Arrivederci!

Ahoy! After several hectic days in Gaeta, Italy starting to recommission Hazel James, we treated ourselves to a nine-day “Amalfimoon” (belated honeymoon in the Amalfi Coast). We then returned to Gaeta, and spent another week finishing HJ’s recommission, trying to figure out all the formalities required to enter Greek waters at least somewhat legally and re-provisioning her with food for us—we think we are ready to embark early tomorrow morning.

Our current plan (and hope) is to sail non-stop to Corfu, Greece in the Northern Ionian Sea…off the coast of Albania. It’s about a 500 nm sail. Although we’ll be coastal sailing a good bit of the time and will probably have some cellular internet signal, please keep track of our progress on the HJ Sailing home page. We’ll try to make daily satellite postings of what’s going on (as I did during my transatlantic sail one year ago).

Hazel’s recommissioning and re-provisioning has gone well. Of course the proof will be in the pudding when we start sailing tomorrow. It’s amazing the complexity of a simple boat like Hazel. I walk by big yachts and shake my head, amazed at what it must take to keep them running.

In October last year, we left Hazel with no food onboard so re-provisioning her has taken a bit of time. The old medieval backstreets of Gaeta have some wonderful markets.

One fun thing that happened before our Amalfimoon started with us asleep on HJ and about 11 p.m. on a weeknight we were awoken by car horns, fireworks and general mayhem that stretched long into the night. The next morning we found out that the Naples football (soccer) team had won the championship of Italy. It was a huge deal given that they’ve only won it two other times and that usually it’s the rich teams from the north of Italy that win. Although that night was a couple weeks ago, all the towns in the area are still decked out with the team’s colors of sky blue and white.

If you recall, it rained, rained and rained on our wedding weekend…everyone told us that it was good luck, and then I came down with COVID on day 2 of our aborted “minimoon” right after the wedding. Who knows what that means but I will tell you that it also rained and rained during every day of our Amalfimoon. We made the best of it though and took every opportunity of dry sky to hike and explore.

---

That’s all for now. We’ve got to get to bed and up early to start our sail. Again, keep track of our progress and daily satellite posts on our home page.

Fair winds and following seas! Hazel James bound for the toe of the boot and on to Greece.