Saying goodbye in Zakynthos

Our last Greek island this summer was Zakynthos. Since we had considered ourselves intrepid travellers rather than tourists, we had refrained from buying tacky souvenirs all summer. So… here was our last chance to go shopping! The boys got lousy t-shirts, Zoë a frilly dress, and I got a captain’s hat… I forgot what Max got…

We said goodbye to Chris and Alan on our last morning in Greece. They made their way to the airport to fly to the UK, while we got the boat ready for our crossing to Sicily. We expected that the crossing would take about 50 hours, meaning that we would have 2 nights’ sailing.

Flying fish, thunderstorms, and a determined cricket

The first half of the trip was calm, sunny, and relaxed. During Max’s first night watch, he heard a cricket chirping. Just as I came up on deck to relieve him and start my night shift, Max was looking around the dinghy with a torch. Every time Max knocked on the dinghy’s engine, the chirping would stop. As soon as he stepped away from it, the chirping started again. So we had a little stowaway on board. Max couldn’t stand the noise… I quite enjoyed it!

During the second night, we saw thunderstorms in the distance and hoped that they would not come right over us. I was so happy when my night watch ended so I did not have to look at them any more. Out of sight out of mind, right!

Just as it was getting light on the second morning, we could see land in the distance! The south-east coast of Sicily was in sight! The wind picked up and it started raining. The rain blew into the cockpit horizontally. We got soaking wet. But the wind was from behind, and we were flying along the coast towards Marina di Ragusa…

The rain was not the only thing being blown unto our deck… I noticed that the cockpit was becoming filled with water so I checked the drains. There was a tail sticking out from one of them – a flying fish had landed on deck and was trying to get back to the water through the drain. I pulled it out, chucked it overboard and saw the water going out of the cockpit. Phew! We found 6 flying fish in various corners of the deck after the journey.

Reunions

We arrived at Marina di Ragusa in the afternoon, and were welcomed by friends on the pontoon. Even thought the weather was grey and nasty, it was great to be safe in port again. It had taken us 52 hours, which was not bad, and even better the thunderstorms had passed us by.

We still hear the cricket chirping away every evening! We have called him Henry, and our neighbours on the M pontoon mostly appreciate him too.

Bianca Kindler