Cetraro, Italy As we were moving Berkeley East north, we saw smoke in the distance. It looked as though our destination was north of the fire, and the wind was blowing south, so we figured we were clear. Hours later, we could see flames, fire on the mountain behind our planned anchorage. And as we […]
Calabria, Italy All season we had been trying to see more of Italy’s Calabria region. With a wild mountain interior, a long history of poverty, and stories of Mafia activity, Calabria is less traveled and therefore less spoiled by tourism than many other places in the country. We chose Tropea as our base for a […]
Ustica, Italy We had just tied Berkeley East to a mooring ball off Ustica when we heard a troubling noise. Our first reaction was to look for a broken hose within BE’s bilge, then we realized that we had heard this sound before. It was the familiar tune of bubbles, the tiny bubbles of scuba […]
Palermo, Sicily Every country has a dark horse, a place that is seen as the evil stepchild, more trouble, less worthy. For Italy, this is Palermo; a city whose history is clouded by mafia violence, cursed by an unfair stereotype. We too wondered about the questionable reputation of Sicily’s capital, which in all honestly, was […]
Cefalu, Sicily After a couple of weeks of island hopping in the Aeolian Islands (with a few thousand of our newest Italian friends), we were weary from the August crowds and melting from the August heat, so we decided to escape to mainland Sicily. We knew the mobs would be equally as bad on land, […]
Aeolian Islands, Italy We left the Caribbean seven years ago, in part, because we were tired of islands. There’s only so much cobalt blue water and white sandy beaches that one can take. We wanted more to do on land, more culture, more history, so we sailed Berkeley East across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, […]
Capo d’Orlando, Sicily We were moving quickly to put Berkeley East in a marina for a few weeks while we traveled back to the states. One of the most difficult things about cruising is being far away from home for long periods of time. Things happen, good and bad, which require your attention, and often […]
Southern Italy & Sicily We were sitting in the cockpit of Berkeley East below beautiful Taormina, Sicily, wet from showers and settled in for the night, when we heard a voice. “Do you know this Eddie Vedder?” It was George from The Yacht Hotel, the company that owned the mooring that BE was currently tied […]
Montenegro Legend states that sailors named the country of Montenegro (meaning Black Mountain) because the darkness of the trees was all that could be seen from the sea. We have gazed upon these forests before, and the rugged rocky terrain that seems to rise straight up from the Adriatic, when we visited Montenegro in 2012. […]
Italy While at home this past winter, we decided to keep the boat projects to a minimum. We had done most everything on the “To Do” list during the last three winters in Turkey, plus Berkeley East was in a boat yard where little English was spoken so communicating BE’s needs was challenging. Before leaving […]
