Castella

Hello everyone, it’s been a few days I know so to help you catch up, after two nights anchored in Taormina bay we headed east across the Messina Straits to mainland Italy. The first few hours were lovely, by that obviously I mean calm, and with dolphins but then the wind picked up and for some reason decided to go against the tide making for a choppy/sloppy ride, also for a couple of hours before the calm turned not long before we anchored up offshore from a little town called Africa Nuovo. Sadly we didn’t realise just how sloppy the sea had been until I went into our cabin after we had anchored up to find that our bed and the clothes and books alongside it, were soaked! Everything up on deck to start the drying process but we knew that realistically we were going to have to rinse everything to try to get the salt out so that was the mornings first job. But before that we had to clear all the accumulated junk from the fore cabin so we had somewhere to sleep.
So after the washing everything, including the mattress, Photo 1, we headed along the coast stopping off at Siderno to do some shopping at a hyper market as getting low on GF(gluten free) bread and hoped here would be big enough to have some, it did but only white much to John’s disappointment. Fortunately we had moved everything inside before setting off on our shopping expedition as the heavens opened, it was a lot more than the 3mm/3hr the forecast gave, more like 3mm/30mins if not more we were soaked. However once the sun came out it didn’t take long to dry ourselves off, my shoes took a little longer. Then towards Roccella Ionica but very little shelter so we go into the marina. At least this means we can charge everything up, do some washing, use the hoover and do some cooking which is exactly what I did the next day. I felt like a domestic goddess having produced GF rolls, GF loaf, GF carrot cake and Panna cotta. The good weather also meant the mattress dried out, thank goodness as this meant we could sleep under the mozzy net again.
Today we headed to Castella again with the intention of anchoring, and we did try but the 25mph winds were making things a bit uncomfortable and aren’t supposed to ease till 2am so we headed into the marina, on a wing and a pray as no VHF or telephone number luckily there was a marinero there to help us in and we are settled. Took a quick walk round town so here is a photo of the Castle after which the town is named and the sunset. Other photos are of the coastline we have passedRead more