Buongiorno!

The wind continued to blow for the rest of the night and in the morning we thought we would be in this anchorage for a whole other day. But just at the time Mike had flagged down our neighbor for an updated weather report, the wind seemed to subside and waters appeared to grow calmer. With the visible improvements and favorable forecasts we decided to try this a second time. We pulled anchor and were motoring out of the harbour by 9am. But today’s plan was to do a shorter jump directly to Santa Maria di Leuca since there are some southerlies forecasted and our Italian neighbor warned us of those being dangerous in the area of Crotone. And we are definitely avoiding anything like that forecasted because you get enough surprises as it is! We found a different world out there this morning, some residual swell from the previous day but the winds and seas were much kinder. And it was a good day for seeing some marine life, I swear I saw a manta ray jump out of the water and we also had a visit from some dolphins. And yesterday we passed right by a sleepy sea turtle. And like I have said before, the winds are too light, too strong or right on your nose in the Mediterranean. And this was proven yesterday and again today. But today was just the opposite where there wasn’t much of a chance for raising the sails since we had 2 out of the 3… winds were light and right on our nose, but there must have been a current because the second half of our trip we were averaging 7.5 knots. And buongiorno Italia! We arrived to Santa Maria di Leuca around 3pm! Once we were tied up, we quickly changed out of our grubby boat clothes and headed into town. But first, there is the slog to get all of our paperwork in order, especially after arriving into a new country. So we took the long walk to find Port Police so we could check into the country. Instead we found the Coast Guards office who told us the Port Police won’t be there until tomorrow morning. And then once the marina office opened after siesta, they told us we don’t even need to bother with checking in to the country. How strange compared to Turkey, and especially Greece, who want to see every piece of paperwork you have. So we happily gave up and walked around the town. One of our first stops was for some gelato where I sampled the fig and Mike sampled the hazelnut. Yummy. And then we spot the tiny Panini sandwiches in the counter and had to get one with salami and one with prosciutto. Delicious. We are off to a good start! Then it was fun perusing the grocery store and looking at all of the yummy food on the shelves and buying a bottle of local red wine. Since we had satiated our hunger, we decided to head back to the boat to enjoy our wine and wait for dinner. PIZZA. We were so excited. After relaxing for a bit, we grabbed our jackets to head out into the cool night air and found an open air restaurant just above the harbour. And since I have heard my friends rave about the Prosecco in Italy, I was looking forward to a glass. And to my delight they had a Prosecco cocktail on the menu… named a ‘Serena Pro Fizz’! And it gets even better….the carafe that it came in had the name ‘Serena’ written right on it. What a welcome into Italy! It was just really hard not to slip the empty carafe into my bag as a memento! And the meal just gets better. We had the most incredible pizza ever. One with spicy salami and the other was a bit of a surprise due to our non-existent Italian and the waitresses non-existent English. But it was the perfect combination to the kick of the salami, it was prosciutto and artichoke (carciofo for future reference). They were both divine and we ate until our hearts content. And it was only followed by a delicious appertif. I was feeling amazing and at the top of the world. That is until I returned to the boat only to find myself so incredibly sleepy, so sleepy that I couldn’t even brush my teeth. I found myself on the daybed and pretty much just passed out in a happy, delirious food coma.

Mussolini's ceremonial gateway into Italy

How welcoming is this?!