Well, we made it to Rome on Wednesday night, June 19th. Arriving at the airport, we noticed that some of the bags had this brown liquid on them. Because it was late, we decided to stay at the Hilton Hotel at the airport. As we traipsed our 4, 70 lb bags to the hotel, we had these little drips from the bags marking our trail. We checked in and the ever eager porter wanted to carry those dripping bags to our room. He didn’t exactly notice the problem until we got into the room and he decided to pick up the bags without using the handles.

The look on his face was priceless as his hands were now coated with the brown sticky liquid. We asked him if he wanted to wash his hands in the sink. He declined. We gave him a big tip and then tore into them to find out what the problem was. Well, to shorten what became a big project in the hotel room, our 1 gallon of maple syrup which was to last us the duration of the trip was now reduced to about a cup. And how it managed to get into all four bags is still a mystery to us.  We know that most of our bags were opened by TSA, as they had left us little notes throughout. They had also apparently opened up the maple syrup to check it out, because they had re-wrapped it with their TSA tape. But somehow the bottle got punctured on the way over just to give our porter an unexpected pleasure.

The boat was supposed to be splashed on Friday (Steve had made reservations via email with Michele a couple of weeks ago). So we changed $2,000 into Euros (now that experience is a another story) on Thursday because Michele (the owner of the boatyard) only wants cash before he will launch a boat. On Friday - he decided he couldn't launch until next Tuesday. While we were at dinner on Friday -- someone entered the boat and stole our cash, a new camera, Steve’s watch and some other stuff.

The story only gets worse.  Because now we needed another chunk of change to reclaim the boat, we had to use our new Citibank money card because they are the only bank that doesn’t limit you to $250 a day in withdrawals. (The new launch day was Tuesday, so that meant only 2 days times $250 / day with the regular money cards – not enough.) 

Yes, you maybe guessed it: We did not have the password for the untested Citibank card.  We made a pleading call to Connie Mac back in Seattle and convinced her to go to our house and search the desk for the password. Only problem was our calculation of Seattle time was a bit off. It was 6am Seattle time when we called!  Sorry Connie for the early wake-up.  Anyway, she came through in quick time and we were able to scrape together more $$ for our next attempt at getting the boat launched. Sad to say, for the next few weeks, we would continue to discover additional booty that the guy got from us.

To make sure we got off to a fast start, we moved up the canal to the marina at Fiumancino, which is right outside the bridges on Friday morning. Turned out there was a sailboat race ending across the dock from us.  Eight boats and lots of TV cameras doing interviews plus lots of sponsors hanging around their many vans. The town even decided to hold a rock concert as part of the race event (The stage was about 40 feet from our boat). Amidst all the goings on, we continued to do “boat projects” so that we would be ready to head out Saturday morning for the start of the new season. One of the last projects was for Steve to go up the mast and wrap all cotter pins in that could tear our sails in plastic tape. He got a little over enthusiastic with the knife while cutting the electrician’s tape and blood started coming down everywhere on the deck when he yelled: big red 3 inch spots scattered all over the top of the deck. This was not a small cut! Remember the TV cameras and many guest milling around? They thought this might be part of the program so a crowd formed watching me bring Steve down from the top of the mast and then the wash down of the bloody deck!

It now became crystal clear that the Italian gods weren’t smiling on the Sugilite crew and it was past time to “get out of Dodge.” In keeping with nautical superstitions, our Saturday departure for the 2006 Adventure took us to the Isle di Ponza – about 50 miles from Naples. 

We anchored in a fabulous bay called the Isle del Inferno. Might sound pretty romantic, but, this is high season so there were a million boats and kids wakeboard skiing also enjoying the anchorage with us.

As with any boat launch, after sitting for 8 months on the hard, there always seems to be something on the boat that breaks while the boat isn’t in use. This year it turned out to be our autopilot. We had to “hand steer” our way to Ponza so we got a true appreciation of how things used to be before autopilots and GPS changed the sailing world. That night at the anchorage, Steve took the electronic systems apart looking for what didn’t work and what was causing the problems. The problem turned out to be the wind meter/indicator sending some faulty signals down the wires. By disconnecting it, we were able to trade “not knowing what true wind is” with “having a working autopilot,” so the next day we did an overnight sail for the Aeolian Islands off the coast of Sicily. As we landed at Lipari Island, Steve twisted his ankle as we maneuvered into the marina.  Ah, the Italian gods were at it again.

Lipari is a small island that has had people living on it since 1500 BC. It also has many fascinating articles from “BC times” and the most complete collection of Greek masks in existence. We spent a day touring their museums and reconnecting with “life as a tourist.”  By the end of the day, Steve could only hobble back to the boat.  We used up 6 of our precious ice cubes trying to get the swelling down and hoping we were not in for an experience with the Italian medical system. Guess Sicily is far enough away from the power center of Italy that the Italian gods were losing their powers because the next morning the foot had recovered enough not to head out for the local hospital.

It’s always amazing to see who you will meet when you enter a new harbor. At Lipari, it turned out to be the boat, Elma Lee – skippered by Laurie and Liz from England and Scotland. We had dinner on their boat in Minorca, the Balearic islands off of Barcelona and also met up with them last summer in Rome as we were putting our boat up. They ended up spending the winter in Sardinia.

The next afternoon, we sailed over to another island in the Aeolian Islands called Stromboli to see the active volcano. This is one of the most active volcanoes in the world with eruptions about every 20 minutes. It was quite spectacular as a torch would come screaming out of the top of the volcano, erupting several hundred feet into the air, then a noise sounding like a jet engine in take off mode would follow.

We watched with about 10 other tour boats from about 7 pm till 1030, then did another overnight sail to the Straits of Messina – a town just across from where Italy and Sicily come together. As we were docking the boat, the marina guy signaled "8" as the cost of the marina. Wow, that was less than the 40 euros we had paid in Rome! Things were looking up. However, when we got into the office, the "8" turned out to be "80" euros, because it was the high season price. We decided to get back on the boat and head further south to the next marina. That turned out to have a new marina that was not in the guide books, called Riposto, Sicily (45 euros/ night.) The town is directly across from Mt Etna, so the next day we rented a motorcycle and took a fascinating tour of Mt. Etna that included a cable car ride up, then a van ride to see the active volcano. They ski on both the north and south side of Mt Etna, and in 2002, the volcano eruption took out the lodge and chairlift on the north side, and did some strange modifications to their ski trail map. The Guide Service didn’t have an English speaking guide for us, but our guide did speak French, so after he gave the tour in Italian, he said it again in French and Steve then became the tour guide for all the English speakers in our group (from Germany, Poland and US). It was a fascinating tour.

Riposto is just down the road from Taormina, where the super rich live and where the high end tourist congregate in Sicily. Nestled in the hills above the water and having Mt Etna as a backdrop, Taormina now caters to all tourists, whether they arrive by tour boats, sailboats staying in the new marina at Riposto or normal tour buses. In addition to being a well preserved medieval town, it now offers the usual t-shirts and pottery along with many restaurants for leisure people watching.

Hank and Julie, our sailing friends from Tapestry, sent us this about their experience at Taormina earlier this summer:

 “The main attraction, of course, is the Greek Theater. We paid our six euros each to enter and were met with the sound of screaming saws and pounding nails as Sicilian construction workers were doing their best to once again outdo the Greeks.

Originally, the theater had been built all of stone and  fifteen thousand spectators were seated on the hillside overlooking the orchestra and stage where the play was put on. The sea and Mount Etna were visible in the distance. The gentle winds rising from the sea below carried the voices of the actors up to everyone in the house. It is said that even a stage whisper could be heard throughout the theater. It must have been one of the most beautiful theaters ever built.

When the Romans took over, they covered the stone work with brick, imported columns from the Forum in Rome, and made a row of columns across the back of the stage. They backed the columns with a wall, effectively blocking out Etna and the sea as well as blocking the wind. Then they put a thick blanket of sand where the orchestra had been. One of the flag waving guides told his flock that the Latin word for sand is "arena."  Rather than plays, the Romans used it for contests where sometimes animals were killed or where gladiators would fight. The sand was needed to absorb the blood. Needless to say, the magical acoustics were shot after the Roman renovation.

It is interesting that the Roman columns and the backdrop are crumbling and Etna is once again visible from much of the theater. The stage, which was being built when we were there will be used for theater again this summer as it has been in years past. It is a magical place.”

We spent the day touring the small streets in the town then took a taxi up the windy road carved out of the mountain side to visit Castlemora, another medieval town that is perched on the cliffs above Taormina. 

Although it has been two weeks since we have arrived in Rome, our stop in Riposto is really the first time we have slowed down to "cruising time". Our first 10 days were spent madly trying to get Sugilite ready to sail. The next several days were mostly non-stop sailing from Rome to Sicily.

The next day we decided to take a 2-day overnight sail to Greece to try and be there when Stephanie arrives in mid July. She’s been doing an “around the world tour” since last October and just finished up a visit to India. We’re anxious to hear the thousands of stories she must now have.

The weather report for the crossing of the Ionian Sea was favorable – “Beaufort 2's and 3's on Saturday with it going up to Beaufort 4 and 5 on Sunday.” Boy were they wrong! Saturday night we were battling Force 7 (32 to 38 MPH) with ugly rolling seas that can take down the morale of the best of crews. But, when you’re out in the middle of the Ionian Sea, there is no place to go: Back to the Italian shore is as bad as on to the Greek shore. Sunday night it eased down to 4's and 5's (13 to 24 MPH) but then early Monday we were back with high winds and rollers. We were very glad to get off the boat today in Greece.  Spending a couple of days getting “Maytagged” was all the excitement we were not looking for. The big causalities of the trip were that our poles for holding up our bimini and also a hatch cover were washed overboard during our pounding at sea. We also found that our Dorade vents leaked, but maybe its as easy as turning them to face away from the waves. We kept 2 nightly scheduled radio talks with our buddy boats from last year, Triumph and Tapestry. By Sunday night, all we could do was give them our lat/long position and tell them we’d connect the next night.

Frustrating stories from sailors checking into Greek customs are legendary. Trips back and forth between the various forces of officialdom have required the better part of a day, if what we have read is to be believed. We decided to eliminated the cities they had “known” problems and look for the most obscure and smallest city possible that was still approved as a “port of entry” into Greece. We selected a quaint town called Sami, which is on the back side of the big island of Cephalonia across from Odysseus’s home on the island of Ithaca. We went to check in about 11 am and were back on the boat by 11:30. It cost us 15 euros for Greek tax because this was our first Greek port, 30 euros for a touring visa, good for a 6 month stay, then about 8 euros for tonight’s berth.

We’ve kind of glossed over the morning’s mooring marina entertainment we provided. Getting your boat up next to a dock so you can get off of it is called mooring. One of the most notorious methods of mooring is called “med mooring” named after the supposed style of mooring done in the Mediterranean. Whole chapters in seamanship books are devoted to the practice to which most sailors have never had the opportunity to actually practice. In fact, most of the world has actually eliminated this type of mooring as the entertainment value for the spectators is just too high without figuring out a way to charge admission. We have been traveling in the Med for the last two years and have never actually done the dreaded med moor.

Choosing a spot to moor is a similar thought process your pet dog goes through when deciding to lay down. You kind of stick your nose in and sniff around a little bit, and take a couple of turns and then plop down. As we were sniffing around we realized that our first med moor opportunity had finally arrived. And just to make it a little more interesting, we had a 15 knot x-wind to increase the fun factor for the spectators.

The general technique of med mooring involves positioning your boat a couple of hundred feet in front of your intended space. Dropping your anchor, smartly backing up a machine that wasn’t designed for and doesn’t back worth a damn and trying to position it next to your soon to be neighbor’s pride and joy without doing damage to your boat, his boat and your pride.

Let’s just say our first attempts (there were 3) involved numerous close calls, one scratched transom (ours), and the participation of every other boat owner on the dock. And to add the ultimate insult to our injured pride, we had to endure the obvious scorn of our Italian neighbor! Italian’s, as a generality, are not known worldwide as sailors with excellent seamanship!

Well, that’s it for now. Our first visit to town was great fun and we can tell that Greece is going to be a lot of fun to explore. Already the prices seem a lot less than we found in Italy. We just bought a book of “survival Greek” so we’re hoping to be “tourist fluent” in Greek by the time Stephanie comes. You know, please, thank you, ordering a beer and a meal and your general chit chat!  We have a great boat book that lists everything on the boat in 7 different languages so hopefully that will now be easier to pronounce.

Sami has a new WIFI internet place that opened last week so we thought we would upload the website tonight. Jan also bought a Greek cookbook so she can try her hand at the local favorites, like “fried aubergines” or “artichokes with yoghurt.” Should be an adventure in itself.