Planning for this year’s trip has been a little unusual. It’s largely because we are in a new sailing area with very different characteristics than the Ionian on the west coast of Greece.
True Colors spent the winter in Brindisi, Italy (at the top of the heel of the “boot”). She was in a small boat yard in the inner part of a very safe ancient harbor. The owners of this yard have been in their family business for about 140 years, so we figured that they might know a thing or two about looking after boats.
The planning challenge has been how to link some interesting sailing areas on the south coast of Italy and Sicily with the necessity of getting out of the Schengen zone for a month to comply with EU regulations. It's a long way across the south of Italy with comparatively few good places to stop and some longish legs that make timing and accurate weather forecasting important. The back end of the plan hardened up reasonably well with a couple of weeks in Croatian, a couple more in Montenegro and then back across to Italy as the finale. But the first couple of months is a little fluid. So planning to meet up with friends is a little bit of a challenge right now.