Crossing the Ionian Sea

We spent 6 days anchored at Syracusa. That was partly because there was a lot to see there, partly because it blew quite hard for a few days when we stayed on board, and partly because we were looking for a good wind to help us to sail 300 nm east across the Ionian Sea.

BV steering herself across the Ionian Sea

On the GRiB files there was a good patch of northerly wind for a couple of days which moved east. Our plan was to get into that patch and hope that we could sail fast enough to keep the wind with us for the majority of our passage. That all sounded good as a strategy but it did mean an early start on Monday 30 June. The alarm clock woke us at 5am and we were on our way at 5:30am. We motored for 3½ hours, sailed for a couple of hours and then the wind died. Perhaps our strategy wasn’t so good?

In the end we motored for 11½ hours before we got properly into our patch of nice northerly wind. It was just 10-12 knots of wind but it was on the beam, which BV likes, so we made good time sailing at 5.5-6.7 knots. We set up Georgina, our Hydrovane wind-powered self-steering system, so BV just quietly sailed herself east. It was a very pleasant and relaxing passage.

In comparison with our crossing of the Tyrrhenian Sea we saw much less in the way of sealife. We spotted just one loggerhead turtle, which passed close by us, but the sea was more disturbed with waves and swell which made it harder to spot things.

Definitely worth getting out of bed to reel in 

The highlight of the passage for me was catching another Albacore tuna late on Tuesday afternoon. I was off-watch kipping but abruptly woken by Nicky shouting that we had a fish on the line. With Nicky slowing down BV, I worked on tiring out the fish so that we could get it on board. It took about half an hour before we were able to hook it up and bring it onto the aft deck to quickly dispatch it with a tot or two of vodka into its gills.

At 10kg it was a little larger than the last one I caught. Add in that we had hooked another at dusk the previous evening but unfortunately the line crimping had failed and so we lost that one (along with my lucky lure) and I was finally able to convince Nicky that catching the first tuna was not a fluke; I am officially no longer a rubbish fisherman!

We treated ourselves to a plate of the freshest sushi drizzled with soy sauce and dabs of fiery Wasabi paste. Absolutely divine. As we ate the sushi, Nicky helpfully(!?) pointed out that this fishing lark couldn't be too difficult because I’d ‘caught this one in my sleep’. There was even a hint in the conversation that she could claim credit for the catch because she was on watch at the time. Hmmm!!!

We kept up with our patch of northerly wind all the way through the passage and so we were still sailing nicely at dawn on Wednesday morning as we aimed for the south-west tip of the island of Nísos Zákinthos.

Our destination was the Port Zákinthos, 5nm up the eastern side of the island. As we came abeam the south of the island the wind died away and so we had to motor the last few hours but all in all we had been very fortunate. The 303nm passage had taken us 52 hours (including nearly an hour going the wrong way whilst we landed and cut up the tuna) of which we had motored for 15 hours. That seemed pretty good to us in the Ionian where, apparently, there is frequently not enough wind to sail.

Most importantly though, we had made our way into Greek waters and were looking forward to exploring the Greek Ionian Islands. From our mooring, Port Zákinthos looked to be a lively place but before we could fully relax we would need to tackle the bureaucracy associated with arriving in Greece; a trip to the Port Police and also the Customs office were needed. We’d also need to arrange a tanker to meet us so that we could refill the fuel tanks and jerry cans (diesel here is 37 cents a litre cheaper than in Sicily). It was going to be a busy and hot afternoon whilst we also kept an eye out for Bruce and Pam arriving on board Osprey.