Roccella and Crotone

Log reading circa 650 nautical miles from purchase and refit in Malta. Log at the start of this trip was 470. We are now almost three weeks into our trip.

We arrived at Rocella Ionica on the 21st of April knowing that the wind and waves for the next few days would likely keep us there.  We had visited this town ten years ago so it was interesting to see what had changed.  The marina has a great restaurant where we quickly became familiar customers however the kitchen only opens at 7:30pm -quite late for exhausted children.

We explored the town on the first day.  In the middle of the day it felt deserted with very few shops or cafes open.  We hiked up to the castle, knowing it's museum was also closed.  There's not a lot going on in this town so we planned to hire a car the following day and delve a little deeper inland.

Our trusty rental saw us safely navigate some very dodgy roads/tracks -up mountains and along riverbeds!  Our first stop was the curious but enchanting Parco Musaba with it's wonderful ceramic murals.

After ascending the high mountains and finding lunch in a very unlikely restaurant, we dropped down in search of waterfalls and gathered flowers to press.  On the drive back to Dragonfly we stopped at a hardware store for the bits to build a flower press and some other tools required for a few needed repairs.

100 & 1 Dalmations won the vote for film night.

We had been noticing the smell of diesel and I tracked the source down to a leaky fuel gauge sender seal.  A mechanic who had recently had it out had used the wrong sealant.  It was an easy fix but cleaning and getting rid of the small was not!

The windlass control buttons also needed replacing.

With each job I get a bit more familiar with our new boat.

Next stop Crotone -I crept our of the marina at about 6am, being careful not to wake the others.  We had a 9 hour sail ahead of us and got off to a great start with ideal conditions.

Theodore loves challenging everyone to untie his knots.

We arrived in Crotone at about 3:30pm on the 25th of April.  We are hopping along the southern coast to avoid wearing the family out with long crossings when not necessary. This means we end up in some very authentic towns that do not see a lot of tourists. Crotone is one such seaside town.  Our 2 night stay coincided with a local holiday and the streets were heaving!  Our two blonde haired children stuck out like sore thumbs and we had eyes on us constantly as we navigated the crowds looking for a pharmacy somewhere to eat.  Julia had come down with a mystery bug that left her feverish and feeling rotten. Sadly all the pharmacies were shut for the next couple of days.  Food was also hard to come by -it seemed 8pm was far too early for the locals to consider sitting down to eat.  We eventually found a restaurant willing to feed us -delicious food but Julia was fading fast so we didn't linger long.

The next day we wandered around the old part of town and again struggled to find an open restaurant. We sampled some local pastries as we walked by the beach. Sadly the town of Crotone feels run-down and dirty. We didn't let the children paddle on the beach as rubbish drifted in the water and it felt unclean.  Needless to say we weren't too sad to slip away very early the next morning and leave Crotone behind us.

Very busy promenade and lots of people interested to know where we were from.