22 May 2022 - Crotone - More big wind

The night anchored outside Roccella Ionica was more peaceful than I had dared to hope for. The beach is long and relatively featureless in terms of protection from some directions, but we were sheltered from whatever little wind there was. Despite all this, knowing that we had one of our long days ahead of us, we were both up, dressed and preparing the boat for departure before the alarm clock went off. 

The local fishermen had been out overnight and moved all of the pots, so our efforts of trying to remember where they were yesterday were in vain.  Anyway, we managed to avoid the newly laid ones and motored away.  We were in a little convoy of 5 boats all making their way north eastwards along the coast.

As we moved away from the anchorage, we thought it would be a good time to get the sails up, as we were motoring into the wind.  This is when we had a problem, that meant that we couldn't raise the mainsail. So it turned out to be a very boring day of motoring.

They say never go to sea with two clocks, take one or three, and we follow this advice in relation to weather forecasts and consult at least three, if not more.  The problem arises when our most favoured ones disagree with each other, which is what happened today. In fact they were both right about some places and times, and both wrong about other combinations. When one was right the other was wrong and vice versa. After a long period of no wind predicted by one, the wind funnelled down the Gulf of Squillacci as the other predicted, and we had a repeat of yesterday's windy and choppy conditions, but not quite so bad. We could see the white water as we approached, and in about 10 minutes, the wind went from 6 knots from the south to 25 knots from the northwest. Fortunately, the autopilot was able to cope with most of the conditions, although we did modify our course at one point to get a less uncomfortable angle to the waves.  As yesterday, I spent ages thinking "it seems to be starting to moderate a bit", only to then have bigger wind or waves. Eventually it did ease down a bit, and we were able to resume our proper course, while maintaining speed.

We rounded Cape Colonna, and got a little of the typical increased wind and waves that you associated with a headland, then the view to Crotone opened up, and we were able to see the three or four gas platforms close to the town.  We passed between the two that the guidance said we should and headed into Crotone.

We thought this platform looked a bit like a cartoon dog from a distance!

As we approached, we telephoned the yacht club to announce our arrival as we had been instructed. Worryingly, the guy that answered said that it was "very windy" in the harbour, and he would not come out in his rib to guide us.  When we arrived it was blowing a gale, 27+ knots. We tried to go slowly over the very shallow patch at we entered the harbour, but with the wind pushing hard, that was not easy. Fortunately is was (just) deep enough. We saw the guy waving to indicate where we should go, and we dismayed that we would have to berth at 90 degrees to the wind, never easy. At least the slot we had was two boats wide, which helped a lot, but there was still a lot of scope for things to go wrong.  A small posse of other sailors gathered on the pontoon to watch or help if necessary.  We were told to use the downwind berth of the two, which meant that we would enter the space missing the upwind boat by as little as possible and be blown down to rest against the next downwind boat, which we did first time. Even though we were resting against this other boat, we were still being blown, and getting the lines on and the boat straightened was a job for more than the two of us.  One guy who was helping, very politely asked if we would mind if he came on our boat to help. We were only to happy to say yes and accept all the help on offer.  Eventually, all was secure and we were able to relax. The people here are so friendly and helpful, and the showers are the best we have seen since we left the UK.  Relief all round.

Tomorrow's task, to sort out the problem with the mainsail....

Miles Today - 67

Miles 2022 - 548

Steve (and Tricia)