A Lively Sunday Evening

What a lazy Sunday! We found ourselves lounging the day away and finally made it off the boat in the late afternoon. Once in town, we tried to pass the time (again, waiting for restaurants to open) by walking around and sitting in the plazas, people watching and finally succumbing to one of the very popular cafes. Instead of following suit and ordering a pre-dinner gelato, we decided to snack on a pre-dinner pizza. And in case you were wondering, sadly there is bad pizza in Italy and we found it. But we made up for it by finding the real deal for dinner and it was delicious. We enjoyed a walk along the promenade afterwards where the whole town appeared to be and even stumbled across an adorable puppet show. Who knew a Sunday evening could be so lively.

Some Random pics:

A mobile bar for a Sunday evening cocktail!

More mermaids... not sure whose hand that is...

Don't think I want to knock on this door

A little puppet who was being tormented by the Grim Reaper!

Dog Poop Dodge

We awoke to a gorgeous fall morning filled with sun and cool, crisp air. But we had to spend it getting some boat projects done. Mike took advantage of the dry weather and got some of the leaky windows sealed. I sanded and varnished the navigation station and still haven’t recovered from a few months ago because I still hate it! We then ventured out in the afternoon just as the clouds were starting to roll in. We just made it across the bridge and into new town as the skies opened up. We ran into a café that was perfect because I was hungry and Mike was craving some coffee. Which he enjoyed with the most ridiculous chocolate croissant ever! Again good timing, because the rain stopped just as we were needing to walk off all of that food we just ate. These Italian cities put downtown Seattle to shame. They have wide, tree lined streets, piazzas every few blocks, flourishing businesses lining the sidewalks with attractive apartments above. And this is Taranto, this isn’t even Florence or say Milan. But, what Seattle does have is a law to pick up your dog’s poop. Oh my god, we got on one stretch of sidewalk and started to notice how much there was. And it just kept getting worse and worse. At one point we were on our tip toes jumping along to avoid it all. It was at that point where we decided to cross the street! We finally made it back home, with another walk through old town (amazing but yeah, we won’t be walking through there at night) and settled in for the night. We continued to talk about our plans and have decided to come home the first week of November! We’ve decided to limit our traveling to Italy and a visit to Mike’s dad and step-mom in Vienna. Hopefully 6 weeks should give us enough time to get the rest of our travel fix in, as well as get the boat prepared and ready to put away for awhile. Wow, home in less than 2 months!

Friday the 10th!

We were up and out at 6:30am and motoring into gray skies. And it wasn’t long before we started to get closer to a huge bank of ominously dark clouds that appeared to grow before our eyes. At first it felt a bit exciting to head into the rain, until we started to see the lightening flash in the dark purple clouds which were straight ahead of us. So we veered off course a bit and luckily the storm system moved in the opposite direction. A little while later we came across a little squall with winds about 25 knots and gusts to 30 knots. The seas were choppy but since we are in a gulf there wasn’t a lot of fetch so no huge rollers this time (thank goodness). From then on, it was just rain, and more rain. But we had fun. We were dry and warm and spent the entire day sitting in the cockpit together talking about our plans for the boat and coming home.




We finally reached Taranto around 3pm and started to make our way through the massive harbour. Our visibility was terrible due to all of the rain on the dodger windows and we were constantly on the look out for moving boats, big and small. Luckily, despite this appearing to be a very busy harbour, we didn’t come across too much boat traffic. We have to say that the initial approach to town wasn’t very inviting. The sky line was filled with huge cranes and smoke stacks with oil tankers anchored in the bay. But as we got closer we could start to make out the old town which looked pretty interesting. After finally finding someone to take us to a berth (unbeknownst to us, we had been hailing a big ship and not the marina) we tied ourselves up in the dumping rain. Oh, it was so nice to be settled and inside our dry cabin.




But after a bit, the skies cleared up and we went for walk to find a market for a few items to add to our dinner. But Mike started noticing old town and we took a diversion. It is standing exactly as it was a thousand years ago. And needless to say, many of the buildings are in a state of disrepair and crumbling before your eyes. We walked along the perimeter for awhile and then found a wide stair case that drew us in. I started to become overwhelmed just by the stark beauty of it all. We also got the strong feeling that this town is a lot edgier and grittier than where we have been. We were so obviously tourists and I was trying to be inconspicuous with my camera but it was just so hard (as you can tell by all of the photos I have posted). I can’t say that we felt incredibly welcomed so started to make our way back onto the main road. But we finally felt like we saw a real town and not the ‘touristy’ old town or the ‘chic’ new town.
We finally found the supermarket and returned to the boat to stay in for the night and make dinner. But of course a meal of gnocchi with prosciutto, bleu cheese and pine nuts! Then it was getting cozy on the day bed to watch a movie on a cool and rainy night. Mike says his Autumn ‘nesting’ is coming on strong because we are obviously we are much more interested in making good food, drinking wine (preferably with friends and family!) and being cozy than we are sailing the boat right now.

Coming Home

Our plans of coming home seem to be going full speed ahead. Mike spent the entire morning researching marinas and looking into yacht brokers. We think we may have found a marina in Sibari which is on the west side of the Gulf of Taranto. Despite the limited research we have done, our pilot guide gives it a great review. As well as finding a very favorable review on-line from our cruiser friend, Martin from Seattle. They are also really affordable, and actually cheaper than Yacht Marine in Marmaris. So maybe our decision to call it quits has come at a good time, when we are close to a marina that will work for us. And not empty our bank accounts like the marinas on the west coast of Italy would most likely do. With all of this, our plan at this moment is to head to Taranto (about 45 miles north) tomorrow where we will meet Mike’s dad and step-mother who are arriving from Vienna on Monday! It will be good to spend some time with family and talk about all of these changes with them. Maybe with them on board, we will take the boat to Sibari and then start the process of putting her away once they return home. From there, we don’t know. Travel through Italy by train, maybe do some volunteer work in Kenya, go to Mike’s family’s apartment in Vienna, make a trip to Morrocco to meet up with our good friend, Steve? This will give us a couple of months and put us home just before Christmas. And even that sounds too far away! But it just feels so surreal to even type these words. Really? After all of the work (and money) we have poured into Independence, we are going to leave her? And time will tell, it could be for good or we may have a chance to return. Even though we will plan to list her with a broker, the chances of her selling quickly in this market are pretty slim. So the option of returning next year or sometime in the near future, to continue this adventure is still there. Even though our excitement of returning home is outweighing sailing on Independence, we are still really sad to be planning the end of this adventure with her.
And our feelings of being done are only enhanced by this weather. Autumn has seriously arrived. And bringing along unpredictable weather. The entire day was cool, gray and rainy. And this afternoon, we realized why the marina manager doesn’t want us to stay here with strong northerly winds. Out of nowhere, the wind changed direction and started blowing hard which sent swell into the harbor. We were really being bounced around so started to wonder how much room we had under our keel and got out the zinc line just to be sure. We ended up having about 2 or 3 feet so were fine in this weather. I sure don’t want to be here tomorrow when even stronger winds are predicted. But after hunkering down in our dry and warm cabin all day, we eventually made it into town after siesta where we enjoyed more pizza(!) and more gelato(!). After a bit more entertainment from sitting in the plazas and people watching, we headed back to the boat so we could get an early start tomorrow for Taranto.

Italy is yummy!

Change in Motion

I woke up this morning with a little apprehension about moving to our new marina. The wind was blowing and it’s tight quarters where we are headed. Luckily, two men greeted us on the docks, one who carried a bow line forward on the neighboring boat and the other on the dock to fend us off and catch a stern line. Mike, once again, did a great job getting Indy gently into place despite the wind blowing right on our beam. We were happy to be settled and then headed into town for some errands…and food! And then it was back to the boat to enjoy siesta before venturing back out again in the late afternoon. After a drink and yummy snacks, and more pizza for dinner we found ourselves wondering what to do the rest of the evening. Since there are 2 movie theaters in town, we decided to take advantage. But no luck, they were all dubbed over in Italian. This area is such a contrast to Turkey and Greece and has been the most non-English speaking region we have been to yet. Even in Istanbul and the coast of Turkey it seemed like most people spoke English. Here we find that people who can speak a bit of our native tongue will at first adamantly deny that they do but then reluctantly succumb. Thankfully, Italian seems more intuitive than Turkish or Greek, and with Mike’s broken Spanish we seem to be getting by. It is actually nice to be in a country where you are forced to learn and attempt to speak the language instead of being really lazy and letting the locals practice their language skills. But after the movie was a no-go, we wandered into a shop to buy a bottle of wine to take back to the boat. It happened to be a shop called ‘La Dispensa Della Nonna’ which seems to have some notoriety. They have been in that location since 1925 and produce their own olive oil. The shop keeper was a very interesting character and Mike was able to communicate with him in Spanish. He let us sample the olive oil, even went in the back and gave us a sample of some red local red wine, a variety called Negroamaro, which was absolutely delicious, like velvet. Needless to say, we walked out of his shop with 2 bottles of wine and a bottle of olive oil!
And our conversation about the boat vs. home continues. We are finding ourselves being strongly pulled towards the latter. It feels like this is all happening so fast but it truly feels right. And the change in Mike is already evident. Some of the weight has already been lifted from his shoulders just by us getting close to making the decision to put the boat up. It’s good to see the smile back on his face.

Our short cut into town