Shamballa Cruising Yacht Club: Heading to Italy: Our First Multiday Passage on Songster

On the water again

After our fabulous Scandinavian tour we returned to very hot Preveza, Greece where we worked for about 10 days to get Songster ready to launch for autumn sailing and the big hop to Italy. We only had a few jobs and some provisioning to do but it was slow going as it was just too hot to do much in the middle of the day. Finally the day came to put Songster back in the water. We said goodbye to the boatyard puppies who are now big dogs and as nice as they are, the sheer number of dogs in the is becoming a bit of a problem for the marina. Songster had a clean and freshly painted bottom, a functioning water maker, newly serviced injectors on the generator, full fuel tanks, new furler and Genoa, a new wind vane and fully stocked food cupboards. She was ready to go.

Saying goodbye to the boat yard dogs

Then I realised I was due for another visa run (I hate this Schengen policy) in about 10 days time. After looking at options to go to a non-Schengen country from Sicily, we decided the easiest and cheapest option was another ‘lunch in Albania’ visa run. So we turned Songster north towards Corfu via pretty Parga.

A bit of rocky-rolly on our way to Parga

Nice to be back at 'our' spot in Corfu

The massive and incredibly ugly sailing yacht 'SY A' owned by a Russian businessman

Stamped into the Eurozone for another 90 days we were ready for the big multi-day passage to Sicily. Finally I felt we were going to do some real sailing. Enough of nearly 4 years of cappuccino cruising; doing easy day sails, island hopping around Greece and Turkey. As fantastic as it has been, I wanted a bit more of a sailing challenge. Bob and I had done overnight passages before but always as crew, never just the two of us and fully responsible. So we had a pre-dawn departure from Corfu to our destination of Taormina, Sicily, about 270nm away and 60 hours of non-stop sailing ahead of us.

Pre-dawn departure

Just sea and sky for 360 degrees

It was a good passage of three days and two nights. Bob took the 10 pm to 2 am night shift and I had the 2 to 6 am shift. Then we took naps as needed during the day. Most people tend to do three hour watches but this method seemed to work for us though it might need to be refined if we do longer passages. I really enjoyed sailing at night – just the moon, stars and sea. The weather was benign with generally light winds but enough to sail with for about one-third of the time, which for the Mediterranean is about average. We rarely came across any other boats. It was just us, the sea and the beautiful sunsets and sunrises. I loved it.

Sunset the first night

and sunrise the next morning

On the morning of the third day Mt Etna loomed in the haze. A few hours later we were hooked up to one of George’s mooring balls in Taormina and swimming in crystal clear water.