From Otranto, we headed north along the Apulian coast towards Brindisi. It was a pleasant, sunny day, with just a hint of cool autumn. The passage of 40 nautical miles was uneventful. The wind was good all day, but it was already dark by the time we reached the shelter of the breakwater of Brindisi harbour.
June 2022 marked the beginning of the fifth year of our sailing adventure. The past year will go in the books as a somewhat lazy year, sailing-wise. Our boat Aina spent her fourth winter afloat in Crete, in the marina of Agios Nikolaos. One of our crew kept her company during the stormy Cretan winter, while the other worked in cold and snowy Finland. News of war, disease and inflation depressed everyone’s mood. For balance, we enjoyed the summer in the warm Ionian, detached and stress-free. As long-term travellers, we sometimes get tired or even bored of travelling – as funny or downright criminal as that may sound. But cruising is a lifestyle just like any other. It’s life, and it comprises different phases.
Slowly the Greek coast disappeared behind us. Finally, it was time to sail to a new land – Italy! We had hopped along the Sicilian coast in 2019 on our way east along the Mediterranean, but so far, we had never made landfall in mainland Italy.
Summer 2022 was filled with boat projects and leisurely day sails. We even spent several weeks just floating at anchor. Most mornings we felt like unfurling the sails and travelling into the next bay. Then, the day’s heat descended upon us and it was much more tempting to stay put in the shadow of the cockpit tent. We’re here to enjoy the cruising life, not to execute plans or cross things off a bucket list. It’s okay to stop whenever we want to, and it’s okay to go on indefinitely.
We had left Crete on the 8th of May and were sailing towards the Ionian Sea. 24 hours later Crete was still looming on our port side as if we’d gotten nowhere. It is a big island, but our progress was very slow indeed. We were sailing close-hauled, and a lot of the time the wind was so light we had to motor.
Aina sailed peacefully, following her favourite compass heading, 180°. We saw Mykonos behind us, and soon also Naxos and Paros, as we continued further south. It was the last day of October, and the sun would set early. There would be no moon to guide us on this night passage. The cloudy sky soon turned pitch black. But the wind wasn’t bad, the sea not too bumpy, so we both slept well in turns. As I climbed into the cockpit for my shift around midnight, I saw the beautiful glittering lights of Santorini on our starboard side. Perhaps we would sail there one day, but not tonight – our destination was Crete.
Despite sailing criss-cross around the northern Ionian last summer, we never happened to visit Kalamos and Kastos, two rugged-looking islands. We passed them many times, often uncomfortably close, and always close-hauled – their rocky shores seemed somehow very difficult to avoid!
At the beginning of the year 2020 we delved into boat projects aboard our sailboat Aina. At that point nobody knew that the world was about to turn upside down. Greece went into total lockdown in March, but we just kept on working. Read more about our time during the spring lockdown in Messolonghi!
In the first half of August we headed north from the Nidri area. First we would travel through the Lefkas Channel, a narrow passage that separates the island of Lefkas from the Greek mainland, and has a turning bridge that opens to let boats pass. Anchors aweigh, and off we went!
After leaving our winter base, Messolonghi, we rounded the southwestern corner of mainland Greece. Next to a small but very high, rugged island called Oxia we hoisted the sails for the first time. Our destination was a boatyard on the island of Lefkas, to the northwest, where our boat would be lifted out and we would spend a month or so doing boat projects “on the hard”. But before that, we would have a little mini holiday of at least a couple of days, and we planned to use it anchoring in pretty coves and getting a little first glimpse of the Ionian archipelago.
Everything must come to an end, and that fortunately includes the corona lockdown. Our winter home, the town of Messolongi, emerged from its long slumber, and more and more people could be seen around town. The shops and services opened up one by one, and our small world: the marina, Lidl and AB supermarkets – the triangle our daily life had pretty much evolved around – was growing bigger. Finally pleasure boats were given the green light to sail from one port to another, that is those boats that already happened to be in Greek waters. Boats coming from abroad will have to wait for their turn a little while longer.
Just like the previous New Year, I decided to write a little summary of this past year, along with some scientific statistics at the end. It feels incredible to have made it this far, and to be travelling still, when it’s been a year and a half since we left! Both of us and our boat still in one piece, the money not quite run out, and various plans for next year already springing up. And the places we’ve seen! In May we crossed the Bay of Biscay, sailed along the Atlantic coast of Spain’s Galicia and then Portugal. There we decided to turn towards the Straits of Gibraltar. We made it to the Mediterranean in July, and in August we were hopping along the coast of Sicily. In September we crossed over to Greece, and there we found our next winter base.
Ría de Arousa is the largest of Rías Baixas, on the western coast of Galicia. It’s surrounded from every side by high hills, and the shores are dotted with lovely sandy beaches, small towns and numerous harbours. In the middle of the ría there’s a large island called Illa de Arousa, with its pine forests and beaches. The most prominent feature on this ría is the incredible number of viveros, mussle and clam cultivation rafts. There are apparently about 3000 of them on this ría alone. All the little bays are full of them, and to get to the different harbours and anchorages you often have to go a long way around the large fields, unless you’re brave enough to weave your way through. It’s possible to do that, because they are anchored vertically downwards, but there are many of them! It’s not recommended to arrive for the first time at night – the biggest fields have light buoys in the corners but the rafts themselves are unlit.
There are certain things in life that you anticipate with such fear and anxiety, you feel quite surprised afterwards to have survived them. Things like the first day of school, driving test, first date, wedding day – and crossing the Bay of Biscay!
The spring in Brittany turned out to be long. Because of the blooming flowers and warm days we had experienced in February we had expected to be on our way much earlier, but it seems the phenomenon called the “second winter” is not entirely unknown beyond Scandinavia. April came and went before we felt ready to leave.
These were some of the highlights of 2018 – one of the most memorable years for us so far, and undoubtedly the most eventful!
Den Helder is one of the spots where you can easily get from the North Sea to Holland’s inland waterways – the lakes and canals. We wanted to know more about this peculiar country, and what would be a better way to do that, than boating along its canals!
We raised the sails as soon as we were out of the Helgoland harbour. Our destination, the island of Borkum, happened to be exactly where the wind was blowing from. The opposing current was right there to greet us. The current would naturally change direction every six hours or so, but even when flowing with us, it didn’t seem to affect our speed very much.
During the two months that we spent in Kiel we became very well acquainted with the town and its surroundings. We liked it there, and by this time it already felt almost like home. But now it was nearly the end of September – time to finally move on!
This time I’m not going to write that much. Instead, I will fill this post with photos of some pretty amazing boats we had the pleasure to see up close. I have always loved classic, wooden boats, and I don’t think there could be anything more beautiful than a long, slender 12 mR yacht in all her splendour and elegance of good old days… except perhaps a J class boat, that’s even longer and more splendid and elegant – but I have not yet seen one with my own eyes!
