We arrived in Santa Maria de Leuca at 0400 and promptly hit the sack and agreed to get up at 0800

Ahh what a sleep, it’s also beautiful to wake up in a new home, even if it’s only for three or four hours.

We all choose, or were given, tasks to do to make our planned departure of 1000.

Stefano went to get fresh food including steaks and vegetables.

Marta, Massimo and me, cleaned Aria, filled the tanks and then made our way to the old harbour and the the “Sailors Friend Chandlary”, to buy a spare gas bottle, which they did not have. Not surprising for Italy, so I’m told. I did however persuade Massimo to invest in some fishing gear, hopefully the investment will be repaid with a catch.

Back to Aria of off to the fuel pontoon and full tanks again. Better safe than sorry, for our long onward journey, especially as the next 12 hours or so, show limited winds.

An so off we set, on our sail for the Straits of Mesinna. As predicted, the winds are not more than 5 kts. So we settled into our trip and Stefano excelled himself with a truly wonderful lunch of steak, roasted potatoes and wonderful salads.

Not much change in wind and its now 1900 and apart from seeing a turtle, nothing else to report.

We are motor sailing at 6.9 kts in about 8 kts of wind coming from the south. But the sail is giving us a push.

We have a stowaway. A small, exhausted swallow has joined us and sought refuge. She inside Aria and has made a home for herself and finally Arba has a companion.

So we are about to settle into our night routine and will give you updates later.

An early morning start. Taxi booked for 0430 and off to Gatwick for a 0740 flight to Bari.

Check in went smoothly with the EasyJet automated system and headed straight to Jammie Oliver’s for an English Breakast.

The flight was on time and and most pleasant, with wonderful views of the Alps.

Arrived in Bari to wonderful clear skies and temperatures of 17 degrees and rising. Sailed through customs and into the arrivals lounge to the warm welcome of Massimo, Marta and Off course Arba and the customary Italian coffee.

So nice to be picked up by the best of friends, who drove 2 ½ to meet me in a hire car. The drive back to the marina was fantastic with stunning views along the coast.

Having readied Aria, we set up lines to spring off the pontoon and the reversed into 17kts of wind and into the bay of the marina and then powered forwarded through the breakwater and into the open sea of the Adriatic.

Genoa deployed almost immediately and started our down wind sail on a course of 130 degrees along the eastern coat of Italy. Memories flooded back of my youth in this area with my parents and my sister, I was just 11 years old.

The night drew in and the sky stayed clear to a wonderful welcoming of stars and planets, which included, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and at dawn Venus and a waning, crescent moon, starting off blood red and then turning to a brilliant white.

Massimo and I ran a 3 hour watch, whilst the other two crew, Marta and Stefano slumbered.

The new day brought wonderful blue skies and warm sun and Stefano serving breakfast of bacon and eggs.

Ran the engine for a couple of hours to charge the batteries and to take advantage of the engine due to the wind dropping. Fortunately, the wind picked up and and the iron maiden was turned off and we returned to Gods power.