Stealin' Time

21/06/2024

It's a Small World

Here's one for our Western New York friends.

I was doing some shopping in a local small supermarket near the docks in Trapani in Sicily yesterday. In the cookie aisle this caught my eye.

Oswego biscotti!

Hmmm, says I, I wonder what came first, the town of Oswego, about 65 miles east of where we used to live in Rochester, or the Italian cookies. Many upstate NY towns have names from Europe, and Italy in particular. Syracuse, Rome, Troy, Ithaca, etc.
Doing some research I found the story of the biscuit on the company website. See below.

It turns out that the town of Oswego was not named after a European or Classical place. It is the name the local Iroquois tribe gave to the river mouth on Lake Ontario ( translates to Where the Water Comes Out).
It became a busy harbour in the 1800's, especially when a canal was dug in 1829 to connect the harbour to the Erie Canal.
A company in Oswego created a tea blend that became popular in London, where some baker decided there should be a special biscuit to accompany the drink.
The English biscuits ended up in Venice, where a local company decided to start producing them, keeping the same name.

And they are still making them!

19/06/2024

View from the cockpit: Mount Monoco, which was aflame last July during the wildfires, is slowly recovering. We're continuing our circumnavigation of Sicily.

15/06/2024

A too brief Spinnaker sail today. The wind rose to 18kts and we brought it down. Then, of course, the wind died to 5kts, so on with the motor...

15/06/2024

Found this morning. Still trying to decide if we'll leave it. It might be helping keep down the mosquitoes, but we haven't met its owner yet to determine what kind of spider it is.

08/06/2024

The joys of boat jobs....
See photos for details.

05/06/2024

View from the cockpit.

04/06/2024

Click the link to see a map of our travels since leaving Ireland in 2021 (unfortunately Spot only saves up to 3 years of data).

May 2021 to June 2024

03/06/2024

We spent the last couple of weeks in the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily. They were all formed by volcanic activity and some are still active.
This is the volcano on Stromboli. It erupts constantly, but is best seen at night. We saw eruptions like this every five to ten minutes when we took a boat around to that side of the island.
Excuse the quality, we were on a rolly boat!

24/05/2024

MacDuff checking out our stern anchor a few days ago. There are no sheltered bays on this stretch of coastline. We tucked in behind a small motorboat harbour last night, but it gave no shelter from the SW swell. When the wind died we drifted sideways and we were rolling enough to knock things off the table and make cooking impossible.
So, out with the stern anchor and things calmed down immediately and we had a good night. Now to retrieve the anchor.
Fair winds and calm anchorages everyone!

14/05/2024

When life gives you lemons make Limoncello!
The Amalfi coast is famous for growing lemons. We see them everywhere growing on terraces on the steep south facing slopes.
It's served either neat, ice cold, or as a spritzer. Delicious!

12/05/2024

20 mile sail today, southeast to Agripoli.

08/05/2024

A few more Italian islands.
We moved out of the marina in Ischia to an anchorage nearby under the Castello Aragonese. While there we met a couple who recommended not missing the nearby island of Procida. We had a great stay there at anchor in front of the village of Corricella.
Then a motor down to Capri, one of the most famous of these islands. We had a very expensive one night in the marina after finding that any available space in the anchorage was too deep for comfort.
Then a great sail to Positano on the Amalfi coast. The forecast 7 to 10 kts of wind turned into sustained 25kts, so a fast short passage. We are anchored just west of the town.

20/04/2024

A few stops on our way south from Anzio, stopping at islands on the way.

14/04/2024

Anzio Landings

Our first anchorage of the season was in Anzio, on the coast about 30 miles south of Rome.
It's a small seaside resort town and fishing harbour, but in January of 1944 it was the location of a major Allied landing to try to break the German supply lines to their Gustav Line defenses (including Monte Casino) that had stopped the Allied advance from the south. The town was bombarded without warning before the landings, but, in fact, there were no Germans there. The landings were unopposed and large numbers of US and British troops and equipment were unloaded. However, instead of moving out to engage the supply lines, the General in command decided to dig in and establish defences in the town. This delay allowed the German command to move up artillery and tanks and the Allies were effectively besieged for months. There were many casualties, including 7000 dead.
The town was flattened during the shelling and air attacks on the beach head, and was slowly rebuilt after the war.
A movie, "Anzio", (available to rent on Prime) was made in 1968, and gives one interpretation of the events.
More info under photos.

13/04/2024

It's officially the start of the sailing season for Stealin' Time. We left the dock in Fiumicino at 0803 for the bridge openings at 0830 and dropped anchor in Anzio at 1500. A beautiful sunny day but, unfortunately, little wind.

06/04/2024

Getting ready....
We bought a new 3D tender to replace our old West Marine one which is leaking both air and water a little. This one is a little shorter at 285cm vs 310cm (about 10"). It has an aluminium hull which makes it considerably lighter and easier to pull up on deck.
Beer and clothing from Pam's old work Genesee Brewery in Rochester, NY. We were there recently to see our daughter Christine and cutie granddaughter Analicia.

14/02/2024

New grandkids Hugo and Piper with their amazing mom Bevin last week! Future crew!

14/02/2024

While Pam is in New Jersey helping with our daughter Bevin's new twins, MacDuff and I are on the boat in Fiumicino outside Rome.
We took the train into the city yesterday to see more of the sights.
What an amazing city!
More info under the photos.

18/01/2024

I visited the Museo di Navi yesterday, just up the road a bit from our dock. It houses the remains of a number of Roman era ships that were unearthed when the airport was being built.
We are docked on one of the canals that were built to connect the 1st century port of Claudius to the Tiber river and so to Rome. Most of the food imported to feed Rome's one million people came through here carried on ships like this. They had a mast and sail, oars for no wind days, but were also man hauled along the bank of the canal and river.
More info under photos.....

11/01/2024

We decided to buy a memory foam mattress topper as the bed in the rear cabin is too firm. Luckily the local IKEA is about four miles away, mostly on a bike path along the river. I hit a few low hanging branches but no problem apart from sore shoulders.
It's great to have the bikes for this type of thing.

01/01/2024

Happy New Year from Rome!
Fireworks all around!

31/12/2023

Fun with Forts!
A quick one today, as I haven't posted for a while. It's not for want of material around our winter base here in Fiumicino near Rome.
This is Castello di Giulio II, in Ostia. I found it while cycling from the hospital in Ostia where I am getting some treatment for a minor eye issue.

Built by Papal decree in 1486 on the site of an earlier tower protecting the passage up the Tiber river to Rome. The fortress functioned as the customs headquarters also.
It is a great example of a Renaissance fortress with three round towers with connecting walls, and was surrounded by a moat fed by the river.
It fell into disrepair after a siege in 1556, and was abandoned when the river changed course due to an earthquake. The surrounding area flooded, became a malarial swamp and was abandoned for centuries.
The fortress was restored starting in the 1930's and is in great condition now.

More info under photos.

30/12/2023

Cooking on a boat: Lentil Stew cooked in our Wonderbag. It works like a crockpot without using electricity.

24/12/2023

Merry Christmas from Macduff, Tom and Pam on Stealin' Time.

14/11/2023

We are at our winter berth, about two miles up the canal in Fiumicino near Rome. We chose this marina as it is near the airport and inexpensive.
We needed to go to Portugal for a few days to sort out our residency applications. Tom will be going to Ireland for a couple of weeks, then we will both be heading to the US in February for a while.
And lots of maintenance jobs to be done!

27/10/2023

We got to the Rome area yesterday, but couldn't get into the Fiumicino canal to our marina as we need to pass two opening bridges which don't open on Thursdays! So we were instructed to go into the Tiber river instead and raft up against another boat in one of the marinas and wait until today. However, these are the conditions today at the mouth of the Tiber, so we are going to stay where we are until Sunday when conditions will be better

19/10/2023

Santa Stefano is one of the small islands of the Madalena Archipelago off NE Sardinia. We anchored in this small bay where granite from a local quarry was loaded onto barges.
There is an unfinished statue there. Carved in three pieces, it depicts Constanzo Ciano, an Italian Navy commander during WW1 and then Fascist politician. His son was later wed to Mussolini's daughter.
The statue was comissioned by Mussolini in the early 1940's, but with the dictators death and Fascism falling out of favour, it was never completed. So it sits where it was carved, looking out to sea.
Pam thinks it looks like the Gorton's Fish Stick fisherman....

More info with pics.

11/10/2023

We anchored in this great bay on the west coast of Sardinia a couple of days ago. It's an old mining town where silver and lead were mined, starting with the Romans 2000 years ago and continuing up to the 1960's when it closed down. Fun fact is that Liz Taylor and Richard Burton starred in a movie called "Boom" made there in the 60's.

07/10/2023

The local brew in Sardinia is not bad....
And the water in the anchorage at La Pelosa is great!

04/10/2023

Fun with Forts - Bonifacio, Corsica.
Bonifacio is built on a peninsula on the southern Corsican coast. It has been inhabited from at least the Roman times, but the fortifications are generally from the 1400's to 1600's. They defend a very sheltered harbour tucked into a high sided inlet. Another amazing place mostly built by the Genoese during their control of the area.
The marina area is lined with high end bars and restaurants. We found a nice restaurant up in the citadel for lunch instead.