The weather is good to move today, with wind forecast to be from the southeast.
Getting out of the massive Brindisi harbour was quite exciting, with three ships coming in around the same time. The first was already out of the way and being parked by tugs as we left. The second, a cruise ship, was right in front of us as we were exiting the narrow entrance to the inner harbour, so we had to slam the speed on to get out of its way. Another small yacht ahead of us seemed not to worry that this huge ship was bearing down on them, and I’m quite sure that the officers on the bridge would not have seen it so close. All was well for them though; they just slowly moved down the side of the ship, only about a 100 metres away. The third, a cargo ship, was, thankfully, out in the TSS, approaching the harbour, and going very slowly, presumably to give the cruise ship time to dock. We got out ahead of it and were on our way, with wind from behind, so quickly making a nice pace, but not really in the right direction. Our course was with the wind directly behind, or “up the chuff”, as I call it, a direction we can’t sail, so we would have to zig-zag.
When we were about 15 miles out from the coast, Steve noticed, on the
AIS, that there were two tankers travelling south towards us. They were a long
way away. We can pick up ships at up to about 40 miles distant. We had plenty
of time to gybe and make our way nearer to the coast, to keep out of their
tracks.
We were only a hour away from our destination, when the
wind died, so were happy to motor the last bit, past some fish farms. Although we did see one yacht who seemed determined to sail through the fish farm! He did avoid it at the last moment, but we were certainly not going to go too near to help him, if he got into self inflicted difficulty.
Cala Ponte Marina is dead posh. It was built by Camper and Nicholson a few years ago, and seems to mostly cater for motor boats of all sorts of sizes. The diesel was very expensive but we felt it was ok to soak that up, as they had given us a reasonable price for berthing. We had read that it was a “very expensive” place to come, but, I suspect, they have had to make their prices more reasonable to fill their slots, and it is low season until 6th June, when the prices double.
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| The clifftop town of Polignano a Mare |
An excellent day all round and happy to be in nice
surroundings.
Miles Today - 42
Miles 2022 - 707
Tricia (and Steve)
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