Week 13: Kythera, GR to Syracuse, IT (406nm)

As the map shows, we only made one journey this week but it was a long one. After some challenges leaving Greece, we completed our longest passage to date and sailed the 400nm to Sicily in a little under four days. Along the way we enhanced our light wind sailing skills and caught two more tuna…but failed to land either of them! We arrived elated and exhaust in Syracuse and are looking forward to a more leisurely couple of weeks exploring this part of Italy.

Enjoying before escaping Kapsali

We spent most of our first day in Kapsali on the waterfront, sampling some of the different cafes and bars that overlooked the beach and catching up on some life admin. Even without the bustle of the military ceremony the day before, the town was alive with locals and tourists and in no way represented the ‘small and quiet community’ described in our pilot book (admittedly from 2007). We were later to learn that a wildfire ravaged over a third of the island last year and whilst there were no fatalities (unlike this year’s fires in Greece) the damage forced the population to get behind a regeneration programme that has had a lot of success. Based on our experience in Kapsali, this really felt like a case of ‘every cloud’ and it was refreshing to see such an an example of growth and optimism that has typically been lacking in the other small Greek islands we’ve visited. After hijacking some WiFi for long enough to get a blog post out (and also discover that our London tenants aren’t renewing in September – please get in touch if you know of anyone interested in a 2 bed on N1 Regent’s Canal), we returned to Serenity to consider our next steps.

We needed to decide whether to continue up the coast of Greece to Pilos or head to Sicily directly. The latter would involve a slightly longer single passage, but all things being equal we’d get to Sicily sooner. A combination of our excitement to explore Sicily, the unfavourable winds that were forecast towards Pilos, and Laura’s growing comfort with night sailing meant we decided to choose the direct route. All that remained was to decide on a departure date.

I’m learning that choosing a weather window for multi-day passages is as much art as science. The trip across the Ionian looked to be c.360nm as the crow flies, which would imply a three day passage in favourable winds. However, as is starting to become customary, the wind gods were not inclined to make our lives easy, and we were faced with a difficult choice between enough wind and preferred direction. We decided that based on our Corfu experience, it would be unfortunate if we had to rely on the donkey (engine) as extensively, and since there was no sign of any inclement weather, we chose the forecast that would keep us sailing for as much time as possible (albeit with a longer distance to travel). The initial estimates were that the journey would now be around 400nm and should take around 4 days. Given the variation we have had previously with these estimates, we very much took them with a pinch of salt and made sure to provision for 6 days of fresh food (on top of our existing canned supplies).

It took us until the morning of the next day to decide on all the above, and the weather software suggested an evening departure that day would give us the best shot at good winds. So we scrapped the plans for another lazy day of island exploration and sprung into action to complete the long to-do list that stood between us and casting off. As is customary in Greece, the biggest barrier to sailing is bureaucracy and we had already got the opening times of the Customs office confused with that of a Church (which in hindsight made a far better explanation for the Sunday opening hours), but we could see that it was open now and so Laura set off to see the officials with a degree of trepidation.

Whilst the process seems to vary a bit from place to place, the one thing we knew was that to leave Greece you had to see the Port Police and Customs. Seeing as Customs deals with visiting yachts and ferries, and that Kapsali didn’t have any ferries, we had made the assumption that a Customs office must imply a Port Police office – what would be the point of having Customs on it’s own? Well the lady in the Customs office didn’t have an answer to that question…she could only tell us two things: 1) the Port Police were in a town on the other side of the island, and 2) there was no guarantee that she would be around after lunch. This seemed to completely scupper our departure plans as it would take Laura a minimum of three hours to visit the Port Police by taxi (assuming they didn’t need to see me or the boat), after which time our Customs ‘friend’ might be on siesta. So we decided to deploy a technique we’d heard about from other cruisers, known as “just sit and wait until someone becomes more helpful”. Lo and behold, thirty minutes later we had an answer that Customs could get our paperwork from the Port Police (so we now didn’t need to see Customs at all). And when Laura finally got to the Port Police, the team in their office were incredibly friendly and helpful :). She returned triumphant clutching the appropriate documentation!

Whilst Laura was getting the paperwork done, I worked my way through other list of jobs. We both managed to wrap up a bit ahead of schedule, so decamped to a cafe that had been tempting Laura each time she walked past with their superfood smoothies. We figured that the antioxidant and vitamin hit should last until Sicily and provide extra insurance against scurvy. Suitably invigorated, we returned to Serenity, cast off lines at 18:30 and motored off towards the sunset whilst enjoying some baked tuna steaks (c.70% of the fish eaten by this point) and a glass of wine.

Alec 1 – Tuna 2

We’ve decided that we quite like leaving towards the end of the day as (provided it’s not too windy) you can get the first night shift under your belt straight away while you’ve got good energy levels. The first night is always the toughest to get any sleep as it takes time to adjust to both the motion and noise of the boat, as well as the disruption of the watch system. Previously we’ve used a simple 3 hours on, 3 hours off system for watches, but this time we decided to try a more flexible approaches to try and take account of the variation between the watches. Sometimes the wind is so constant that there is no need to touch any of the controls at all and the person on watch feels they can go longer, where as other times you are constantly adjusting lines and reefing sails such that you are knackered after two hours. Our first night we went a bit too far and both of us tried to extend watches so the other person could sleep more in a sort of unhelpful selflessness competition. So we dialled it back a bit and managed to find a good balance by the last couple of nights. But, the maximum possible sleep is still around six hours meaning you have a great excuse to have a nap(s) during the day (sanctioned napping is probably in my top five activities).

Aside from napping, we also decided to try adding slightly more structure to the days as otherwise a sense of lethargy seems to set in. The morning weather forecast becomes available around 9am, which is around when the last watch ends and therefore formed a good point for us to plan out the day. I would download the forecast as soon as it became available and then review our progress overnight and the possible routes for the next 12-24 hours. Meanwhile Laura would run through all the engine checks to make sure Mick was still happy. We’d then sit down and talk through the best approach to the day (and the amount of naps we need to factor in), trying to make sure we both had opportunities to get a few boat projects done but also had enough down time to read or chill out. Typing this out, I immediately recognise my tendency towards more process that I’m sure my former Credo colleagues will giggle about, but we both agreed it had a positive impact and so this will probably become a standing item for future passages 🙂

To balance out the somewhat prescriptive morning kick-off meetings / further borrow from Credo operating process we also decided to have a ‘cocktail hour’ towards the end of each day (side note – this was only on Fridays at Credo, or at least it was when I left :)!). Cocktail selection on this trip was limited to beer or G&T, but it was really nice to put down whatever we were doing and just chill in the cockpit with a drink for an hour, catching up on life and the day. It was a great forum to do our ongoing book club, or just blast some of our new albums we had downloaded (Years & Years – Palo Alto; Dierks Bentley – The Mountain; Thunderpussy – Thunderpussy(!)). On the book club side of things, we’ve been very grateful for the recommendations submitted so far as they’ve all taken us to great reads that we probably would never have found on our own. In particular, we’d like to thank Marie for All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (beautiful WWII story focussed on how two teenage lives were swept into chaos by the war), and Lauren for Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (a slightly mind bending thriller that examines questions of identity in an unusual way). I also bulldozed my way through Leviathon Wakes by James Corey, which Julian recommended to me and I was unable to put down for two days – certainly the best Sci-Fi book I’ve read in the last three years!

The final recurring activity of each day was fishing, where having finally exhausted our supplies from the previous catch we were keen to prove it wasn’t a one off. Our approach to fishing is very low effort, as we just rely on dragging a lure behind the boat that is supposed to be irresistible to nearby fish. We currently don’t use any bait or other more advanced techniques, and as a result the selection of the lure is pretty critical. In order to better differentiate between the lures we had on the boat, I decided to name them (of course) after Harlequins players. The immediate success of our previous lure on his first outing and his slightly glitzy yet small design led me to name him Marcus after the success of Harlequin’s new rookie fly half Marcus Smith (the resemblance is uncanny as I’m sure you’ll agree in the photos below), and so we decided to try him again on our second day. As before, within around 30 minutes we had a strike, which we identified as another tuna as we got the fish closer to the boat. Unfortunately disaster stuck in the final moments as the connection to the hook broke in the final moments, and our catch disappeared into the deep blue.

Still, Marcus was 2/2 and so despite his relative inexperience we decided to keep him in the game. Sadly the hot streak quickly ended and the next two outings yielded nothing (whether his confidence was affected by the previous escape is difficult to say). So I made the tough call to bench him and turned to a lure with more international experience in Robbo (photos also below). His workmanlike approach has got Quins and England out of many a tough spot and he was eager for action. Unlike Marcus, Robbo took his time in the water, but we were rewarded after two hours by the sound of the reel screeching out. I had retied all the connections with more appropriate knots and was confident that there would be no breakages this time. However, I hadn’t anticipated my ineptitude with the gaff (a fish landing device), which mean that once again our quarry (another bloody tuna!) evaded us in the final moments. So the score reads Alec 1 – Tuna 2 and the frustrating results in the final moments are putting the coaching team under greater scrutiny (much like Quins last season…). Fingers crossed I manage to turn things around before the crew decide to mutiny.

Sailing to and arriving in Sicily

On the sailing front, we were fortunate that the wind direction was consistent with the original forecast for the majority of the trip; however, the wind speed ended up being a bit less than expected and for the most part was between 5-8 knots. On previous passages we would have given up in these conditions and turned the engine on, but this passage gave us the time and motivation to see how well we could set Serenity up. By way of reference, there are around eight different ropes that control the shape of the sails on the boat, and so there are quite a lot of permutations for optimisation. By the end of the second day, we had found a setup that, whilst not the most efficient, was remarkably resilient at keeping the boat moving at more than 50% of the true wind speed in 5-7 knots, which is a great outcome. It was a moment of redemption for me, as light wind sailing has always been my biggest nautical weakness (it requires patience…) and I used to get thrashed any time I went dinghy racing in these sorts of conditions (especially by my Dad). It turns out there is nothing like the necessity that comes from four days at sea to teach you a bit of patience, and the net result was that we sailed through the entire third night without either of us touching the controls (another factor in our good night’s sleep).

In fact we managed to sail for 70% of the passage (well above the 40-50% that the forecasts had predicted) and also beat the original passage estimate by six hours (something we have never managed before). Sailing 400nm in 3.75 days is not a speed record by a long shot, and is about 10% slower than the average speed that we use when doing a basic journey time estimate; however, given the light wind conditions we experienced, it was a fantastic result. Laura in particular gained heaps of sailing experience and confidence on this trip, and she was able to go through the majority of her watches without needing to wake me. She has started to grasp some of the more difficult aspects of sail shape control and is now willing to try out different configurations and see what happens. Given the difference in our temperaments and skills, its no surprise that she would take better to light wind sailing, and I’m excited for the day when she is able to coach me on these topics.

So land was spotted around mid-morning on the fourth day and we were able to sail all the way to the entrance to Syracuse harbour, which we had been recommended as a great Sicilian port by cruisers and non-cruisers alike. Laura had an extensive conversation with the harbour master over VHF to try and secure us a space on the town quay, but despite the lack of boats tied off there the answer eventually came back as a negative. So we headed over to the nearby marina and managed to moor up just in time for lunch. It was without doubt our most enjoyable sailing passage to date, and has made both of us far more excited / less nervous about some of the longer ones we have coming up towards the end of the year.