Reggio Calabria

Roccella to Reggio

Farewell Rocchella Ionica

20 Nov, We got up early and set off at 06h00, we set off early as it now gets dark at 17h30 and the expectation was to get there while it was still light(fool I was). There was no wind forecast with calm seas, it was great that this was mostly right. We were underway for about 3 hours, when I felt a slight vibration from the engine after 5 minutes or so, I decided to stop and check it out, as it felt as though the prop was fouled. So we dropped the main, stopped the engine, tied me to the boat and off I went for a swim.  I was extremely relieved that I was right and we had picked up a 1m long piece of plastic which had fouled the prop..

So dried off and were were on underway again.. I went forward to adjust the lazybag and pulled on the starboard one line - dejavu, the bloody thing broke... So I just used the spinnaker halyard and got the lazybag to be lazy again... Shortly after this,  the wind picked up off the beam, so up went the sail and we were doing a nice 7.5kts with a 10kts wind... This didn't last - and I recall Bronco's words that at that point, we could expect some wind, but not get overly used to it as it wouldn't last.. A while later we were graced with a pod of seadogs (dolphins), they hung around for a while..

We motored till we got to the entry of the straight of Messina and the wind picked up so we had the sail up, shook in a reef (I was prepared for 30kts of joy). We were in luck the wind only blew to 20kts. We tacked a few times, but as it was getting dark, we decided to motor the last 9NM. We dropped the sails, headed close to the shore where the wind was only 10kts on the bow.. We got into Reggio Harbour called on ch 9 as per guide book and crickets... So we headed for the end of the harbour, where we had docked in the summer. No sooner had we tied up, when someone came along telling us we couldn't dock there and we should go to the yacht club where we could stay... With a healthy dose of scepticism we headed for the yacht club, where we were greeted by someone from the club asking why we didn't radio ahead......

It was great to be in Reggio and 65NM closer to Gibraltar..

21 November
I stayed behind as I needed to look at the cooling system as the engine was louder than I recalled and I had a few errands to run. Evelyn went sightseeing in Messina.. I checked the hose from the inlet to the strainer and it looked a bit dodgy, so I clipped the end retightened the clamps, checked all the other hoses and the seal of the strainer.. After putting everything back together, started the engine and was greeted by a purring Volvo D2-55, wih plenty of water leaving the exhaust, which was REALLY nice. We will be staying in Reggio till Monday as nasty winds are in the forecast