Buongiorn,

    So far that’s really the only word I know.  As far as understanding any Italian thanks to my half-forgotten French or totally forgotten Latin, no help there at all.  Not so much English understood or spoken in Siracusa that I could tell in half a day. While in Greece  I did manage to learn: please, thank you, you’re welcome (same as please) and hello and good-bye, both yasas though yasas is plural and yaso is singular but most folks said yasas to me except every now and then.  We’re moving on from Siracusa tomorrow stopping to check out the Portapalo marina.  If that doesn’t suit we’ll move on to Licata.  At one of those marinas we’ll leave the boat and rent a car to tour Sicily. 

   Our friends Ed and Sue raved about the market at Siracusa and we did see the remains of it when we walked by in the afternoon.  But we were too tired to think food at that point so provisioning will come later.  We still have tomatoes, cucumber and oranges from Greece.

Below is what I wrote as the original introduction to these Pilos stories.

Ru

   It’s 2:23 pm and I’m actually writing this email while we travel towards Sicily.  The seas are relatively flat which makes travelling by small boat actually quite pleasant.  When there’s 15 to 25 knots of wind and 1 to 2 meter seas, all you can do is take turns sitting watch and sleep when you’re not.    This morning, Monday June 10th we left Pilos about 6 am with the calm seas that were forecasted.  There may be some bumps before we get to Sicily on Wednesday, mid-day,  but for now it’s good.   I wrote that Monday June 10^th during our passage from Pilos, Greece to Siracusa, Sicily

THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED AND WE HAD 25 KNOTS OF WIND AND 2 METER (6 FT) SEAS.  RANDAL WAS SICK AND I WAS SCARED SO RHINO RANDAL HAD TO SIT WATCH WITH ME.  IT WAS AWFUL BUT NOT AS BAD AS OUR TRIP FROM LANGKAWI, MALAYSIA TO SRI LANKA; SO THERE’S THAT.   I did see how well DoraMac could do even if her crew was falling to pieces.  Now it’s calm as could be and we’re anchored out in the harbor in Siracusa, Sicily (Italy) after spending most of the day in town.  It was lovely and we met a couple from Vermont!      We didn’t have Sicilian pizza but I will before we leave Sicily.  We’ve planned to spend a week driving around and seeing the island which is the largest in the Mediterranean.

Last stop, Pilos (Pylos or Navarino)

The names I use for ports we visit come from our cruising guides.  In the case of land travel I’ll use what I see in town.  In this case both were Pilos though the 1994 British Which Guide to Greece and the Greek Islands uses Pylos.  (I found the Which guide in a marina library somewhere and hopefully books we left behind are as useful to other cruisers.) 

“With its plant shaded plateria surrounded by whitewashed porticoes, gardens shadowed by palm trees and flopping banana trees, and lovely views across the vast sweep of Navarino Bay, Pylos is a stylish and attractive town, ideal as a base for exploring the southern Peloponnese of just for lazy lingering.”

     After a bumpy day and night passage from Ios, and a two night passage planned next for Sicily, Randal and I opted for the mostly lazy lingering.  We had come to Pilos as our final stop in Greece where we would officially (required) check out from Greece.  But though we’ve checked out from Greece, we’re not checked out from the European Union so our 90 days Schengen clock has started.  Our entry date is the date our passports were stamped in Greece.  We will leave the EU when we visit Tunisia which will stop the clock, but it will begin again when we come back.  We plan to be in England before our 90 days are up so it’s not a problem really.  I stop myself from complaining about the time limit unless speaking with non-EU people as their reply is that America limits visiting time to foreigners.  I think we all need to rethink these visiting policies because travel broadens minds and we could use more broaden minds around the world.

We arrived at Pilos about mid-day and were rafted up to an old fuel barge as that was the only place for us.  Smaller sailboats were rafted up to each other as all of the stern-too spots seemed to be taken by sail boats and many small fishing boats.  Pilos seems more a working harbor than pleasure harbor; no water or power pedestals available.  If you wanted water you had to go over to the water pedestal across the harbor.  We still had half a tank and can make our own, so we didn’t need water.  With most lights, the inverter, and freezer turned off, and the solar panel working, we could stay without a problem.  If we’d needed more power, we would have run our genset to recharge the batteries.

An older man who unofficially works the harbor and two young sailors, Ben and Thomas from Crest Hawk Adventure, caught our lines.  Then the older man took Randal on his motorcycle over to the port authority to check in.  After that it was time for us to get cleaned up, pack the computer and go find food and wifi.  Unlike Ios there was no free wifi access we could pick up on DoraMac though the restaurants don’t charge for theirs and don’t care how long you sit and use it.  Thomas and Ben (

Crest Hawk) even left their computer to recharge at one café while they came back to the boat for a visit with us.

Rhino Randal checking the chart plotter to see if we’re on course to Pilos. Rhino Randal keeps watch with me during my night watches.

Small Pilos harbor

The old gas barge with its empty tanks and NO SMOKING signs.  The older man who told us where to tie up and took Randal to check in lit up a cigarette standing in front of one of those signs.  I have to say it scared me to see a match so close to our diesel trawler….though I have lit candles on board when we’re at a dock.  But still.

To get off you climb over our rails onto the barge’s rail and then jump down several feet.  You walk through the barge and out the opening onto the concrete pier.

Several small fishing boats would come and go in the mornings and evenings.

Cloud covered mountain off in the distance and hills going up the hillside. Modern windmills At least some seasons there’s lots of wind so we’ve seen lots of modern windmills.  We saw about a half dozen being built on this mountain.  It’s very appropriate that there are windmills as Cervantes was a prisoner here of the Turks and wrote about his experiences in Don Quixote.

“plant shaded plateria”

“surrounded by whitewashed porticoes”

Sidewalk gas pumps

“You gotta go up.” “If you want to see it you gotta go up,” was something our friend Linda Levy wrote about hers and Michael’s visit to Greece.  Here in Pilos, if you want to go home, you gotta go up!  Must be very healthy people who live here.  Streets bisect the hillsides but between the streets are only these stairs.

And down again.  Each stair is not very high so maybe some kind of truck could get up to deliver furniture or other big items.

Real life Greece

After getting checked in, showered and collecting trash for the harbor dumpsters, we went off to lunch and to compute.  I had a huge salad with a wonderful olive oil/balsamic vinegar dressing.  Hard passages make me crave junk food so being back on land makes me crave vegetables.

Sad sack! I tried to cheer him up but no dice.  He just lay there with those sad eyes.  Hopefully he was just pooped out from a long, fun morning walk.

Four Seasons Restaurant: Our lunch/computer place. Sunday we actually slept late recovering from our night passage.  And truly enjoying the quiet of the harbor that allowed us to keep all of the portholes and hatches open.   We went off to explore the town which was pretty much closed up for Sunday.  Even the small supermarket and fruit shops were closed.  Only restaurants, bakeries, small souvenir shops and museums stay open which was enough for us.  I took bunches of photos at the fortress and that will be the next email and final one from Greec…at least this passage.

Randal declared that he had everything to make him happy; computer,  Greek salad, white wine, olive oil, bread (not in the photo but always served in Greece) and, of course, me!

Mountain salad made me happy: some type of thin mild spinach-like green cooked in olive oli and served with lemon.  Yummmmm.  That mountain of greens served with bread to soak up the olive oil would have been more than enough.  Bread, olive oil, olives and wine surely must come from the gods.

But I’d also ordered baked feta cheese which came with its own olive oil and grilled tomatoes and green peppers.  Double yummm! As we had enough food for 3 or maybe even 4 people we went home with a packet for later.

Often something sweet is offered after the meal and these were tiny thumb sized frozen banana flavored ice cream with a thin chocolate cover.  I left Randal sitting with his wine and computer and I walked around town, up and down and around taking photos.

This grilling meat smelled wonderful, but we were still full from lunch so just took a photo.

The shop where I bought some olive oil.  We have some Turkish olive oil and now Greek.  I’m going to collect different oils along the way and one day we’ll have a tasting….for those of you who come visit us in London!