Dan and Robyn's Adventures -

Back In The Saddle Again…..

We are back to Zoe once again after a fun filled “off season.” We did some incredible hikes with new friends, hit the Christmas markets in 3 European countries (reconnecting with some old friends), spent a week exploring the beauty of Japan, and spent time with friends in Vancouver, Canada on their beautiful boat. If all that wasn’t enough, we also learned that we have 3 new grand-babies and a grand-niece all arriving between June and September. While I can’t tell you how beyond excited we are, the writing on the wall has now become very clear. Spending 3-6 months living in the Med. is no longer in the cards for us, and we have made the very heartbreaking decision to sell Zoe. With that in mind, we decided to come back to Zoe much earlier than we ever have to test out spring sailing.

We arrived in Rome on March 26th and got checked into our Airbnb before heading to the yard where Zoe spent her winter. It is always a very sad moment to see just how dirty she has gotten sitting on land for 6 months. The amount of work ahead of us always feels a bit overwhelming. We spent the next week getting Zoe cleaned up and put back together for living, sailing and selling. When we got a break in the weather, we got her launched and tied up to the yard’s wall on the Tiber River. At least now, we could move on board. We quickly discovered that March and April are quite windy, rainy and COLD. We made the most of being stranded in the Rome area by exploring the local town of Ostia, frequently walking the Lungomare along the water, and going to explore Ostia Antica. Ostia Antica is an ancient Roman city and port of Rome on the Tiber River. These ancient ruins are very well preserved and provide a fascinating glimpse into life in Ancient Rome. Among the ruins, you can also see some very well preserved mosaics and frescoes. We have seen many archeological sites in numerous countries, and Ostia Antica is definitely one of the best. We also had the pleasure of meeting another American couple with a catamaran in the same yard and quickly became friends.

New letters for the dinghy “T-T ZOE”. Means “Tender to Zoe”

Zoe 2025 and launch – earliest ever at March 2

Exploring the local archaeological treasures

As I said, spring has been very cold and wet, so we have used our heater more during this time than we have in all the years of owning Zoe. The good news is it worked amazing. The bad news is we spent almost 3 weeks tied to the wall because we could not catch a break in the weather to head south. We were starting to go stir crazy, so we decided to get off the boat and head inland for some adventure. Our next adventure was the hilltop town of Tivoli. After a 1 1/2 hour drive, we hoofed it up the hill and through the narrow alleyways to our cute little apartment in the heart of the town. We spent the next 2 days wandering the narrow streets and following a trail system down to Hadrian’s Villa. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site containing the ruins and archaeological remains of a villa built around 120 AD by emperor Hadrian. The grounds cover more than a square kilometer which is larger than the city of Pompeii. The site is considered the most imposing and complex Roman villa known and much of it is still unexcavated. The following day we visited another UNESCO World Heritage Site called Villa d’Este. This was a 16th century villa famous for its terraced hillside garden. Each room inside the villa contained ornately painted walls and incredible sculpted ceilings. The grounds were spectacular with rich and exotic plants, statues, and an endless number of fountains and water features. You could definitely while away hours wandering the grounds.

A venue where water based plays would be done for the Hadrian’s amusement

We returned to Zoe after our relaxing adventure and reconnected with our American friends. We were more than ready to get underway, but the nasty winds we had escaped from on our road trip meant the seas outside the river were running 6-8 feet (almost 3 meters). It would take a couple more days for the seas to die down, and we would finally be on our way!

It was finally time to go. We had spent almost a month trapped in the town of Ostia. It took us over 30 minutes to free our lines from the dock due to the strain from the very strong winds. Our lines had literally worn deep grooves into the wood poles they were tied too. At one point, we were afraid we might just have to cut them and leave them behind. Dan eventually got them worked free and off we went. Our plan was about a 5 hour sail south to the town of Anzio, but the direction of the winds was not quite what was forecasted which meant the anchorage would not be a great stop for us. We quickly made the decision to get to the island of Ponza. We had anchored there before and knew the anchorage was a wide open area of sand and well protected. However, this did mean our first sail would go from 5 hours to 11 hours and a nighttime arrival. Eesh…..talk about baptism by fire. Of course the wind and seas were higher than forecasted, but the seas were behind us and the wind was a good direction, so we had a great sail for the majority of our journey. Things got a little hairy when darkness fell and we were passing between the two islands. All of a sudden, we were playing frogger with fish traps in the dark…..Dan driving and me perched high on the helm telling him which way to steer (or put the engines in neutral) to avoid the traps that did not become visible until you were right on top of them. Before long we rounded the end of Ponza, and the wind came howling down the hillside at 20+ knots. Then came the fun of dropping the anchor in the pitch black of night and windy conditions. Lucky for us, there were only 2 other boats in the entire anchorage. Gotta love early season.

Roman grottos used for fish farming in antiquity

You can go in fairly far by tender….good thing there were no bats

We spent 3 days on the island enjoying some clifftop hikes and wandering the cute little town. We were watching another weather system coming in and decided to head back to the mainland and into a marina in a town called Gaeta. We had read lots of great things about the area and were excited to explore the town. We tried the local specialty known as Tiella. It is basically a stuffed pizza (top and bottom crust), served lukewarm, and the fillings are not remotely related to the pizza we know. The most popular one was the one filled with octopus (yes, we tried it). We also tried some other odd ones like salted cod. In the end, we both decided we did not care for Tiella. Our first adventure in Gaeta had us walking to an amazing grotto cut in the cliffs. From there, we went down into the stone cliffs to a small, old chapel. In the smooth stone of the wall coming down the stairs was a deep handprint left by a pirate back in the day. We came out of the chapel to an incredible viewpoint that surrounded the dome of the small chapel. We continued on our trek through wooded areas that took us to ancient weapons bunkers, what looked like the remains of castle walls and alleyways, and up to the high point where a mausoleum stood. Unfortunately, it was being restored so we were not able to go inside. We continued our way down a country road which eventually spit us out back in town overlooking a castle and a beautiful cathedral. We had such a great time (and it was such a beautiful hike), we decided to do it again the next day but in reverse direction. We quickly discovered that our exploration the day before had been brilliant. It was rainy and a Friday, so there were very few people around. When we went the next day, the trails were packed, and there were huge lines to get into all the sights that we had to ourselves the day before….yikes. On our last night in Gaeta, we left the marina and anchored in the bay under the castle and cathedral. It was a spectacular view.

Arriving the town of Gaeta on the mainland

Legend that a Turkish pirate inscribed his hand on the sandstone walls

Rainy days but you can still explore. Castello Aragon’s in the background

Anchored in front of a church dedicated to St Francis of Assisi

We sadly said goodbye to Gaeta and made our way to the island of Ischia. We were looking forward to meeting up with our friends once again. Unfortunately, there was no sailing this time. It was 6 1/2 hours of motoring. We struggled to find a good spot to anchor due to rocks, restricted areas, and sea grass. Our first night, we unknowingly anchored on rock. Since we were renting scooters the next day with our friends, we decided to take a look at our anchor with the dinghy to make sure it was well set before leaving. That’s how we discovered our anchor lying on a rock….crap! We took the dinghy around the anchorage looking for patches of sand and finally settling on a small patch that we found. We pulled up the anchor, had a moment of worry when it refused to come up, but adjusted the position of the boat and up it came. We headed to the spot we had chosen, dropped the anchor, made sure she was well dug in, and then checked it with the dinghy. It was perfect. We picked up our friends from their boat and headed to town to get some scooters. Off we headed to explore the island of Ischia. We stopped in several cute little towns as we circumnavigated the island. We then explored Giardini la Mortella, a magnificent privately owned botanical garden on the island. The garden was terraced along the side of the hill and has around 3000 different species of exotic plants and flowers. Parts of the gardens were surrounded by ponds, greenhouses, streams and fountains. In the end, we spent 7 hours cruising and exploring the island.

Lunch with fellow cruisers we met in Ostia

Cimiterio with draining pots for decomposing bodies. Gruesome

On our last day in Ischia, we climbed up the hill to explore the Aragon Castle. We started in the torture and weapons room. Once again, we were stunned by the horrific ways humans come up with to torture others. We wandered into the various rooms and hallways taking in the sights. We wandered into one room that housed what looked like a bunch of stone toilets all in a row. They were high backed with a cross carved into the stone, stone armrests, and what looked like wax residue from candles. Boy, were we way off! Turns out it was a nuns’ cementary (I won’t mention the sign outside the door said “cimitario”). It gets worse. Those stone structures were not toilets. They were called draining seats! They would take the lifeless bodies of the nuns and put them on the seats. Their flesh slowly decomposed and then the fluids would be gathered and placed in special vases. Their dried up skeletons would then be heaped up in a special place. This was done because they saw the body as useless other than housing the spirit. To make matters worse, every day the nuns would congregate in prayer at this site. They would spend several hours in prayer and meditation in this unhealthy environment and often fall victim to horrible and deadly diseases. The castle grounds also housed numerous small churches and cathedrals, a prison, a convent, wine cellars, and a crypt. The crypt contained beautiful artwork and frescoes (but it was kind of stinky). I really enjoyed Ischia quite a bit.

After 4 days in Ischia, we headed to the island of Procida (a short 45 minute hop from Ischia). It was a nice big anchorage with lots of sand, so we picked our spot and got settled in. Procida was another cute little town, but we found it very difficult to find a place to park our dinghy which made going to town less than desirable. We did sneak it into a spot among the fishing boats and explored the area on foot. The next day was Labor Day for Europe which meant that morning, boat after boat came screaming into the anchorage. Big power boats roared in and out making the whole anchorage a churning mess of swell. By the afternoon, there were probably 100 boats anchored in the bay having a party. The wind had also switched direction, so a continuous swell was coming into the bay as well. Luckily most of the boats left in the evening leaving just 4 of us anchored in the bay for the night. The wind and swell continued to grow, and we decided we had enough. The next morning we lifted anchor and headed to the mainland where we anchored in a small bay outside of Naples. We will be heading in to a marina in a couple of days to do a reset and deep clean of the boat to be ready to continue our journey south. Stay tuned as we resume our adventure down the Amalfi Coast next week!

Better Late Than Never: Our premature end to the 2024 sailing season

First, I would like to apologize for leaving you all hanging. I know I dropped the ball in wrapping up our 2024 sailing season, and who likes an unfinished story. So as the saying goes…..better late than never.

Sadly, September of 2024 was not shaping up to be a great month for sailing. We were constantly being hammered with thunderstorms, high winds and big seas. We were so excited to show my sister and her husband all the treasures of some of the islands and Italy by sailboat. Apparently, Mother Nature had other plans. Once we found a quick break in the weather, we headed to the town of Rossignano Solvay, on mainland Italy, where we parked Zoe in a marina and headed out for some fun on land.

Approaching Rossignano – and the strangely blue seas that are a byproduct of the sodium carbonate plant nearby

Our first land outing was renting a car and heading to Siena. We had booked a cooking class in the countryside where we picked farm fresh produce and herbs to be used in our cooking class. During our class, we learned to make gnocchi, tagliatelle, and several different bruschettas. Of course, we got to eat all of these delicious dishes while enjoying lots of wine from their vineyards. Our luncheon was topped off with some great accordion music played by our chef/owner. It was truly an awesome experience.

The pastoral setting of Italian cooking class

Our instructor teaching us how to harvest the land for lunch

Accordion music to accompany our wonderful cooking class meal

From there we made our way to the heart of Siena where we had a room booked for the night. We explored some of the night life that evening before digging into more of the sights in the morning. We started at the Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta as we knew this would get very crowded, and we had more places to go see. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site and definitely worth the visit. It was designed and completed between 1215 and 1263. What made our visit even more special was discovering that the incredibly decorative floors were only uncovered in the month of September which was when we were there. All the other months of the year, these beautiful floors are covered up for their protection.

The floor mosaics are shown one month a year (to protect them). We got lucky

After visiting this heavenly place, we decided to take our adventures to the bowels of hell. Just kidding. Well, sort of. We decided to tour the Museum of Torture. The exhibit contains unique and gruesome instruments of torture. It shows the worst side of humans throughout history and the unspeakable ways they found to punish one another from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Age. I’ll let the pictures tell the story. It’s more fun that way. You know you are curious. We’ve included a few pictures here, but we will include a link to many more for those of you with a morbid curiosity (like me)!

http://www.torturemuseum.it/en/permanent-museums/siena/

Middle Ages were full of imaginative ways to inflict pain. This gentleman is being tortured for the sin of gambling.

Shrew’s fiddle that was used to punish women for “bickering”

This punishment was for heretics and made talking incredibly painful

Iron Maiden – filled with spikes to punish the accused

After Siena, we headed to the next hilltop town of San Gimignano. This beautiful town is encircled by 13th century walls and lined with medieval houses. We wandered the cobblestone streets taking in the sights and many medieval towers that create the skyline of this lovely town. Unfortunately, the rain and wind had begun, so our time here was cut a little short.

It was time to make our way back to the marina. As we pulled into the entrance, our mouths dropped in shock. The beach just outside the marina was no longer visible. Huge waves were battering the shoreline and washing over the boardwalk. They were very short period and relentless. As we looked toward the marina, the sea was crashing over the very large sea wall built around the marina. I felt bad for the boats that were tied to that outer pier as they were getting doused in the waves crashing against the outside of the wall. Boy were we grateful to be tucked in so deeply in the marina. As we made our way to Zoe, we had a tight grip on all our things. The wind was howling and the dock swaying. Dan tried to get our passerelle (the gangway that runs from the dock to the boat) down in all of this chaos, but it slipped and hit the dock knocking the wheels off which now meant the slats that are walked on started to fall off. Oh no! This was bad! This was our way back onto our boat! Luckily there was a spare wooden passerelle laying on the dock, so we used it to get us all back on board. Fortunately, we still had our old wooden passerelle on board, so we were able to use that until we could get our nice metal one fixed.

The flat seas we had entered the marina with were huge by the time we got back

We rode out the worst of the storm before deciding to head out once again. This time, our destination was La Spezia and Cinque Terre (5 towns). Cinque Terre consists of 5 different towns perched high on the cliffs in the northern part of Italy. We had originally planned to sail the boat to La Spezia, but the seas were still rough and the marinas that were in the heart of town were outrageously expensive. The four of us hopped two different trains, rode through the beautiful countryside of Tuscany into Liguria, and soon arrived in the town of La Spezia. This part of our adventure would involve trains and walking….no rental cars. We checked into our hotel and hit the ground running (not literally…haha). Our first stop was the Naval Technical Museum of La Spezia. The focus of this museum is the specialty equipment of the Italian Navy special forces which is still stationed in La Spezia. Within the museum, you could see the history and evolution of ships, gear, and weapons. On higher ground outside of the museum, you were able to see the modern day military ships nestled in the harbor.

World war 2 method of personally delivering a torpedo

These guys were considered heroes – and rightly so!

Cinque Terre- the “Five Mountain towns” – accessible only by train or sea. This is Riomaggiore.

The following day, we took the train up into the mountains of Cinque Terre. We spent the day exploring 4 of the 5 towns, each with their own charm and style. The one thing they all had in common, lots of hilltop climbs and gorgeous views. It was a long, full day logging many, many steps. We enjoyed specialized cocktails, delicious food, and of course gelato. We were all worn out when it was time to hop the train and head back to our hotel in La Spezia.

Trains were always crowded – even in September

We returned to Zoe where the weather was still looking rather ugly. The skies were heavy with storm clouds, and the seas were still nasty. We even saw several waterspouts out on the water. I was super glad we weren’t out on the water! We were down to our last day with my sister and her husband, so we made the most of it enjoying delicious food and cocktails at a few beachfront bars and restaurants. In the middle of the night, my sister received a call telling us that our mom had passed away. She had been in a care facility for a number of years due to Dementia, so we knew this would come at some point. However, she had been stable for so long that this was completely unexpected. The next day we walked my sister and her husband to the train to get them to Rome for their flights home. It was a very sad ending to what had been an amazing few weeks of cruising with them. What made things worse was that the weather was still bad, we needed to get Zoe to her winter storage location (no where near us), and the marina could not keep us more than a few more days. That evening, the rain came in. As I sat inside feeling very sad at the loss of my mom and the departure of my sister, I heard bagpipes playing. As I listened closer, I realized someone was playing Amazing Grace on the bagpipes outside on a boat. I jumped up and ran to the bow of our boat in the pouring rain. A few boats down, on the bow, stood a man in a kilt playing this haunting song. This was one of my mom’s favorite songs. I stood there in the rain with tears streaming down my face. I felt like it was a sign from my mom.

A Scotsman playing “Amazing Grace” on bagpipes at sunset on the boat next door – coincidentally the same day Robyn’s mom passed.

The weather finally cleared a couple of days later, and we got Zoe underway. Dan and I sailed 24 hours straight to get to our final destination. We pulled up the Tiber River outside of Rome and spent the next couple of very long days getting Zoe shut down for winter. Once Zoe was safely on land and ready for our extended absence, we headed to the airport and began our long journey home.

Headed south through the Tuscan Archipelago to get Zoe bedded down for winter near Rome

Entering the Tiber River – the same river that heads to Rome

I’ve tried to keep this somewhat short and sweet with words but loaded with pictures. At this point, Dan and I are planning to head back to Zoe toward the end of March. We have never gone out quite this early in the year, so this could be very interesting in terms of weather. So, I hope you will rejoin our Zoe adventures coming your way very soon!

Taking sails down and getting Zoe ready for winter

Our shortened (two months!) 2024 sailing season that covered a lot of ground

Best Laid Plans Are Written In Sand

As we bid a sad farewell to our son and daughter-in-law, it was time to start making our way north for the arrival of my sister and brother-in-law. They were not due to join us for a few more days, and our goal was to get to a marina just outside the Rome airport (which was still quite far from where we currently were). We left the town of Cetara on the Amalfi Coast and headed 7 hours north to the island of Procida, outside of the Naples area. It was a cloudy and overcast day, and by the time we selected our spot in the busy anchorage, it was pretty late in the day. The surrounding town was very nice, but the anchorage was very rolly with local boat traffic. It had been a long day, and we were both feeling kind of blah, so neither of us felt like taking the dinghy into town to explore. This, of course, would be a decision we would kind of regret later. Oh well, we can always go back later or next year. Little did we know, our plans in the sand were about to begin their slow erosion.

Dramatic cliffside monastery on the island

Our passage to Procida from the Amalfi coast. 37 Nautical miles.

The following day was going to be a really long one, so we were underway by 7:00 a.m. We were headed to the island of Ponza. It took us nearly 9 hours to arrive at our next destination. This island had a great looking town on one end and sheer rock cliffs on the other. Thankfully it was a much bigger anchorage than the one we were in the night before, and we quickly selected our spot. For those of you that know me well, I like a respectable amount of space between me and my neighbors and usually choose the most remote area (which also means we get some really amazing backdrops….in this case, the towering cliffs behind us). Once again, there was a lot of powerboat traffic making for a very rolly anchorage. Sadly, we really had no desire to head into town after our long day. I guess after a few weeks of milling through very crowded towns bustling with tourists, we really needed some quiet downtime and solitude. So, another island has been added to our “must return to” and explore list. Darn! Another island we have to make our way back to….haha.

Ponza makes a perfect stopover enroute northwards to Rome. 51 NM from Procida

On the third day, we made the decision to get all the way to Fiumicino, Rome. We had a reservation in a marina the following night, so we put in a request for an additional night tonight. This was going to be a very long passage, and we would be racing sunset. Once again, we got underway early in the morning. About half way through our nearly 12 hour passage, we heard back from the marina….there was no room at the inn tonight. Uh oh. That was a serious miscalculation! We were along the coast of mainland Italy, in an area where marinas and safe anchorages were few and far between. Dan searched incessantly for options as we continued our way north. No luck. Finally he found a possibility. About a half hour north of our intended destination, Ostia Marina, was an area where a breakwater had been constructed for a new marina that was never completed. Never completed, as in the only thing there was a very nice breakwater with great holding in mud….that’s it. The sun was very low on the horizon, and the race was on to get in before it completely set. There was only one other boat in the anchorage as we rounded the corner. The bay was surrounded by these very interesting “houses” on stilts which gave the whole place a bit of a creepy vibe. We were soon greeted by a resident swan looking for handouts. I threw him some toasted bread. He was obviously well trained as he would tap his bill on our swim step to ask for more.

Dropping anchor at sunset after a long day sailing from Ponza to Ostia (near Rome airport)

65 nautical miles and 12 hours on passage

The next day we headed into the marina to get the boat ready for Kim and Don’s arrival. Once we had Kim and Don on board, we got them settled in for the day before our departure the following day. The weather the next day was cool and cloudy with very little wind. We got underway fairly early for our 4 1/2 hour journey. Unfortunately, the winds were calm which meant no sailing. We anchored off the town of Santa Marinella. We enjoyed some swimming before heading in to explore the small town. Since it was now September, we carefully watching the weather multiple times a day. It was becoming very evident that transition season had arrived early, and it did not look pretty. We were carefully plotting our destinations to try and show our guests as much as possible. Our plan….make our way up the western side of Italy, cross over to the island of Elba, and then head over to the eastern side of Corsica.

New guests joined us in Rome! Welcome Kim and Don!

Obligatory “Anchor beer” – an important ritual on Zoe!

Our next destination was 6 1/2 hours away, so we got an early start once again. Today was sunny and hot with very little wind….no sailing again. We arrived in Porto Ercole. We secured an awesome spot below some towering rock cliffs, very close to the town. No one really felt like swimming, so we took the dinghy into town to walk the waterfront and surrounding town. It wasn’t long before we had seen all there was to see. This would be an early night since we were headed to the island of Elba the next day, and this would be close to a 10 hour passage. Our guests were awesome troopers given the very long passages we were making each day. As I said, transition season was upon us, and the weather was getting more and more questionable. We still felt that we had our window to get to Elba, wait out some strong winds, and then head to Corsica. The west side of Corsica was looking uglier and uglier with high winds and seas (not overly unusual), but the east side still showed some pockets of fair weather (notice I did not say great weather!). Our plan was to leave the anchorage at 6 a.m. At 2 a.m., Dan and I woke to the boat pitching around violently as large swell came rolling into our little nook. To make matters worse, we were on a lee shore close to the rocks (if the anchor let loose, we would crash into the rocks). Did I mention there was thunder and lightning as well? At 3 a.m., I attempted to lift the anchor in 3 foot swells and white caps. It was pitch black, so I had to try and use a flashlight in order to keep track of the position on our anchor chain and anchor.

Co captain Dan demonstrating how passage naps are the best

Nice view of a cliffside fortress from our anchorage near Porto Ercole

Tender ride to town for some exploration

The seas were choppy with 3 foot swell but no wind once we rounded the peninsula from the bay. We enjoyed the sunrise and some much needed coffee. The afternoon winds made their arrival allowing us to actually sail the back half of our journey to Elba. As we approached the harbor of Portoferraio, we entered the freeway of very large ferries and cruise ships coming and going. Before long, we were tied up on the city quay right in front of the old town and all the hustle and bustle of a busy tourist town. Our first adventure was to rent a car and go explore the area, including Napoleon Bonaparte’s villa where he had been exiled. Tourist season was in full bloom and everything was very busy. We decided to head up into a mountaintop town. Heavy, dark clouds were rolling in which were limiting what we could do and see. Unfortunately, we did have an “exciting” moment as we rounded a corner, in the heart of town, where it narrowed to one lane of traffic for cars going in both directions. While Dan tried to avoid the concrete planters on one side, a young guy came around the corner (not really hugging his side) and we scraped down each other’s side. Well, that put a huge damper on everyone’s mood. We also wandered a huge fortress with great views overlooking the island and sea. After exploring the area for a couple of days, we were ready to get underway. Our plan was to head over to an anchorage about an hour away on Elba. The seas were calm, but the skies were threatening with thunderstorms. Our plan was to stage at the anchorage before crossing over to the island of Corsica. More wicked weather was coming, so we were keeping a close eye on things. Best laid plans…..

Time to get hunkered down…the wind is on it’s way

This spot will do quite nicely- Portoferraio on the island of Elba

Two Arizona Cardinals fans in Italy getting ready for the game!

We found a nice spot in the anchorage and got settled in. There was enough wind to keep the water moving at a pretty good clip. We dropped the dinghy to go over to the beach bars and some cool looking hikes. As Dan was motoring about checking the engine, it quit. There was no getting it started. He ended up rowing back to Zoe where he and Don set about trying to fix it. No such luck….it was a goner. This now meant we were trapped on the boat. Trying to row 4 people on our dinghy (we were not close to shore or town) in windy conditions was not going to end well. Without a dinghy, this also meant we were stuck going to marinas unless we fixed it. We made arrangements to go back to Portoferraio where there was a marina with trades to work on boats. The following morning we made sure they had room for us to come in early. They told us they did. The wind was now picking up and clouds were rumbling with thunder and lightning. Once again, we navigated the gauntlet of cruise ships and ferries. We hovered outside the marina trying to reach them. The winds were already 18 knots. That’s going to making docking an adventure. When we finally reached someone at the marina, they said they had no room for us! What?!? Dan quickly scrambled and managed to get us a spot back on the wall we had just left the day before. OMG….we were trapped on Elba! Long story short….no one could fix the dinghy. The weather around Corsica got worse, so we wouldn’t be going there, and the seas to get back to mainland Italy were not pretty. We settled into our new home for a few days to wait out the weather. Apparently this weather hell was going to be our new norm for the remainder of our time. Our plans in the sand were now eroding more quickly.

Uh oh – outboard issues. Is it the fuel line or something worse?

Napoleons’ second residence – much grander in scale

We finally got our weather window to make our way to mainland Italy (Corsica continued to look worse and worst). It was a very cloudy, cold, and long day. After a 7 hour passage, we rode the swells into a marina in Rosignano, Italy. Since we were tracking yet another weather system, we made the decision to come in to a marina and use it as our base to explore on land for a bit. Our best laid sailing plans were being blown up left and right with weather systems. So, when life hands you lemons…

The water became an incredible share of blue as we drew close to Rosignano

The marina was amazing. We were safely tucked up deep in the marina where there were numerous shops and restaurants. The surrounding area had many beach bars, restaurants and a nice long boardwalk along the sea. I could definitely enjoy hanging here for a while….which we did. I will close this here since it’s getting rather long. Our next episode will take you on our land adventures in Tuscany, so I hope you will stay tuned!

Highlights From Sicily to the Amalfi Coast

We arrived in Trapani, Sicily on Saturday, August 17th. We pulled into the marina where we were tied up next to a 90 foot sailboat and two even bigger boats on the other side of him. Another 90 foot sailboat soon came in and tied up on the other side of us. Here we were sandwiched in between 2 mega yachts. We were literally the littlest guy in the marina! The nasty weather was due to arrive on Monday, and the kids would arrive on Tuesday. Since we had decided to drive to Palermo to pick them up and show them around, Dan and I rented a car for a couple of days to do some exploring of our own and take care of some necessary errands. He put out 10 requests to various local rental car places, and one got back to him with availability. This was actually quite lucky since August in Italy IS their holiday time. This also means everywhere is overrun with people….lots and lots of people.

A Zoe sandwich of 90 foot plus sailboats on each side

We picked up the car on Monday and headed for the town of Marsala. This is the region known for the Marsala wines. After bumbling around, we stumbled on a winery and popped in for a tasting. The winery welcomed us in with open arms despite us not having a reservation, and a big group of people already well into their tour. They had a huge table laid out with nibbles, and a multitude of bottles of every variety of Marsala. The owner pulled aside a young woman who spoke very good English, and she quickly brought us up to speed. When they cut people loose for the tasting, it was like a free for all. It was a pour your own tasting and taste as many things, as much as you want. Everyone bellied up to the banquet tables where they proceeded to park themselves and strap on the food and drink bag. I stood off to the side, quite overwhelmed by the whole scene. Our young hostess kept telling me to get in there and try some things. I told her it was too crowded for me. I am accustomed to people going in and putting some food on their plate, filling their glass and then stepping aside for others. Nope! Not here! They parked two deep all around the tables like the goodies might run out. I did eventually get in there and taste some things that were quite yummy. She then took us outside to see a truckload of grapes coming in and being dumped into the hopper for crushing (only some of us opted to leave the “trough” to see the sight). We were told that due to the very hot and dry conditions this year, the grapes had to be harvested now instead of in September, or they risked losing them. After we had more than enough samplings of Marsala, we got a private tour (the part we missed with the group) of their facilities. It was quite fascinating. Then we ended our experience in the wine shop where of course we purchased a lot of goodies. It must’ve been a lot since they kept giving us free stuff!

Had an opportunity to watch the harvest – in August – due to the heat

It was a hairy descent into the wine cave!

Deep in the bowels of the winery where the extra reserve Marsala wine is aged

The rest of our day was spent running around doing errands (not fun). We hit a sporting goods store to buy a new SUP (ours blew up in the heat a few weeks earlier) and a new pump (also blew up). The salt water and salt air environment are definitely hard on everything. We went to a hardware store for some materials for the boat, a home goods store for some new pillows, and the grocery store to get provisions before the kids arrived. Definitely not the most fun part of our day, but the winery closed at 3:00 for the day, so we had to get that in early. Trapani is a very lovely town. At night, the streets come alive with people and music. Beautiful lighted decorations arched from one side of the pedestrian area to the other creating a very magical atmosphere. Of all the places to hunker down for 5 days, we truly enjoyed both our marina and the town.

The following day, we had an hour drive to the Palermo airport to pick up Richard and Denise. They had left Phoenix, Arizona the day before….flew to Atlanta then Rome then Palermo. It was a very long journey for them, but they planned to hit the ground running until they could go no more. We headed into the city center of Palermo, Sicily where we wandered the streets taking in all the sights. As is everywhere here, tourist season was in full swing, and the streets were mobbed with people. We wandered the sights for a couple of hours and then headed out in the direction of the boat. We made a stop at a sight called Segesta which housed a beautiful archeological park. Here we explored one of the most amazing ruins complexes in Sicily. The temple itself is remarkably well preserved and has sat unfinished for over 2500 years. It was built in the 5th century.

Wonderful Segesta, home to a well preserved Greek Temple

Once we had our fill of the ruins, it was time to head to the boat. We got the kids settled in, and after a much desired shower, they were perked up and ready to go again. Since we would be leaving the following morning, we wanted to show them Trapani and the hilltop town of Erice. At the base of the mountain is a gondola which takes you to the top of the mountain. The views were incredible looking out over vineyards, farmlands, city, and sea. We had a reservation for dinner at a panoramic restaurant with similar views. We enjoyed a very nice dinner overlooking Trapani and the sea while very ominous, storm clouds rolled their way over top of us. By now the kids were running on fumes, so we headed back down the mountain and back to the boat.

Gondola ride to the hilltop town of Erice

Sunset dinner with a wonderful hilltop view

The next morning we explored a little bit of Trapani, took care of formalities for the boat and our crew and were off once again. We had about a 4 hour day down the west coast of Sicily to San Capo Lo Vito. Fortunately the winds had died down, but the forecasted seas were not as slight as they were suppose to be. Before long, we were rolling around in 6 foot seas hoping the kids didn’t want to jump ship as soon as we hit solid ground. We opted for a marina again since the anchorage is known to be quite rolly, and we wanted them to be comfortable as they adjusted to boat life. This was a popular beach town, and it was quite adorable as well. All the streets and alleys were strung with lights; shops and restaurants were bustling; and music was playing all around the town. We had some dinner and wandered the streets enjoying the night life. Before long, we headed back to the boat for an early morning start.

One last wander through the old town of Trapani

Rich and Denise settled into boat life quickly

San Vito Lo Capo has a great summer beach town vibe

Our next leg was going to be a long one for our new crew. They had agreed to do an overnight passage with us. It didn’t require them to do anything, but it would mean being trapped on the boat for an 8 hour run followed by 24 hours. We decided to break it up the best we could which meant an 8 hour journey to the island of Ustica. Dan had reached out to see about reserving a mooring ball, and they said yes. Nothing else. That should’ve been our first sign. The sea swell had also not died down like the forecast said (and we told the kids). So, we spent 8 long hours trudging through 3-6 foot swells. When we finally arrived, we saw no open mooring balls. There was no room for us to anchor given the depths surrounding the island. We also buzzed by the tiny harbor. Nope, no way we were fitting in there. Dan finally reached someone by phone, and we were promptly told there were no mooring balls to fit us (biggest one we saw said 5 ton limit….we are 16 tons). Our crew looked very crushed when we told them we were unable to stay here and had to press on. This meant a 24 hour passage after already doing 8 and the excitement of being finished for the day.

Very long passage from Sicily to Amalfi Coast!

Passage time means reading books, fishing and naps

We rolled into Minori on the Amalfi Coast late in the afternoon the following day. The marinero’s came out and helped tie us up to forward and stern mooring balls, and we were finally settled in. This was a very popular spot for locals on speed boats and other motorized watercraft which meant it was incredibly rolly. We bounced around in 2-3 foot swells which was NOT fun. The day hot so we tried to make the most of it and swim anyways. At night time, everyone in the area left and the water was calm and quiet. We had amazing views of the town and coastline. The next day, Dan’s niece and her boyfriend came out to the boat to spend the day with us swimming, jumping off the boat and a nearby cliff, and having a great time. That evening, we wandered the town of Minori taking in the sights and enjoying drinks and dinner on shore.

Brianna and Tanner joined us for the afternoon

We were all in this particular location (and why we were covering so many miles at break neck speed) to attend Dan’s nephew’s wedding in the hilltop town of Ravello overlooking the Amalfi Coast. We arrived Thursday evening, and when Sunday rolled around, we were all meeting in Amalfi for a 4 hour boat tour of the coastline along with swimming. We took the ferry to Amalfi where we met up with the group (60 people!). We were loaded on to several different boats, and off we went. This turned out to be a very rough, 4 hour adventure. We made 3-4 different swim spot stops, and each one got worse in terms of the sea. Ironically, this had nothing to do with weather conditions. It was all caused by the massive amount of power boats and ferries transiting all these hot spots and kicking up 3 foot swell and waves. Unfortunately, this meant a lot of people were not feeling well and some became very seasick. Many powered through and enjoyed swimming, exploring sea caves, jumping off the larger boat’s roof, and even a cliff (much to the horror of the mother of the groom and mother of the best man). Luckily all was fine. We returned from the boat trip in the late afternoon and then needed to move Zoe about an hour away in order to put her in a marina. We would be heading up to Ravello for a few days and were not comfortable leaving her on a mooring ball in case weather came up.

We were tied up in a very small marina Sunday evening in a town called Cetara. Once again, we headed out into the town to check out the scene. The next morning, our crew headed to Naples to go explore Pompeii while Dan and I did boat chores. Ahhhh, the joys of owning a boat. We would meet them in Ravello in the late afternoon at our B & B. Getting to Ravello from where we were turned out to be a very painful experience…..especially late afternoon. We took a 45 minute ferry back to Amalfi and then hoped on 45 minute, very crowded bus to Ravello. This entailed some one lane parts of the road and switchbacks the whole way up. Once we arrived, we had to lug our bag up the hill some more before finally arriving at our room, a hot sweaty mess. Tonight would be another wedding event…..a welcome party. We wandered up to a pizzeria set on beautiful gardened grounds. At midnight, Dan and I wandered back to the room while some of the others looked for places to after party.

We put Zoe in a marina for a few days while we headed inland. It was tight gap for our wide boat!

The following day was wedding day. We wandered the town with Rich and Denise exploring the views; all the beautiful, little shops with their handmade wares; and a stunning villa perched on the side of the hill. We found a spot offering limoncello tasting and tried a variety of flavors before purchasing a few of our favorites. We enjoyed a nice lunch, where we paid way too much for way too little, but the views were incredible. It was time to go back, cool off and rest, and then get ready for the main event. This was a black tie optional affair, so we were all decked out to the nines. All the guests convened in one location until we were given the signal to make our way up to the venue. Once again, the venue grounds and views were stunning. The wedding was quite special as it was tailored very specifically to the couple. We then enjoyed a cocktails and small bites reception before being escorted into the main tents for the dinner portion of the event. Yep, you guessed it….it was breathtaking as well. The dinner was multi course, very yummy, and beyond what a normal person could consume in one meal. There was of course dancing afterwards, and at midnight, Dan and I said our goodbyes while everyone else went inside for the after party that lasted until 2 a.m. We would have liked to have joined, but we had a 7:30 a.m. bus, followed by a 45 minute ferry, and a 10:15 departure from the marina for a 6 hour passage north. Ughhhh. I am worn out!

Almost 900 miles from launch across three countries and we sailed to the wedding!

I have taken you on a rather long journey this go around, so I will leave you here for now. The day after the wedding, Richard and Denise left us to go explore Rome and then head home to the U.S. the following day. Dan and I are headed north up the coast of Italy toward Rome where we will meet my sister and brother-in-law in a few days. Stay tuned for more adventures along west coast of Italy and various islands along the way.

Time to say a sad goodbye to Rich and Denise as they start to head home

Good-bye Africa, Hello Sicily!

When we embarked on our kitchen remodel, the local team was very hesitant about being able to get everything done by the time we needed to depart Tunisia. The first problem was that they were all on vacation until August 12th (we were talking to them on August 6th). The owner of the Corian company sent his architect to our boat the following day despite it being her vacation. They assured us that the design would be sent to the fabricator, and they would put a rush on our order to begin as soon as vacation was over. They said we should have our counters by the 15th or 16th (Thursday or Friday), and our installer said he only needed a day or two. If you will recall, we had to be in Sicily to pick up our kids, and we were watching a weather system once again. We were on the ragged edge of being able to leave on time. I think they saw our worry because our architect and the fabricator drove out a second time to take final measurements and design details. Three days later (August 11th….still during their vacation), they arrived with our brand new counters! We were in shock! Our galley was completed by Monday. Talk about an amazing work ethic. We will forever be grateful for the speed and quality of everyone involved.

Our new galley counters under construction in Tunis

Yosri and Dan rate this job a big thumbs up!

We were still bound to Tunisia for a bit since we were having some canvas work done as well. We had a guy making us chaps for our dinghy (they are made of Sunbrella fabric and covers the PVC pontoons to protect them from sun damage). They need to be custom fit and take a fair amount of time to make. He was also doing some repair work on various things on board. Once he was done, we would be on our way.

While we were waiting, we explored a few different restaurants that were quite good. We went to one in the old port that the marina had recommended to us. We sometimes forget that you have to be very careful when asking about dishes when dealing with language barriers because they think you are ordering it. We had asked about a dish called Brik Thon. I knew that Thon was tuna, but I did not know what Brik meant. I still didn’t understand even after I asked. In the end, we ordered two lamb dishes that sounded interesting. To start, they served up this spicy fish soup and some sort of vegetable mix (at least that’s what I think it was). The soup was very good, but I didn’t care for whatever the vegetable stuff was (very bland with not much flavor). I didn’t want to be insulting, so I dumped it into my soup. That helped. Next came the Brik Thon…..yep, didn’t order it, but ended up with it. It was this paper thin, tortilla like thing (I think made from cheese) that was folded in half with a large tuna filet and egg inside. It was then deep fried and came with a wedge of lime. Well, I guess I would be trying it after all. I was really glad that we “accidentally” ordered it….it was quite delicious. When our lamb arrived, it came slow cooked in a large pottery amphora. Talk about exotic. It was quite yummy as well. Since Tunisia is a Muslim country, alcohol is forbidden except in resorts and places like that. So, most of the restaurants we frequented did not serve wine or beer.

Brik Thon – a Tunisian staple. Picture from the internet

Slow cooked lamb in a ceramic amphora. It was very tasty

Very different vibe in the restaurants than we are used to!

As we spent the day lounging around on the boat, Dan tells me that an American flagged boat just came in to port. What???? We rarely see American flagged boats in Europe, so seeing one in Africa was a real shock. The next question is always whether or not it is a “real” American flagged boat. You may be wondering why. We have seen many boats flying tiny American flags off their back (mostly in Montenegro) and showing a Delaware registration. Turns out this is a huge tax dodge used by many Russians. The thing that always bothers me is when we go to say hi, they act disgusted that we assumed they were Americans. Don’t fly my flag if you’re disgusted by Americans! Anyway, back to the story. It turns out that these were legit Americans! They had sailed a long way over from Key West, Florida via the Azores. We invited them to stop by and say hi, which they did. We agreed to meet up the following morning in order to show them where all the necessities were in Bizerte like our Swiss friends did for us.

Reggie and Terry from a Passport 42 “Lucia”

The following morning we met at the dock and walked them to the bottle shop. This was a special little shop next to the grocery store with very specific hours each day, no windows, and behind a steel door. This was where you could go to buy beer, wine and liquor. As far as we knew, this was the only one in Bizerte…..very clandestine, as you can imagine. We showed them the mini market next door, several ATM’s, and then we headed to the huge outdoor market. We all bought various fruits, vegetables and meats. We decided we were done (the experience here can be quite overwhelming) and started back to the boats with our haul of goodies. All of a sudden, we were stopped by this older man. He claimed that he knew us from the marina and that his fishing boat was there. I’m thinking, “Of course you know we are from the marina. We don’t look like locals, and you probably heard us talking in American English.” After all, Tunisia is not a typical American tourist destination. So he proceeds to insist on showing us the market and around the area. We try to explain to him that we’ve already been to the market and our backpacks are full of food. He leads us back through the market and meat area explaining things to us. He then takes us away and down a narrow alley. Hmmm, this could get interesting. Before we know it, he is playing tour guide and showing us these hidden gems of a Turkish settlement area, the Kasbah, and local trade shops in these tiny stone rooms. He explained that the door knockers on the homes had specific meaning back in historical times. The number of hands on the knocker showed how many families lived in a house and others were circles that showed that there were no children in the home. He showed us homes that were once stables for the horses and dromedaries. That was another piece of learning….they are dromedaries if they have 1 hump and camels if they have 2 humps. Both are still camels, but they are differentiated in Arabic. Who knew?!

Our “guide” explaining the various door knockers used in the Kasbah

One of many small craft shops in the Kasbah

Fellow American sailors, Reggie and Terry

We enjoyed wandering the byzantine streets of the Kasbah

After about an hour of exploring, we tried to extricate ourselves (remember, we had meat in our backpacks). He finished our tour and when we offered a gift, he demanded 20 euro! Our friends gave him the 20 euro, and he tried to get more. Grrrrr…..I don’t like being fleeced. I knew money was going to be expected but certainly not THAT much. We finally broke free and headed back to the boat.

Saying goodbye to our “tour guide” – he was quite the character.

Since we were planning to leave Tunisia the following morning, we made plans to have our new American friends and our two UK boat neighbor friends over for drinks later that evening. We had a great time hanging out on Zoe swapping stories and sharing drinks with our new friends. Before long, it was time to say goodnight since we (and the other American couple) were leaving Tunisia in the morning. Although we were headed in opposite directions, we both had a long overnight passage ahead of us.

The following morning, we headed to the fuel dock to fill up and start the check out procedures. This was quite the process. Since Zoe is less than 12 meters, we were supposed to have free electricity and water. The girl looked at our boat document which said Zoe is 40 feet. She kept saying that our boat paper says 40 and Dan kept trying to explain to her that the measurement was in feet not meters. He finally said, “look at my boat….does that look like 40 meters to you?!” Yeah, we’d love to have a 40 meter boat….haha. In the end, they sorted it out. Then came, my least favorite part….the officials. In the end, the whole process took us almost 2 hours, AND we were asked for a “gift” for creating the paperwork for our tax documentation. Grrrr….now I’m mad and disgusted. I was so pleased with the officials when we arrived. Now, they left a bad taste in my mouth. He ended leaving with nothing. Yep, that was a big enough turn off for me that I will not be returning to Tunisia. As you can imagine, this left us feeling very flustered and out of sorts. We finally cast lines and started on our way. We had been underway for about 20 minutes and just about to raise our sails when Dan received a phone call. Uh oh. The same official who we didn’t receive a parting “gift” informed us that they still had our passports!!! Damn it! We had to turn around and go all the way back! Normally, we are really good about checking that we have all our documentation, but the little “gift” episode left us flustered. Two very nice, young officers (not the gift seeker) were waiting at the end of the fuel dock as we pulled up and made the handoff of our passports. They were very apologetic and told us to double check that these were in fact our passports. They were good, and we were off once again.

Approaching the fuel dock for some cheap Tunisian diesel

We were happy to be able to get out of Tunisia on Friday because another weather system was due to arrive on Sunday. We wanted to be sure we were able to get ourselves to Sicily for our son’s arrival and get there before the weather came. As it was, the wind from the past few days left us with some rather rambunctious sailing conditions anyway. For the first 5 or so hours of our passage, we had winds of 20-25 knots on a broad reach (behind us) and we were surfing 6 foot waves. Zoe was hitting 10 knots surfing these waves which is a speed we have never seen on her. It was all quite loud (from the large wake we were leaving at that speed) and a bit stressful as the autopilot was working very hard to keep us from broaching on the surfs. We also had a nerve wracking chunk of time where we were playing frogger with huge cargo ships and ferries. We ended up calling one of the cargo ships on the VHF radio as we were on a collision course, and they assured us that we were okay to hold our course and speed, and they would take necessary action to avoid us. As nice as it was to be flying along under sail, we were ready for the winds to come down a bit and the seas to tamp down. Luckily, that came at nightfall. As I’ve said before, I do not like night sailing. In the 4 weeks we have been on Zoe, this was our 3rd 24+ hour passage! The nice thing was we had an almost full moon which cast a nice glow across the water. There were a lot of storm clouds as well which sometimes hid the moon, but we got no rain or thunderstorms. Moonlit night sails aren’t so bad since the sea is illuminated. When it is pitch black out, the sensory deprivation is very unsettling.

We needed to cross this busy shipping channel between Tunisia and Sicily

We called this cargo ship on the VHF to clarify intentions as we were on a collision course

As the sun began to rise, the Egadi Islands off the coast of Sicily came into view. By now, the sea was very calm and the winds began to die off (always a good thing when you are planning to dock). We rolled into the city of Trapani where we were met by marina personnel who dinghy escorted us in to our spot. Two guys were on dock to assist with lines and before long, we were all tied up. We were definitely in good company in the sense that we were the smallest boat on the dock. We were surrounded by very large boats complete with staff. The border police came to the marina office to check us in which was quick and easy. We both felt a huge sigh of relief that we were home. Wait, we are not Italian or home. It’s just that we finally felt relaxed and back in our comfort zone after a few weeks in a very exotic locale. We headed below deck for some much needed sleep after sailing for 24 hours on very small cat naps. Later that night, we headed into the city for some dinner and exploration. I have to say, we really like Trapani. The alleyways were all lit up with bright colored lights and bustling with activity. We definitely plan to spend some more time exploring this wonderful place.

Lighthouse on one of the Egadi Islands near Sicily. Getting close now.

Playing follow the dinghy to our mooring location

Catamaran sandwich – we were the smallest boat on the pontoon by far!

Our passage – just under 24 hours underway for 138 Nautical miles

So, we are happily sitting in a very nice marina in a very nice town in Sicily. We are awaiting the arrival of the next Mistral (wind storm) and the arrival of family. We plan to meet our son and his wife by rental car in Palermo. We will spend some time showing them around before bringing them back to Zoe and heading out for some more sailing fun. Stay tuned for more highlights from Sicily as we make our way to the Amalfi Coast.

Welcome to Africa!

After saying goodbye to our friends Chris and Heather earlier that morning, we departed the marina in Cagliari, Sardinia at 11:30 a.m. on August 2nd. We had originally planned on spending a few days exploring this town but the marina fees were quite steep -over $200 per night! So rather than ride out a multi day windstorm coming our way, we decided to leave after just one night. Our destination was 20 hours away in Bizerte, Tunisia, and we had a great window to cross and outrun a nasty Mistral wind complete with thunderstorms.

If we didn’t leave on Friday the next few days were nasty!

We were kind of coming full circle. Back 6 years ago, we had bought Zoe in Hammamet, Tunisia. Over the past years, we had always taken Zoe to Montenegro or Albania to reset our tax clock as an American flagged boat. Since we had moved from the eastern Mediterranean to the western Mediterranean, those locations were no longer an option (way too far away). Given where we were (Italy), Tunisia was really our only logical option for taking Zoe out of the EU. I can’t say I was super excited about going to Tunisia, only because we are American on an American flagged boat. We had already been warned by an Italian sailor we met in Cagliari that Americans were not liked here…..go figure.

It wasn’t long before the winds had begun to kick up. The nice part was the winds were from a great direction, and we were able to sail. The down side was that it was really gusty and not consistent. We put a reef in our main (to reduce the amount of sail in case of higher winds) ahead of time, so that we were prepared for the winds as they continued to rise. Our reef line system has a lot of friction which requires Dan to be up on the coach roof to work with them, so we didn’t want to wait until things got dicey for him to be out on top of the deck. This turned out to be a smart idea as we did encounter some very gusty conditions, and at times we were hitting boat speeds 0f almost 9 knots (which is fast for Zoe). I took the first shift from sunset into the dark which would also give me the dark shift into sunrise….2 damn night shifts….yuck! Dan’s reasoning (uh huh….I think I’ve been scammed) was because I have a sharper eye for seeing fish traps in the water, and we would be closer to shore at that point. Whatever. As I came on for my first watch, the lightning was already flashing in the distance….great. There was also a tremendous amount of boat traffic between the island of Sardinia and Tunisia. Oh boy, more fun. Luckily, all the boats appeared to be broadcasting on AIS, so I was easily able to monitor where they were in relation to us. All the boats in the middle of the sea turned out to be fishing boats. I was very grateful that they were the large ones that broadcasted their position instead of the unmarked small ones we sometimes come across. We were barely ahead of the incoming wind which allowed us to sail and then motor sail the entire way.

Keeping alert during watch is important when crossing a busy shipping channel

I finished my 6 hour shift, and Dan came up to take his turn. As I went to lay down to get some sleep, the wind decided to get finicky which meant Dan was fussing with the sails a lot causing a great deal of noise. Needless to say, I got very little sleep before my next shift which meant I was getting very grouchy at this point. I was NOT having fun! The fishing boats were now no longer around, and the cargo ships had arrived. Again, they were very visible on our screen but seeing them on the sea was tough since the lights on land, as we approached Tunisia, were now visible. This is one of the reasons I hate sailing in the dark. I feel like I have a hard time seeing things and determining if they are boats or lights on land since the land is black like the sea. I was super grateful as the morning glow began, indicating that the sunrise was not far behind. As we pulled into the bay outside of Bizerte, we were greeted by some dolphins (what a nice welcome)! We rolled into the marina at 7:45 a.m. (over 20 hours after casting lines in Cagliari,Sardinia the day before). The wind had moderated and tie up was easy. We waited for the officials to show up so we could do the check in formalities. We were very nervous about this as well. Others have posted about corruption, need for bribes or “gifts, and confiscation of things when they search your boat. In the meantime, the Mistral had arrived in full force. The wind was howling and thunder booming. We had arrived 1.5 hours before it all began…whew!

Dolphins put on a show for us as we neared our destination of Bizerte

The Tunisian border police showed up and escorted us to their office where we began formalities. There was a lot of paperwork to do with them, and then we were processed with a customs officer. They told us to check in with the marina, and then they would come to the boat for a search. All in all, it took about an hour and a half to do the formalities, everyone was super friendly and professional, there was absolutely no corruption or confiscations (other than our drone which they hold until you depart the country, and we already knew that was going to happen). The officials bent over backwards making us feel comfortable and welcome. We were very appreciative. With a huge sigh of relief, we headed below deck for some much needed sleep. The Mistral was now in full force with dark, ominous clouds all around. The marinero was frequently checking everybody’s lines to make sure we were all tied up snug. At one point, he jumped on board so that he and Dan could use the motors to really shank our lines down tight. The surrounding town looks quite tired, poor and dilapidated, but the marina is very nicely done. Everyone here at the marina has been super kind and helpful, making us feel extremely welcome.

Six years later Zoe returns to Tunisia – where our adventure all began

The next day, we wandered into the heart of town to get some cash and bottled water. We don’t know if it was because it was Sunday, but we stumbled on this huge street market. There were colorful and fragrant fruit and vegetable stands as far as the eye could see. There were also stands peddling local merchandise. We saw a number of meat markets and walked into one. I was quite shocked when I looked over and saw crate after crate of live chickens….just laying there in a catatonic state. Oh geez, talk about fresh! The words of Dan’s dad came flooding into my mind. “Where do you think your meat comes from?!” Me: “On a styrofoam plate covered in Saran, and I’m keeping it that way!” I might have to become vegetarian….haha. Nah, I love meat too much. We then found the biggest fish market I have ever seen! Everything was so fresh and looked amazing. There was every kind of fish and seafood you could imagine. It was still too windy to grill, we were still tired and a bit overwhelmed, so we decided to come back another time when we are able to grill the fresh fish.

We figured we would look into having some work done on the boat while we were here. Everyone has talked about how affordable it is to get things done in Tunisia, and we had things that we have been wanting to do for years, but it has been too expensive in France and Italy. We had the great fortune of being docked next to a boat that was having some major reconstruction done on her, so Dan called the supervisor over to our boat. We talked to him about redoing our kitchen countertops in Corian and redesigning the layout. This was an adventure in and of itself since he only spoke French and Arabic. We managed to muddle through and by the end of the day, he had already made wood templates of our design! Incredible! It turns out, he is the owner of a company that builds and rebuilds boats. He asked if we would like to come see his shop. I was not super thrilled with the idea. I always feel a little squishy (uneasy) about getting into a car with a stranger in an unfamiliar country and going somewhere unknown. Think about it….we are taught our entire life to not get into cars with strangers…..yet, here I go again! Despite his shop being fairly close, the traffic was horrendous, and you have to cross a big drawbridge. The problem here is that 4-5 lanes of traffic, from every imaginable direction, funnel into one lane to cross the bridge. This chaos happens in both directions! We made it to his shop in a shipyard, and he showed us the boats he was working on, and the molds of some he was building. He showed us a multitude of photos of the many boats he has worked on. He was definitely very proud of his work (and it was in fact, quite impressive). We made a plan with him to drive to the capital city of Tunis the following morning in order to pick our new countertop material. I wasn’t overly thrilled with this plan either. It was an hour and a half drive each way!

Within an hour of asking if he could do the work he showed up with template to get started!

Minaret view as we cross the town drawbridge. We hear calls to prayer several times a day

Yosri and Robyn during our tour of his yard in the nearby town of Zarzouna

Our contractor picked us up the following day and we were on our way. It was a pleasant drive once we got out of the city. The landscape was interesting as it went from lush and green to dry and barren desert. We entered the city of Tunis to the hustle and bustle of a large city. Our first stop was down an alley to a marble shop. We were shown 2 pieces of quartz. Very pretty, but we were confused. We wanted Corian and more of a color choice. We were quickly becoming disappointed. As we handled the piece of quartz, we were very concerned by its thickness and weight. You might wonder why we would be concerned about weight on a counter top. One of our counter tops houses a drop in refrigerator which requires a lid that has to be lifted up. We were also putting a drop in trash bin and sinks with covers over them. All of these “lids” would require regular lifting. Nope, quartz was not going to work for our project. Our contractor was understanding and took us to another place to look at Corian. Not sure why we didn’t go there in the first place. The next place blew our mind. This was a very elegant showroom….uh oh, I’m seeing dollar signs piling up. This place had lots of samples to choose from, and we quickly found what we liked. Soon, the CEO walked in. He spoke great English and proudly showed us the models of their work. He also told us that they were the supplier for some major catamaran companies in France. The stars were aligning (he wasn’t suppose to be in the office that day), his assistant was going to drive down to measure our kitchen despite it being their vacation time, and he was going to put a rush on our fabrication because we had a departure date already set. At this point, we still didn’t know a price. Eeesh. At the end of the day, they sent us the quote. It was 1/3 the price of any other place we had been quoted for a much better design. Woo hoo! We also have a number of other projects underway, and we are super excited. Stay tuned for how everything turns out!

Success! Found the Corian counter in the style and color we wanted

CEO of the Corian factory who agreed to expedite our order

The fabricator drove an hour and a half each way (twice!) to ensure precise measurements

We appreciated the diligence and attention to detail shown

Our next adventure was back to that crazy, huge street market. This time we went with our new Swiss friends on the boat next to us. They had already been several times and knew their way around. Once you understood how it worked, it went quite smooth. We walked away with at least 5kg (10+ pounds) of the freshest vegetables you’ve ever seen for a fraction of the price we are used to back home. We then headed to a stand selling local products. We picked up some harissa paste, some sort of spicy pepper mix, and locally made olive oil. Everyone was very helpful and kind without any kind of pressure to come buy their things. Everything had prices clearly listed and the vendors were all friendly and honest. We then went to the bakery for fresh made baguettes and learned there were two lines – one for government subsidized bread (the long line) and normal. Before heading to the fish market, we stopped at a cafe to experience Arabic coffee. Dan ordered and thought it was the strongest espresso he ever had but still enjoyed it. It was already a hot day so I ordered a cold tea. Unfortunately, I received hot tea (this may have been a blessing in disguise since I have no idea if bottled water was used). It was spiced with some mint leaves (and unfortunately, some sugar) but it was quite delicious. I think I may have to buy some mint leaves now. Our final stop was the huge fish market. There were so many kinds of fish and seafood. At this point, we were low on cash (I told Dan he didn’t bring enough!) so we only bought a kilo of yummy prawns. I really do love them, but I can’t stand having to pull off all their heads. I plan to go back another day for some other goodies from the sea.

Everyone was honest with no pushiness or haggling needed

Venturing behind the counter for fresh olive oil and other treats

Enjoying the local cafe scene in Bizerte. Arabic coffee is very strong!

Shisha is a big part of cafe culture here.

At this point, we had spent nearly a week with our new Swiss friends having a great time hanging out and swapping stories. We also met a fun gentleman from the UK and a very nice couple from New Zealand. One of the best parts of sailing is all the interesting people you meet from all over the world! We thought we would be leaving Zoe behind to do some inland tours, but that is not shaping up like we had hoped. The people doing the work on Zoe have been out nearly everyday making sure everything is perfect and that the jobs will be finished on time. So, we will leave you here for now, and be back for an update soon. We are once again watching a weather system come in and will be threading the needle of leaving Tunisia after our work is done. Our challenge is that we have our son and daughter-in-law coming in very soon to Sicily where we will pick them up, and then we need to get to the Amalfi coast of Italy for our nephew’s wedding. We don’t like to sail a schedule, but that seems to be the theme so far this year. Wish us luck!

Fun Along The West Coast Of Sardegne (Sardinia)

We finally made it back to Zoe in mid-July. This was definitely our latest season yet, but we had two grandkids celebrating first birthdays this year and could not miss being with them. When we finally arrived at the boat yard, we were quite crushed to see how filthy the boat had become. If you will recall, we had spent days polishing her up really nice. While we did not expect her to still be clean a month and a half later, we did not expect the magnitude of dirt and mud that coated her (all the result of Saharan dust storms). We had only given ourselves a couple of days to prep the boat before putting her in the water, and it quickly became evident that we needed an extra day. We had a lot of work done on the boat while we were gone, some of which had problems when we returned. We had put in new underwater lights and only 1/2 worked. We had new standing rigging done (the cables and wires that keep the mast up) and now our anchor light did not work. That was probably the biggest problem. No anchor light, no anchoring. Luckily, everyone was very responsive, and we were back and running just in the nick of time.

Zoe alone in her corner of the winter storage yard. Most have launched for summer already.

New underwater lights professionally installed. The ring is new Coppercoat antifoul.

Installed dinghy wheels after discovering how heavy the new dinghy is for beach landings!

Rigger had to return from his summer vacation to redo the wiring to the new anchor light he installed.

We try to keep up with regular maintenance on Zoe. Here we are installing new water pump impellers.

With Zoe in the Provence part of France, good food is always nearby!

A little stressful to watch but she is a boat again

Once again, we had our eyes on another nasty windstorm and needed to quickly leave the area in order to meet our first guests of the season. The wind had already begun when they slid us into the water, and we rapidly got underway. We needed to get to the Italian island of Sardegne (Sardinia in English) which was quite a distance away. We made our way nearly 7 hours down the south coast of France to an anchorage in order to stage for our overnight (and open water) passage to Sardegne. I couldn’t believe we were making our first overnight passage the 2nd day of our sailing season while trying to outrun a wicked wind! Talk about jumping into the frying pan….ugh.

Approaching Ciotat, our stop for the first night.

At 6:25 the following morning, we were underway for the 175 nautical mile passage. Our destination was a very beautiful island (Asinara) off the northern tip of Sardegne, and well protected from the incoming Mistral. Unfortunately, the last 6-7 hours of our 33 hour passage were spent bashing into the waves, reducing our speed greatly. We grabbed a mooring ball in Cala d’Oliva, in Asinara, where the donkeys and goats wandered the landscape freely. The water was crystal clear, and the scenery was idyllic. Ahhh, back to my happy place. The next day we decided to explore a new cove, slowly moving us closer to our exit point but remaining protected from the Mistral. Once again, we tied up to a mooring ball. Here was a much bigger town with a lot more activity. The wind had long since arrived, and this particular cove was not very well protected from the incoming swell. By the next morning, we were pitching around in 3 foot swells hitting us on the side. This meant that things were falling and crashing off the shelves. We decided to abort a 2nd night here and quickly moved around the corner to another mooring ball field with better protection. While the wind still howled, there were no waves on the bay making for a much more peaceful stay.

Passages always involve keeping a lookout for things that can run into you and ruin your day

We installed a new server (called “Sailserver”) to track our trips. So far so good.

Land after a long overnight passage is always welcome

The former prison camp of Cala D’Oliva. Italy used to keep political prisoners on this isolated wind swept island.

The island is now a national park and the prison has been turned over to the goats

Robyn doing canvas work with our Sailrite sewing machine

The Mistral wind made our mooring uncomfortable with large swell so we moved to better protected Trabucco Bay.

After 3 days of waiting out the wind, it was time to get moving. Unfortunately, our departure did not allow enough time for the seas to die down after multiple days of very strong winds. As we exited the small cut between island and mainland Sardegne, we found ourselves riding the bucking bronco of 3-6 foot swells. We painfully took them on the nose for a few hours before finally being able to turn and take them from the back corner. This made for a much more pleasant ride and gave us quite the speed boost as we surfed down the swell. After a 7.5 hour passage, we arrived in one of our favorite towns, Alghero. We tied up in a marina, outside the walls of the old city, and began preparations for the arrival of our first guests the next day.

Lighthouse on a Cape near the city of Alghero

One of our favorite beers (Ichnusa) to celebrate the arrival at one of our favorite stops

The new mast rigging was too tight and needed professional adjustment in Alghero

Our friends, Chris and Heather, arrived the following afternoon. This was their first visit to Zoe, and we were super excited to be able to share our adventures with them. Once we got them settled and oriented on the nuances of boat life, we grabbed a cab and headed for a winery to enjoy a tasting. The winery was set on beautiful grounds, and we had a great time trying a variety of different wines. Of course that resulted in stocking Zoe’s wine coffers for the rest of our trip! We returned to the boat to drop our goodies, and then headed into the old town where we wandered the cobblestone streets. Alghero is a beautiful old city with lots of small alleyways containing shops, restaurants and homes. We took Heather and Chris to a favorite restaurant that we had discovered the year before. Heather decided to have the lobster dinner. Much to her dismay, the waiter insisted that she come “meet” her dinner. He tried to convince her to have the lobster with all the eggs (a delicacy) to which she politely declined. Dinner was delicious, but I think she could’ve done without the face to face meeting of her dinner.

So many to choose from – let’s do all of them!

First outing with our visiting friends, Chris and Heather

Dinner at an Alghero restaurant. You pick your dinner and they cook it!

Since our guests only had a week with us, we were on the move every day in order to show them as much as possible. By 8:30 in the morning, we were on our way to another one of our favorites….the town of Bosa. This was a short 3.5 hour hop down the coast. We found a nice spot in the bay and dropped anchor. Once settled in, we hopped on our paddle boards and headed into the beach bar. Dan and I were a little slow going since our pump blew out before our SUP was fully inflated. That was a slow slog! We returned to the boat where we hung out in the crystal clear water on our floats enjoying some Sardegne beer (Ichnusa). Yes, this would become a daily ritual. After, we jumped in the dinghy and headed up the river to the town of Bosa. We wandered the streets enjoying the scenery (unfortunately it was blistering hot). Luckily, Chris found us a dinner spot with a table right in front of a giant fan! As the sun began to set, we jumped back into the dinghy for our cruise back down the river and back to the bay where Zoe awaited.

Hoisting some flags representing our guests onboard. The State of Arizona flag and the Arizona Cardinals football team

Underway with friends for some Sardinian fun

Heather in her Zoe crew shirt. We had good opportunities to sail while they were aboard which can be rare in this part of the world.

You can’t land motorized vessels like our dinghy on beaches in Italy so we took our paddle boards in

The one nice thing about the Mistral (nasty wind in this part of the Med) is that it is always followed by beautiful weather….this time was no exception. Because the weather was so calm, we decided to go to an island that you can only safely visit in the calmest of weather. It is known as Isola Mal Vente (island of bad wind). This was another 3.5 hour sail, but the island did not become visible until we were quite close. Apparently, everyone else had the same idea as the anchorage and mooring field were packed with boats. We continued on to a further bay which was a little less crazy. We grabbed a mooring ball and snorkeled the crystal clear waters. The boys decided to go explore in the dinghy where they got into a little mischief when some very drunk girls jumped into the dinghy with them, spilling wine all over Dan from head to toe. The boys worked hard to extricate themselves from the situation without causing an international incident. When they returned, we all jumped into the dinghy and circumnavigated the island which has some spectacular rock formations and land features. Needless to say, Dan gave a wide berth to the Spring Break scene that was taking place on the sandbar. We had a wonderful steak dinner on board and then headed into the beach where we had an awesome beach bonfire to top off our evening.

The following day, we were on our way again. I told you this was a whirlwind journey (I think we wore our guests out)! Our original plan had been to anchor in a beautiful bay surrounded by incredible rock cliffs with caves to explore. Unfortunately, an onshore wind had kicked up making it feel very unsafe to spend time at anchor. It had already been a very long day, but we decided to pull up anchor and head to the town of Carloforte where we would tie up in a marina. In the end, it was a 9.5 hour passage (too long for any of us) and getting tied up in a crosswind had all four of us on our toes. Finally, we were safely tied up and ready to relax.

We had a little later departure the next day as the wind was still a little rambunctious. Once there was a lull, we got underway to our next destination, Porto Pino. The wind did kick up once again, and we were cracking along, under sail, at almost 8 knots of boat speed (really fast for our big girl). The boys decided this would be a great time to fly the drone over Zoe to catch her under full sail. We had never done this before for fear of losing the drone in the water. With just two of us, you can’t fly the drone, land it on a moving object and drive the boat. This was the perfect time with me driving the boat, Dan flying the drone, and Chris ready to snatch it from the air when we brought it back down. Problem was, Dan lost sight of it and the drone returned to its launch position. With the motors on, I flogged the genoa (front sail), spun us around and motored back in the direction we had come from. Before long, we spotted the drone high in the sky, and Dan brought the drone down with Chris snatching it from the air. We realized later, we had done all of this with a fishing line still in the water…..oops….that could have wrapped our prop and ended badly! Soon, we were back on our way to the bay. Porto Pino is a very large, beautiful anchorage in white sand, making the water stand out as a beautiful expanse of turquoise blue. The beach itself had a number of lovely beach bars and sand dunes. Since it was still a little windy (with choppy water), we decided to take the dinghy up the canal to the town and swim later when the wind died down. We cruised up the canal and wandered the quaint little town checking out the local specialty shops and bought some goodies. We then headed to a beach bar for some cocktails, calamari and fries. That evening, Heather decided to do some hand fishing off the back of the boat. We turned on the underwater lights as she dangled some tasty beef fat in the water. As the evening got later, more and more interesting things started to make their way to the lights. Before long, we had an octopus checking out what was happening in the water under us. Then, something big darted in and out of the darkness. It moved too fast to figure out exactly what it was, but everything scattered, including the octopus which buried itself in a sand divot, trying to stay out of sight. Our best guess is that it may have been a small shark.

Drone shot of Zoe under sail…almost lost the drone!

It was stressful flying the drone underway but love the pictures!

We were down to 2 more nights with Heather and Chris. Boy did time fly. We headed to our final anchorage of their visit, Malfatone. We tucked up deep in the bay across from another nice looking beach bar. Once again, the water was crystal clear with lots of sea grass below us. You can usually find a lot more sea life when there is sea grass present, allowing the fish to hide. We snorkeled and played in the water before calling the beach bar for a pick up. At this point, we were all craving a nice burger and fries. Unfortunately, when we opened up the restaurant menu, it was not your usual bar fare. It was a lot of seafood and pasta with a very gourmet flair (and gourmet price). Sadly (I know….poor us), we all found something we could live with to eat for lunch. Don’t get me wrong, the food was very good….just not what we were all craving. Chris managed to sweet talk one of the staff members into selling the boys a couple of their staff shirts which were quite nice. As the sun began to go down (and it became a little cooler), we took the dinghy into a cove and hiked up the hill to the remains of a watch tower. The 360 degree view with an ice cold beer was spectacular!

Well, the dreaded day had arrived. It was our very last passage with Chris and Heather on board. We were headed to the big city of Cagliari where they would leave us the following morning to make their way back to the states. We tied up in a small marina which was half the price of the ones closer to town. We soon learned why when the electrical breaker continuously tripped every time we turned on the air conditioner. Uh oh…..this was going to be a long night! We decided to head out to the heart of the city where there was a huge indoor market and called for a cab. This was a bit of a disaster as one company kept hanging up on us. In the end, we almost had an international incident when 2 different cabs showed up. Dan managed to sort it out (with a little money for cab number 2, of course), and we were on our way. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the market, they were 15 minutes from closing, so a lot of the shops had already closed. It had everything imaginable, and I was disappointed to not have had hours to spend time shopping. We did manage to buy a variety of yummy cheeses. We then walked to a highly reviewed restaurant that was definitely off the tourist beat. It was very good. We then struggled (we cannot use our usual Google translate when talking on a phone) to get a cab back to the marina. Luckily, a Brit had come by and spoke in Italian to the cab company for us, and we were all set. As we sat in the cockpit relaxing that evening, the fish in the marina were going crazy. Something very big was thrashing around making quite a ruckus in the water. No mater how hard we tried, we could not see what was causing the commotion. Whatever it was, we could see that it was very big as it bumped into the boats during its hunt. We needed to make this an early night as Chris and Heather had a 5:00 a.m. cab booked to catch their flight to Rome. The time had gone by way too fast.

Dan and I had our own dilemma. We would be leaving Sardegne for Tunisia in order to get our boat out of the EU. Since our boat is American flagged and not tax (VAT)paid, we are only allowed to have her in EU waters for 18 months before either leaving or paying the tax (24% on their perceived value of our boat! No thank you!). Our dilemma was that another big Mistral was on the way, and the marina in Sardegne had no room for us to stay until it was over. The mistral was bringing very high winds followed by very nasty seas (6-10 feet). Our choice was to leave as soon as possible after Chris and Heather left (Friday) or wait until Tuesday for the seas to die down. I had no desire to anchor out during that mess, and Dan didn’t want to move to the nicer marina for 200 euro per night (can’t say I blame him). The passage to Tunisia was going to be 20 hours, and we would barely be in front of the weather as it came in.

The Mistral wind blows from France certain times of year, and we avoid them when we can!

We walked our guests out of the marina at 4:50 a.m. and sadly said our goodbyes. Dan and I returned to the boat to catch a couple more hours of sleep before our overnight passage. Once up, we walked to the other end of town to start the process of checking ourselves and the boat out of Italy. Turned out to be a fairly easy process (for once). As we got Zoe ready to go, we soon discovered what had been making all the ruckus in the water the night before. Swimming through the marina were 4 dolphins! It was so great to see. Our final challenge was getting underway early enough to stay ahead of the weather, but not so early that we arrived in Tunisia in the dark. We were underway at 11:30 a.m. with the hope of arriving in Tunisia at 7:30 a.m. the following day. With that, I am going to leave you here, hopefully on the edge of your seat, and we will return soon with tales of our crossing and adventures in Tunisia! Thanks for following along with us!

From Marseille, France to Cagliari, Italy. We put a lot of miles on (by our standards) in two weeks!

The Spiritual Variant – 125 Mile Pilgrim Finale

During our planning of this adventure, many had recommended that we do the Spiritual Variant of the Portuguese Way. It added a little more distance and included a boat ride up a river. We were told it was very special and quite beautiful. Pontevedra was where those taking the Spiritual Variant broke off from the main Portuguese Way. It had a lot less pilgrims and was very magical.

Pontevedra to Armenteira. 9.64 miles/15.5 km and 1519 feet/463 m of elevation

This was another brutal stage. Although shorter in distance, it was more elevation in a shorter amount of time. Ummm….I do not believe I was told about all these elevation stages! I was only aware of one! Apparently, I need to do my own research to see what I am truly getting into! The climb was relentless! If you recall from our last post, we had quite a bit of fun late into the night yesterday. As a result, Dan was suffering beyond belief (the result of mixing beer, wine, 4 different liqueurs, and port….I stuck to wine and the liqueurs). While he lamented the grueling hill in pouring rain, threatening to vomit on a regular basis, I dug my heels in and did my penance. I charged up the hill forcing myself to conquer it, leaving Dan far behind. I’m such a bad wife. Along the way, there was a drink station set up for pilgrims. It’s a help yourself set up with the request of a small donation if you can. Dan stopped and purchased an orange soda (something he never drinks and loaded with sugar). That was just the hit he needed, and before long he caught up with me. Unfortunately, his sugar rush only lasted about 45 minutes. Luckily, we were finely at the top. Now time to go down.

While up was certainly not much fun, down turned out to be just as bad. Thanks to days of rain, our descent was through thick and slippery mud and ponds of water (all in the pouring rain and wind). Near the end, we encountered rocks and boulders to down climb. Between the slickness of the rocks and my heavy pack (and gravity not working in my favor), I chose to slide down them on my ass. We finally arrived at the monastery in Armenteira., soaked to the bone and shivering. We headed inside and got our passports stamped by a monk. Now we had to figure out how to get to our lodging which was a 15 minute drive out of town. There were no cabs available as school had just let out, and they were busy shuttling kids. The owner of the guest house finally took pity on us and came to get us. It was a lovely stone house with a communal sitting area and 6 guest rooms. Unfortunately, the heat would not turn on until late into the night. A hot shower helped a bit, but Dan spent the next few hours buried in the bed under all the blankets. Yes, he was still sick from last night’s fun. I, on the other hand, enjoyed a light snack of local mussels and olives and a glass of local wine. It was a good thing since our overpriced dinner at this guest house was extremely meager and not very good. That was a disappointment. We did meet a gentleman from the Netherlands who was 70 years old and doing his 4th Camino! We also met a woman from Latvia. The 4 of us were all staying at the guest house. We left ahead of the others the following morning. Once again, we were trying to find weather windows with the least amount of rain.

Donativo- it’s a donation based fridge stocked with sugary drinks for energy for the big hill.

Trail was slick in many places from the rain

Monk stamped our credentials at the Monastery

We met a 70 year old Danish man who was on his sixth Camino

Armenteira to Barrantes 4.38 miles/7 km and 65 feet/20 m elevation

We had a taxi come get us to bring us back to the monastery (it was important to us to resume our journey from where we left it and not shortcut it). We decided to make our trek short today since the rain was forecasted to get much worse. This leg was absolutely stunning (and a little scary). It is known as the Ruta da pedra e da auga which means the route of rock and water in Galician. Since arriving in Spain, we have been in the region of Galicia so my limited Spanish abilities were of less use since Galicia has its own language. Anyway, our journey today had us following a raging river with lots of rushing waterfalls. The surrounding area was very lush and tropical which also meant climbing over some downed trees from the bad weather. You may be wondering what is so scary about that? Well, thanks to days of heavy rain, the ground was again very muddy and slick. Often times, we were right at the water’s edge. One slip into the raging water would have been deadly. We also had to traipse over wet boulders and walk through mini waterfalls that cropped up because of the rain runoff. To give you an idea of the how rough it was, it took us 45 minutes to cover 1 mile (our entire journey to this point averaged just under 20 minute miles). This route use to contain a number of water mills. A number of the decaying, stone structures still dotted the banks of the river. This portion of the trek had been all downhill (finally!) which meant our entire elevation gain today was getting to our room. Once again, we arrived soaking wet and muddy. Man, I knew we might get some rain this time of year but geez! Enough!

“Route of rock and water” – a highlight of our Camin0

Barrantes to Villanova de Arousa 10.34 miles/16.6km and 430 feet/131 m elevation

Surprise! Another day of rain forecasted. We tried to find the best window to start our next stage. The day started out with drizzle as we trekked along the banks of another river. Unfortunately, because of the endless days of heavy rain, parts of the river had overflowed the banks (and thus our trail). We were quickly getting wetter and wetter trying to navigate through the ponds of water. An hour and a half into our journey, we hit the big river overflow. It was clear that those who came before us strayed off trail into the tall foliage in an attempt to find higher and drier ground. As we followed their path, the water had already risen to the point that there was nowhere to go but through. As the crushed plant life began to sink beneath our feet, we were now calf deep in water. The river had bested us. We now had 2 hours left in our journey in sopping wet sneakers, two pair of wet wool socks, and wet pant legs….yuck. Our resilience on this pilgrimage was definitely being put to the test. Our final 20 minutes of walking, the rain poured down on us. Why wouldn’t you want your top half to be as wet as your bottom half?!? This also meant the arrival of our first blister. We were about to finish the Spiritual Variant of our journey and rejoin the main Camino route.

The next morning involved a boat ride up the river to the city of Padron. There would be no walking today and of course, no rain. This was a good thing since it was cold and windy on the boat ride, so rain would’ve really sucked. As we cruised up the river, we passed through 2300 mussel farms run by individual families. This area is the largest exporter of mussels. Each platform consisted of 200 ropes. Each rope was capable of growing 250-300 kg/551-661 pounds of full grown mussels. Also along the river route, there were 17 crosses to commemorate the journey of St. James’ body. At one spot, there were 3 crosses together which were said to represent St. James and the two disciples that traveled with his body from Jerusalem (it is the local interpretation). Another cross on the river has its post completely submerged during high tide leaving only the cross itself visible on the water. The next cross we encountered was named Pisa. The story was that the workers installing it had taken a lunch break which involved a few bottles of wine. They went back to work after lunch, and the cross was installed with a very evident lean to it. From there, we passed by some Viking tower ruins from the 9th and 10th centuries. This area was a Celtic town that frequently fought the northern countries of Europe. Beside the towers are 2 replicas of Viking ships. In August, the town re-enacts the battle between the locals and the Vikings. It is supposedly quite the event to see. An hour and a half later, we arrived in Padron. Unfortunately, it was a holiday in Padron so many things were closed. We did walk the town which was quite beautiful, went into a few churches, and enjoyed a big concert in the square. Since this is where the Spiritual Variant of the Camino and the Portuguese Way intercept, there were many, many pilgrims here. It was hard to believe that we were almost done with our 194 km/120.5 mile trek. We were excited about our accomplishment but also feeling oddly sad that it was coming to an end. How weird is that?

Arriving in the seaside town of Vilanova de Arousa

Boat trip on the “Maritime Way” retracing the path to Santiago of St James’s remains

Ancient Fortress defending the town of Padron from Vikings

Replica Viking longship from days long ago

Padron to Milladoiro 11.84 miles/19km and 1182 feet/360 m of elevation

Video warmup of our penultimate stage

The last stage of the Portuguese Way goes from Padron to Santiago de Compostela. Given that there was a decent amount of elevation remaining (almost 1700 feet/518 m), I was not sure I could handle 17 miles as well, all in one go. I also figured that getting in to town the next morning would make for less pilgrims arriving at the office to get their certificates. Based on the number of pilgrims we encountered in Milladoiro, it appeared we all had the same thought…haha. This was our last big day. Tomorrow’s trek into the old city would be a short one. It felt so strange to not have any more big days ahead of us.

As you get closer to Santiago the number of fellow Pilgrims on the trail increases a lot

Milladoiro to Santiago de Compostela. 5.29 miles/8.5 km and 504 feet/153m of elevation

We made it! Not only that, but we arrived on my birthday. We rolled into Santiago de Compostela early in the day and headed straight to the pilgrims office. We received a ticket number for our spot in line. We were pilgrims number 118 and 119 out of 2,037 that arrived that day. We answered some questions, showed our stamped passports and were given our certificates of completion. It was quite a fast process which was very unexpected based on all we had seen and heard. This is also where I chose to leave my final rock. I saved my favorite one for this special place. I had picked this one up on the trails around our house during our training hikes. It was striped and glittery and shaped like a heart.

Our hotel was right in the heart of the old city which was spectacular. We visited the focal point of the city which was the St. James Cathedral. It was beautiful. We also saw the tomb of St. James. That night, Dan took me to a Michelin star restaurant for my birthday where we had a wonderful tasting menu. The following day we attended the pilgrims mass which acknowledges all the pilgrims that arrived the day before. The mass was done in Spanish, and we are pretty sure we heard the word Arizona. We assumed that maybe they mentioned the furthest location of the pilgrims arriving the day before. Who knows? It was a nice experience even if I could only understand about a third of it.

On our last day, we took a train to the beach town of A Coruna. This turned out to be a much larger city than we imagined. It was about a half hour walk to the seaside and also where the cruise ships arrive. We wandered the old town here for a bit, had some octopus and calamari for lunch, then headed back. Back in Santiago de Compostela, we explored a few museums. One of the museums was a Pilgrims Museum which detailed the history of the St. James pilgrimage through history. I was somewhat reluctant to go (boring), but it was actually quite fascinating.

We spent 2 nights and 3 days in Santiago de Compostela, but the time had come to return to Zoe and finish up our work….boo. They say these pilgrimages are addicting. I laughed at that. How crazy! Oh, how wrong I was! Before we even finished, we were discussing which one would be our next and how soon we could do it. Spoiler alert….our next one is almost fully planned, and in this very same year. Go team Muzich! Thanks for joining our adventures!

The first time in 125 miles the arrows were unclear of which way to go!

Video of last stage thoughts on our Camino

The destination of “The Way” – 11th Century Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela

On line at the Pilgrim office to get our credential processed

We received certificates attesting to completing the Camino

Robyn showing the two stamps a day in our Credentials

Dan is proud of his hard won Pilgrim Credential as well!

Robyn placing her last “burden” at our destination

Pilgrim mass honoring those who arrived the day before

2 Peregrinos on the Camino de Santiago

After several fun filled days exploring the city of Porto, it was finally time to make our way to the starting point of our 194 km/121 mile trek of the Camino de Santiago. We hopped on a train for the 1 hour ride from Porto to Barcelos. From the train station, we had a 20 minute walk to the city center. Something big was underway, as the streets and alleyways were lined with beautiful lighted sculptures, colorful flags and banners, and hundreds of students lining the streets getting ready to march in a parade. It turned out to be a celebration of Portugal’s liberation 50 years ago. It was fun to be in the center of all the excitement. We only had the one evening in Barcelos before starting our Camino trek the following morning, so we wandered the city center and found a cafe that catered to Camino pilgrims (peregrinos). For $5 euro each, we had a big bowl of hearty soup with bread, a plate full of food, and a large glass of wine. What a deal! All throughout the city, there were these bright and colorful roosters of varying sizes. The rooster is quite famous, and the story quite intriguing. I will give you the short version but highly recommend looking up the more detailed version. Basically, the folk tale is that a dead rooster crows to prove an accused man’s innocence. There are a number of variations on the basic theme and all are quite fun to read. Needless to say, we purchased a small version of the colorful rooster that adorns the town. We turned in somewhat early in preparation for our long walking days ahead.

The pretty town of Barcelos – our Camino starting point

Pilgrims canteen – hearty and cheap fuel for trekkers

Day 1: Barcelos to Balagues – 11 miles/18 kilometers

The first part of this trek was definitely not my favorite. We walked through town and along busy roadways without sidewalks making me very uncomfortable from a safety standpoint. Plus, this was not at all what I pictured in my head. A tradition on the camino is to carry a rock from home that serves as a symbol of your burdens. During our hikes around our house, we had carefully chosen several rocks, unique to our area, that would represent our burdens. I decided to leave one at the start, one at the border between Portugal and Spain, and the final one at the Cathedral of St. James. As we began to leave the town behind, we came across a stone cross which seemed like the perfect place to leave our stone. Dan asked if I had left my burden behind to which I replied, “no because you’re still here.” Haha….just kidding! We both laughed. Eventually, the path meandered into the countryside where things were much more tranquil and serene. The countryside was beautiful and ever changing. 3 hours and 45 minutes later, we arrived in Balagues very tired and very sore. We arrived at our accommodation where we were greeted with an ice cold beer. Man, that was the best beer ever. Our room was quite amazing as well. Cut into stone archways with wooden doors and shutters, maroon tapestries and a canopied bed, it looked like a room in a castle. Unfortunately, we did not read the small print (ok, not so small) on our peregrino passports that says you must get 2 stamps every day on our journey. Awww man! Our only option was this 1 restaurant which was a 20 minute walk away. So, despite being exhausted and sore, we made the journey to the restaurant. We pre-ordered (the restaurant actually called us ahead of time to get our order) the grilled cod (salted cod is very famous in Portugal and we had been eating it in a variety of ways since we arrived). When it arrived, we were both shocked at the ginormous piece of fish that sat between us. Yikes. Oh, the lengths you will go to in order to ensure you have the required number of stamps.

Getting our Pilgrim Passport it’s first stamp of many

We brought some rocks from Arizona as a symbol of “leaving burdens behind” on the Camino

Robyn settling nicely into trekking long distances

First day video recap

The hotel welcomed us with cold beers. Perfect after a day on the Camino!

This was one of favorite rooms of the trip!

The largest piece of seafood we have ever had for dinner!

Day 2: Balagues to Ponte de Lima – 12 miles/20 kilometers

We hit the trail fairly early again since we had another long day ahead of us. I forgot to mention that when we began planning this journey, the requirement to acquire your certificate of achievement was to walk at least 100 kilometers. Since we (Americans) don’t really operate in kilometers, I told Dan we should just make it an even 100 miles. I was also told by Dan that the average miles per day was 10. When we set out, I began to question how he managed to sneak in an extra 21 miles? He then told me that it was actually more than that since we were adding in the spiritual variant! What?! I then questioned how we were getting a 10 mile average when these first two days were over 10 and none of the upcoming days were ever under 10. He then tried to tell me that he said it was the median not the average. Oh no you don’t…..I know exactly what you said and it was not median. I have now threatened to record our conversations. Ahhhh, the conversations you have while walking for many hours. 3 hours and 57 minutes later, we arrived in the city of Ponte de Lima (once again, exhausted and sore….I am sure that surprises you). Here we had a nice room in the heart of the city. After a little bit of a rest, we headed out to explore the city and grab some dinner. It’s amazing how much lighter and faster you feel on your feet once you ditch the 20 pound backpack!

Our guest room was in a great location in the heart of the town

Enjoying some local lamb after a day of trekking

Day 2 video recap

Day 3: Ponte de Lima to Rubiaes – 11.6 miles/19 kilometers and 1804 feet/545 meters of elevation gain!

As we were checking out of our room in Ponte de Lima, our young host told us to please enjoy breakfast. We politely explained that we really weren’t hungry and thanked her. She got this very concerned look on her face and told us to please take some of the food with us. We explained to her that we really don’t eat breakfast and typically won’t eat until late afternoon. She looked a bit horrified, bagged up some croissants and begged us to please take them with us. We agreed and were on our way. As we walked along, we both were chuckling at how insistent she was that we have food. This was a beautiful part of the trek through very lush forests. The trail was great and the smell of pine permeated the air. This was really cool….until it wasn’t. We had to come up and over the mountain! It was relentless climbing over tree roots and rock gardens….footing very unsure. Every inch of our lower body was on fire! I now understood why our young host was so concerned that we were not eating breakfast and didn’t want to take any food with us. SHE knew what we were going to be facing. I can’t tell you how relieved we both were when we finally reached the top! All downhill from here. We stopped just on the outskirts of town (as did many pilgrims) for a much needed ice cold beer…ok, maybe two. 4 hours and 26 minutes after starting, we arrived in the small town of Rubiaes and checked in. Unfortunately, this very small town had very few options for both restaurants and lodging. Since I am way to old (and sleep challenged) to stay in hostels with 30 or more of my closest friends, Dan worked very hard to make sure he booked us private rooms wherever he could. This was probably my least favorite lodging as we had 2 twin beds that were like sleeping on cement. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers. On top of it all, it had started to rain and the only restaurant in town was closing up for siesta when we arrived (we were starving by now). So, we got to walk there and back twice after our big day!

Across the medieval Ponte de Lima Bridge

You meet many nationalities on the Camino

The trail is starting to get a bit steep!

The summit was an ideal location to leave symbolic rocks of “burdens left behind”

The Apple watch tells the tale – over 1600 feet elevation on this stage

Video recap

Guest house was a welcome sight after a difficult day!

Day 4: Rubiaes to Valenca – 10.24 miles/17 kilometers

Today came with rain. That should make things interesting. Our host had told us that today would be a much easier day after yesterday. That was a huge relief. By the time we got started, the rain had become a steady drizzle. Not too much trouble, but it did make footing interesting. A large portion of the path was cobblestone blocks which became slick in the rain. Other sections were dirt which became mug bogs and required carefully picking our way through. We were once again enveloped by lush green trees and shrubbery in some areas, beautiful swaths of flowers in other areas, and large vineyards as far as you could see. We followed streams and rivers with many small waterfalls and farm areas with sheep, lamb and cows. It was beautiful. Everywhere we went, locals and fellow pilgrims wished you a Bom Dia (good day) and Bom Caminho (good camino). 3 hours and 28 minutes later, we arrived in Valenca,

wet and bedraggled but feeling pretty good. Wow….were we acclimating to these long days of walking? We had a lovely apartment booked inside the fortress walls. This was our last stop in Portugal before crossing the border into Spain. I’m not going to lie, I was feeling a little sad to be leaving Portugal behind. This was my first time here, and I really loved it! Although very crowded with tourists, we enjoyed wandering the cobblestone alleyways and exploring the small shops and cafes. In the center of the square we enjoyed some drinks while listening to a man belt out some old American classics. Most of the pilgrims we encountered weren’t staying in Valenca. Many pass on through to the town of Tui which is only a mile and a half across the river to Spain. Since we really wanted one more night in Portugal, we decided to build in a rest day by staying in Valenca and crossing to Tui the following day and staying a night there. We had a leisurely morning in Valenca before making our way to Tui.

In order to keep this somewhat manageable for you, the reader, I will end this post with the Portugal section of the Camino. Our next entry will pick up with the Spain portion as we make our way to the Cathedral of St. James in Santiago de Compostela. We’ve included some video clips in the hopes of giving you a better sense of the experience. As always, thank you for following along and hope you enjoy!

Cafe’s were a great place to take a brief rest and enjoy well made cappuccinos

Video recap of the day

Adventures in Lisbon and Porto

Our adventures this month continue to require maximum flexibility on our part. The original plan was to work on the boat, supervise the installation of the new standing rigging, and then fly out to Portugal for some exploration before beginning the Camino de Santiago. We encountered a hang up with the materials for the standing rigging, so we made the decision to head to Portugal early before returning to the boat to finish up the work.

We arrived in Lisbon late in the evening and grabbed a Bolt (like Uber) to our apartment in the heart of Lisbon. It turned out that our driver was also a tour operator, so we were able to arrange a 9 hour private tour of the highlights in and around Lisbon.

The next day we headed out on foot to explore the beauty of Lisbon. Lisbon is extremely hilly with many, many staircases throughout the town. Our apartment was also on the 4th floor, so the amount of climbing we did over the few days we were there was phenomenal (and exhausting). As with most European cities, the old town was lined with quaint little alleyways and cobblestone roads. There were many small cafes and restaurants tucked up in alleys and in the main squares. Cathedrals and churches were all around. After a long day of exploring the surrounding area, we returned to our room for some rest before heading out later that evening for a 4 hour Portuguese cooking class.

We left a little early for our class to sample some of the local wines and a sour cherry liqueur, Ginjinha, which is a specialty of the area. Everything was quite delicious. When we arrived at the cooking school, we were greeted by the chef and met the 10 other people in the class with us. 8 of us were from the U.S. and 2 were from Portugal. The class was structured a little bit different than ones we have done in other countries. Here we would be making many different dishes, so each of us took on a variety of different tasks. Throughout the experience there was wine…..lots and lots of wine! We began with a charcuterie board of local cheeses, meats and bread as well as a fired chorizo. Then it was time to cook. We made cod fish croquettes, chicken gizzards, a marinated chicken, tempura fried long beans, a carrot dish, a rice dish, and an orange dessert. Once everything was prepared, we all sat down to enjoy the food we had made. We were sent all the recipes which we can’t wait to try out (maybe not the gizzards) when we get home.

The following day would be our last day in Lisbon. Our driver picked us up at 9:00 a.m. for a full day of exploring before catching a 7:00 p.m. train to Porto. Our first stop was a famous pastry shop (Pasteis de Belem) known as the original place of the Pastel de Nata, a Portuguese custard tart. We bought several to enjoy later (that was a mistake – they are best enjoyed fresh from the oven!) From there, we headed to the river front where we explored a monument dedicated to explorer Vasco de Gama and the famous Belem tower. We drove an hour outside of Lisbon to a lovely town called Sintra, home of the summer palace of Portuguese royalty. We climbed steep hills and walked hundreds of steps to explore this amazing garden, Reguleira, with an “inspiration well” that spiraled deep down into the earth where we then passed through long tunnels before popping out amongst waterfalls. The grounds were very tropical and lush providing a sense of peace and serenity. It was definitely scenery fit for a king. Sintra is also home to Pena Palace, a 19th century castle (and UNESCO world heritage site) built by King Ferdinand.

Pasteis de Belem – Home of the original Pastel de Nata

Pastel de Nata – the signature Portuguese dessert!

Monastery of Senhora and Tomb of Vasco de Gama

We toured many of the rooms inside the palace

I found it amusing when our driver told us that we would likely spend 2-3 hours in the palace. Really? That seemed like a really long time. Nope, we spent that long! By the time we hoofed it back down to the car, we were ready to take a break with a ride to our next site….Capo de Roca. This is the westernmost point of Continental Europe. The rock formations and crashing surf provided a spectacular backdrop. There is nothing beyond this point until you hit North America. Before long, we were making our way back toward Lisbon through a coastal fisherman’s village called Cascais. The reality is that it was a fisherman’s village of the past. Now, it is one of the wealthiest areas of Portugal boasting the pseudonym of the St. Tropez of Portugal. For Dan and I, it was very reminiscent of driving through the ritzy beach towns of Southern California.

With our tour driver – Pramesh from Mozambique

It was hard to believe how much we saw in our 9 hour window. We loved every minute of it, but I would not recommend blazing through all these sites in one day. Take the time to stop and really smell the roses. You won’t regret it. Sadly, it was time for us to say goodbye to Lisbon and make our way to Porto. I wasn’t super excited by the idea of a 3 hour train ride (and that was the high speed version) nor arriving at our apartment after 10:00 p.m. It had already been a really long day!

The train ride turned out to be relatively painless and before we knew it, we were in the lovely riverside town of Porto. Once again, our apartment was on the 4th floor. The worst part was that there was a flight of stairs to get to the starting floor of 1, and each floor had 2 flights of stairs. Our apartment was on the top floor which overlooked the city and rooftops which was absolutely stunning! The downside was there were also 3 flights of stairs IN our apartment.

The next morning, we headed out on foot to explore the historic center of Porto. Once again, we found ourselves climbing hills and hundreds of stairs to reach the many beautiful churches and cathedrals. Just like Lisbon, the streets were crawling with people. Despite being April, tourist season was already in full swing….boo! All around the town, musicians played beautiful music for coins and the hope you’d buy their CD. The city runs along the river which has 7 beautiful bridges running across it. On the opposite side of the river, there were many, many port (the wine) makers and tasting rooms.

On our next outing, we took the foot bridge across the river in search of some port tastings. Our first stop was Calem caves where we sampled one port before deciding to move on. We had been told by a friend to go to a place called World of Wine which consisted of many shops, restaurants and bars. This was indeed a gem as it was very quiet and free from the hoards of people milling around. We headed for a spot called Angel’s Share to enjoy a port tasting. We were seated on a beautiful terrace overlooking the river and city center. We were given 3 different types of port and an explanation as to what to pair them with. Our tasting came with a tray of several different items: cheese, rosemary sourdough crisps, pumpkin jam, carmelized walnuts, and a dark and fruity chocolate truffle. It was amazing! I am head over heels in love with the cheeses they make here, and the pumpkin jam they pair them with puts it over the top!

Bridge to Vila Nova de Gaia – home of famous Port wine

Most of the world’s port is produced in this area

An example of the river boats that delivered Port from the Douro river valley

After our tasting we walked the riverfront and came upon this tall building with quite a bit of action going on. As we wandered in, the walls rose 3 stories high and were lined with books. The whole place was brightly colored and on the second level an organist played fun music like we were at some kind of old fashioned circus. There were a couple of stations where you placed an order and received a cod fritter packed with hot, runny cheese and a large glass of port all served up on this small painters pallet that they hung over your thumb. You could enjoy your treat in the place of walk the riverfront with your goodies and the glass and pallet were your souvenirs to keep. Now that was fun!

Bacalhau (codfish) and glass of Port to go!

For our last night in Porto, we followed our friend’s advice again and made a reservation at a Michelin star restaurant called Elemento. We felt very fortunate that we were able to get the reservation as it can be very difficult to get last minute reservations. We opted to do the chef’s tasting menu which is always a lot of fun. Tasting menus can always be a little challenging if you are like me and averse to some tastes and textures. Every item was unique and unusual and everything hot is cooked over an open fire….no ovens or stovetops. Most of the hot dishes had a bit of a smokey flavor or used a smoky flavored sauce. We were treated to several seafood and meat tastings which included things like dried fish eggs on mackerel, raw shrimp, and venison loin. It was a very nice experience.

Elemento Michelin starred restaurant in Porto

We were a little sad to be leaving Porto. This was definitely one of my favorite stops despite the crowds, but it was time to make our way north and begin our pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago….120 miles of fun filled walking! Stay tuned as we trek our way from Portugal into Spain to the place where the Apostle, St. James, is interred.

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