ABOVE expectations..

2021 MED Land destinations were Peloponnese and Crete. Ivana Petan, Ida Glušič, Matej Michalec and BB were the team.

MEDLand 2021 Ivana, Maček, bb first days to the first Greek island

The last MED Land trip in 2021, from Pylos (Peloponnese) to Stari Grad (Hvar island in the Adriatic) was above expectations.

We decided to postpone “the sailing back from Crete“ to our home port to the end of July, when all planed stories were done, but we still had a 1000 km long sailing trip to reach our home port on the island of Hvar in the Adriatic. We wanted to have additional time for this long trip and focus on yet another theme.

Jana Prepeluh, an artist from Slovenija, was the second team member, with her last sailing experience on Nalu, when we did our first research trip to Greece for the MED Land project in September 2016! Jana was waiting for us on Zakynthos and spent some time with the Therianos familly.

It was a full moon day when the weather started to turn unstable, windy, rainy, stormy, forecast for several days to come! Uh-oh, what to do? I missed the super stable sunny and warm weather. I knew very well that if the weather changes around full moon, it means it will stay unstable ... And indeed it was.

After two, three hours of sleep in the port of Zante, a strong noise of the boat hitting the pier woke me up! It was a serious situation because of the very strong wind and big waves in the port. Luckily, I found some big plastic drums on the road and tied them between the boat and the pier. Next thing was to find a better place. In two hours, I found a better place, but in the meantime, the wind picked up much more! It was impossible for Iva and me to push Nalu away from the pier. At that very moment, early in the morning, young strong men appeared on the pier and helped us to do the maneuver! The wind became even stronger, and we had to stay in Zante for two more days and hope for a one-day gap with less wind, just enough to reach Ithaca. Jana joined us in Zante, but because the boat was moving so much, she got sea sick already in the port … Not many would be willing to go out sea sick, but Jana, as strong as she is, did it. And all the way for the next four days, she did everything to be positive and overcome sea-sickness . 

..two more days in Zante..in a safest part of the port..

Marketplace in Zante

Late in the night, in strong rain and wind, we reached Vathy, the main port of Ithaca. The port was empty, but a man approached us, greeting us: ”I remember you! Yes, here you can tie the boat, and electricity and water are free – a leftover of previous boat, take it, and welcome!“ On Ithaca, we had a one-day stop to meet with Leila again (MED Land story).

The next port was Gaios on the island of Paxos, and the already normal procedure was to tie the boat in heavy rain and strong wind. The early morning ritual was to get some diesel, which happened in15 minutes ... ”Welcome, you are here again!”, with a big smile from the diesel truck that drives through the port to fill up boats. We had to take of as soon as possible, since we had another long trip to reach Othonoi island – the last Greek island before Otranto, the passage between Albania and Italy, and AGAIN with only one-day gap of less winds on the route to reach the destination.

In the port, there was a single Italian sailor on a much bigger boat than Nalu, also waiting for the right time to cross Otranto towards Italy. I decided to take of early, very early in the morning, when the winds started to go down. And Jana was not ready to go with me this time. She stayed on Othoni for another couple of hours to join the Italian sailor, who decided to do a much shorter route to Italy, which was not convenient for us considering the forecast for the following days. This was the best solution!  After 22 hours on the sea with big waves and also rain during the last hours, Iva was still in a positive, relaxed mood. And finally. the port of Brindisi! I was sure it was going to be calm inside, but it was NOT.

We arrived to Brindisi in the night and tried to moor in two places - but still to much movement up and down. Morning came soon, and I walked to all marinas in the port to get a place.

Naval Balsamo was definitely the best bet: very kind family business, also boat-building and repairing site, all that you need was here for a fair flat price! 

Here, I discovered that the engine cooling system is leaking water! I took off the part that was leaking, and since they could not weld copper here in marina, they took me immediately by car to the car cooling system mechanic. In a good half an hour, I was back and the job was done! 

BEST pizza place. Strict COVID regulations in pizza restaurants brought us to this family shop with TOP pizza and all that we needed for food. After two visits, we were already "friends" and we got extras like pasta, vegies etc. as a gift.

As always, I talked to other people in the port who we also waiting for the wind to go down. And that is how I met Tomaž, who was on an even smaller boat  - a wooden sailing boat from Sweden - waiting to cross the Adriatic. “Good, we sail together than“ - and that is what we did, two Slovenes with two funky sailing boats, the only wooden boats in the port. We started the next evening, a 33-hour trip to reach the Korčula island. When we came out from the port, there were still big waves and NE wind - a difficult direction for our route, but we knew that sooner or later the wind will go down :-)) Still in the night, when I could already use autopilot since the sea calmed down, I found out that the autopilot was not working any more. ”Tomaž, Tomaž, Tomaž“, was my call on Channel 9, and I asked him to sail in front of us, so we could follow his lights. The trip over the open sea in a tandem was really much easier :-)) . **We crossed the deepest part of the Adriatic, and observing water, waves, light, clouds here was very inspiring for me. One of  the inspirations was that the see, as well as rivers, are (in many cases) the places where the primeval earth forces can be very dynamic, more dynamic than on solid land.

And the last challenge on this trip awaited us on the way back, already in Split, where I have parked the car, a borrowed car :-)), and found out that a whole exhaustion system was stolen! And also the car battery was completely empty, because I left the lights on :-)) It was already the middle of the day, and even though I had battery cables to connect to cars from people that wanted to help, it didn't work. BUT, very quickly, situation started to go in a different direction. The nearby housekeeper of the Naval Museum is a mechanic who had special cables. He managed to start the engine and even take me to a very kind car exhaust mechanic at the outskirts of Split. Of course, there was no way to get the original exhaust system, so he made a new on in just 3 hours :-)) . Meanwhile, Iva was in the port waiting with my luggage, including the money that I needed. Mechanic was far from the port, and luckily a taxi stopped ... "We are the cheapest in town! Take a sweet from me to calm down ... “ were his first words, and quickly we found out that we have common friends since he was from Sarajevo. Like Ibrahim Spahić. The exhaust system was repaired just in time, since I was in a rush to return to Slovenia because my computer was also broken, and a repair specialist was on his way. I reached him in time! I had to leave the computer with him since its motherboard was broken, but Primož lent me one with my disk inside, so I was able to work without any delay for the next few weeks :-))