeping an eye on the tides to make sure we didn’t end up standing still in the middle of such a busy waterway, we hung a left and headed to our first island off Sicily travelling through 30+ knots of wind.
Volcano was our plan but we were defeated due to the docks not yet being built for the summer and we all wanted to treat ourselves to a night out after the trip up there. So onto Lipari we travelled.
A very warm welcome in Lapari we met a lovely couple and there son who owned a construction business in Sydney and decided to name there Catamaran “Site Office” which was a great name we all thought.
For the next few days we spent checking out the surrounding islands of Lipari onto Panarea, Salina, Vulcano, Filicudi.
Gorgeous scenery and great atmosphere hiking put the top of live volcanos and dinning in some of the best tasting restaurants they had to offer.
Due to timings we decided to take it easier and missed out on Naples, one of the crew hadn’t been to Corfu before so we decided it was possibly better to head there instead.
Stopping off in Sicily for more provisions and fuel we then headed back down the Messina straight, taking a night in a small port on the way down for the night that we had to use google translate to translate with the dock walkers – which definitely brought some humour to the dock.
Islands covered:
- Lapari
- Sicily
- Vis
- Corfu
- Volcano
- Salina
- Panarea
- Tabutello
- Filicudo
- Alicudi
Miles covered:
- 1200 nm
Volcano erupting off the back of the yacht whilst we ate dinner and watched.
Would we do it again? sure.. now the 3rd member has his sailing skills mastered why not – it was fun it was a good exploration and who wouldn’t want to see the Italian coast from a well equipped boat in good weather.