13 Aug 06 - 14 Aug 06 - To and in Messina

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13 Aug 06

It has generally been an uneventful trip from Zakinthos to Messina with absolutely no humans in sight, except for the occational airplane going by 10km up.

We were however met with massive fireworks from both the Sicillian side and from mainland Italy. We must be famous down here ;).... probably some festival or celebration being made.

I got to burn my hand (4 fingers and the palm) on some slipping rope in hard wind, but that will cure soon I think. Our Tecma toilet dont flush at all now, and thats pretty annoying. Something todo when we get to some place they know how to fix that.

14 Aug 06

We arrived at Messina marina at 2:30 this morning. Position 38N12.00 15E33.55. The marina is built completely of floating pontoons, which is not to my liking as any wave from passing ships directly affect the rolling of the ships in the marina. Mooring fees here are Euro 120 + Euro 10 (water/el) per night. We will stay until tomorrow.

We still have to decide which way to go, to Corsica, to Sardinia or to Tunis. Original plan was Corsica, but due to the slip of the original plan, I was considering to go to south Sardinia.. that is until I heard from a fellow sailor (who has just completed a tour around the globe... 40.000 nm!) that Sardinia expect arriving ships to pay a fortune to moor... for our ship something in the area of Euro 2000!. I need to check that information up because it sounds completely crazy! If it is so, it certainly will make us go another route, which is why I have looked at Tunis as an option although I would have preferred to stay within EU.

We have used the generator quite alot the last few nights... our service batteries dont hold power too well... something more to spend money on back in DK. We have used the autopilot quite much, which probably also explains energy use as the actuator consumes quite much electricity. But on the large stretches, the autopilot is a very nice thing to have. It does require some calibration though, but for the most part operates ok.

Our land cable for electricity is of poor condition and way to short anyway. I will have to do something about that asap. One freshwater pump seems to have burned. It draws alot of current although it operates. The water pressure was still present without air inlets. I need to investigate. For now we are using the other waterpump.

The wind have ranged from W to N and from none to hard, and sometimes in combinations that meant that going with engine was the only option if to get anywhere. We have used about 1/2 tank of fuel (estimated around 300l). We are gathering info to determine the fuel consumption per hour, which we will know when we refuel tomorrow.

Soeren, Nikolai and I got a haircut (and for my case, beard trim) at a local barbershop. Cost was Euro 10/haircut and Euro 5 for the shave.

Afterwards Soeren, Esmeralda, Katharina and I tried to find a place to eat, while Nikolai decided to go to the boat and wait for the shops to open. All shops are closed between 13:00 and 16:00/17:00. Even most dining places etc. Emeralda was almost fainting due to lack of food at the time... she was quite hungry, and thus we walked around to find something to eat. We finally found a place to get a sandwich and a coke to build up strengths, and then walked on for a couple of hundred meters more to settle down in a very small Italian pasta outlet where we ordered different pasta dishes.

I must say I was quite disappointed. All tasted like readymade microwave food, although we knew it wasnt. The italians may be the inventors of pasta and spagetti, but they certainly havnt done much invention in the area of how to serve it in a tasty way. It wasnt even cheap... 3 small plastic plates with untasty pasta and 4 sodas ended up at Euro 29.

We did visit a nice cheese and salami type shop where there were a good selection of all different stuff. We bought chilli cheese, some slices of smoked meat, some salami made of big chunks of beef and fat etc. all looking and tasting good.

Kim

 

 

Messina 1

Messina 2

Messina 3 Esmeralda almost fainting

Messina 4

Messina 5