Hey ppl! It’s been a hot minute. Hope you haven’t missed me too much! We’ve had a highly eventful month - hopping from Montenegro to Albania to mainland Italy to Sicily to Sardinia to Menorca to Mallorca. Know it’s only a Tuesday but I highly recommend pouring yourself a spritz and settling in - because first up I’m about to take you on an epic voyage from Puglia to Sicily. You can expect more drama than a Botticelli painting, more flavour than an arancini ball and more pacy plot than the second season of White Lotus. 

Still, our story begins not in the land of la dolce vita - but, as previously mentioned, in Albania. We set sail from the city of Durres early on the 22nd August - hopping 12 hours across the Adriatic Sea and arriving in Otranto, Puglia (right on the heel of the Italian boot) by 5PM. But our journey had only just begun. Over the next four days we planned to travel an ambitious 240 nautical miles (or about 40 hours of hard sailing) - making it to Taormina, on Sicily’s east coast, by 26th to pick up some pals who were flying out to visit. 

I fear that our other pals - Marcus, Hannah, Ariana and Lucy - weren’t quite aware what they were signing up for when they innocently booked flights to Puglia some months prior. Still, there was no backing out now - and when we rocked up to Otranto, there they were waiting for us on the shore.

But before we could welcome our new crew on board, we had the small matter of passport control to attend to. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: for something so fly by the seat of your pants, sailing really does involve an awful lot of admin. So, we spent our first Italian sunset not sipping spritzes and nibbling little bits of bruschetta, but sitting in a dingy port office, waiting for an almost impressively slow-moving police officer to stamp us in. 

Mercifully, we made it out eventually and spent the evening with our mates, eating things and wandering around the town. With its high city walls, narrow streets and azure water, Otranto really is charming. And I’m told that there’s a cathedral decorated with the bones of 800 Christians. So, you know, something for everyone. 

Tempted though I was to look in on the human remains, we spent the following morning filing (YET MORE) paperwork to the port authorities and buying provisions for the journey. Not to sound too miserly but MAMMA MIA Italy is pricey. A canister of gas for the stove will set you back the best part of €100 (in Greece they’re about €30), while a spot in a marina is €150 standard (in Greece it’s max €40) (love u Greece!). But the biggest scandal? The cost of a spritz. Let’s just say you wouldn’t get much change from a €10 note. How are we meant to uphold our reputation as boozy Brits abroad at those prices? 

Being the functioning alcoholics that we are, we made a dash for the nearest deli to stock up on Aperol, quickly becoming distracted by the variety of pasta shapes and pistachio cream on offer. Provisioning in the land of gorgonzola and Mutti tomatoes really is quite enjoyable. But we do need to talk about yoghurt. Will somebody pls tell me who actually enjoys the lumpy variety sold on the continent? Like, are they actual masochists? 

Still, what Otranto lacked in fermented dairy products, it made up for in sandwiches. If you ever go, do yourself a favour and order the melanzane focaccia from Postofisso Pucceria Agricola - ideally eating it on a boat with your mates, listening to Reggae covers of Coldplay (I’d like to publicly thank Ariana Monioudis for bringing this precious playlist into our lives). 

We set sail for Santa Maria di Leuca - a buzzy town in Salento, Puglia - that afternoon, arriving in the early evening. By that time, the bay was brimming with boats (whose owners, like us, resented the €150 marina fee). Of course, there’s no space too small for Captain Chazzle - and he deftly dropped anchor without so much as a bumper bash. After a celebratory swim, we hopped on the tender and zoomed into town. This, it turns out, was a highly illegal move: in Italy, it’s against the law to leave one’s yacht unattended. Still, being the fun-loving criminals that we are, we disregarded the rules and headed out in search of food - promptly being refused entry to several restaurants (on account of it being a big bank holiday and us having not booked), before settling in a concerningly quiet establishment with astroturf flooring. 

The night was saved, as it so often is, by a frozen dessert. Hats off to the Italians: they sure can make gelato. And for a bargain price too (finally a bargain!). For €2, you can get a small cup - containing not one but TWO flavours (half a scoop of each) - which, actually, is all you really want after a big plate of ravioli. Usually, I’m pushed into purchasing two scoops (€4) because I simply must sample the hazelnut AND pistachio. Now I get to enjoy both for half the cost (and half the calories, ladies 💅). 

Buzzed though I was by this revelation (plus, no doubt, the amount of sugar I’d just ingested), it was soon time for bed - as we had an epic 12-hour sail ahead of us the following day - right across the arch of Italy’s boot, to Calabria. Not knowing much about Italy’s southernmost region, I attempted some research, stumbling upon this piece in the Telegraph, which calls the area a “hard sell… blighted by poverty and emigration, and hidebound by an unforgiving climate and the harshest of landscapes.” Suddenly, it felt like we were on our way to Idlib. But when we arrived, I was delighted to discover white sandy beaches and blue water. So unlike the Telegraph to be so scaremongering.

Having anchored off a beach close to Roccella Ionica, we all had a heavenly evening. Well, all except for Marcus, who sustained an injury to his eardrum after diving down to retrieve my sunglasses from the seabed. Also, to add insult to injury, he made the somewhat catastrophic decision of putting his phone in Hannah’s dry bag (which it turned out had a quite sizeable hole in it) when we all swam to shore. Still, he remained in great spirits - and how could he not? Charlie - who had also suffered an injury (a minor cut to his big toe) - was abstaining from swimming for “healing purposes”, so paddle boarded to the beach instead - bringing half of our drinks cabinet and several bags of crisps with him. As the sun set, we enjoyed a heated round of Finland’s greatest export (the stick throwing game Mölkky) - Ariana storming to victory, much to Charlie’s shock and dismay. The #perfectevening was rounded off with ricotta pasta (ngl feta is better), watching The Talented Mr Ripley (Matt Damon version) on the big screen - all of us swooning over Jude Law’s white turn-up trousers and knitted shirt combo. 

Having ended the day on such a high, there was only one way things could go. And the following morning - on her way to the bathroom for a wee - Ariana was brought back down to earth with a bang, when a big wave caused the door to slam - trapping her finger in the frame. I waltzed out of my room to find her a sickly shade of sage, clutching the sink - at which point she promptly collapsed. Lucy and I scooped her up and thrust some water into her sweaty palm - but there was little time for sympathy, as we had a 12 hour sail ahead of us, all the way to Taormina.

Later that day, in a bid to lift (my) spirits, I insisted on a paddle board surfing session (in which participants are dragged along behind the boat), before initiating a round of The Killers boataoke (like karaoke but on a boat and specifically limited to songs by The Killers). Hannah rose to the challenge magnificently, dazzling the crowd with a postmodern interpretation of For Reasons Unknown, before Lucy went slightly off theme with an admittedly spirited rendition of The Darkness’ I Believe in a Thing Called Love. I’ll put my hands up and say that my All These Things That I’ve Done received a lukewarm response - but the crowd did seem to quite enjoy my saucy take on Muse’s Time is Running Out (I know I did technically break my own rule but I knew I could never top Marcus’ deeply soulful When You Were Young or Chazzle’s technically excellent Read My Mind).

No doubt everyone was relieved when, at about 6PM, Sicily heaved into view - Mount Etna silently smouldering in the background. Upon arriving, the penny dropped that you can’t actually sail to Taormina - it being perched high on a clifftop, requiring a bus or cable car journey to reach. Instead, we positioned ourselves outside of the slightly charmless stretch of coastline that sits directly below it, where - for the bargain price of €170 - you can tether your boat to a buoy in the bay. Being the penny-pinchers that we are, we opted to drop anchor instead, tendering to shore with all our rubbish (it having been a while since we last emptied the bins).

Unfortunately, we discovered that the dock was reserved for buoy customers only, so - all dressed up for dinner - we had to heave the tender onto shore and wedge it precariously between two fishing boats. To make matters worse, we couldn’t find any skips in which to chuck the rubbish, so decided to board the extremely busy bus up to Taormina accompanied by several bin bags. Not quite the glamorous arrival we were going for but at least we bloody got here. Now somebody get me a €10 spritz.