Day 47

This morning we woke up right on time and were ready to leave Rocella Ionica and head for Crotone. We hit our first roadblock (our Amazing Race challenge for the day) about 10 seconds later when we tried to get gas for the boat. Turns out they don't have a gas station here. We were informed by the coast guard that fuel can be delivered but it requires calling 24 hours in advance. And since tomorrow was a holiday no one would be able to deliver gas until Monday. This was a BIG problem because of the weather schedule, and our reservations with other ports, and the fact that we are trying to make it to our scheduled appointment on Tuesday with the Raymarine repairman (we're having a slight electrical problem with our navigation system). All other options that we came up with (like getting gasoline from another port nearby, etc.) were not possible, according to what the coast guards were telling us.

Finally a nice man named Giovanni, who happened to show up, told us that he would drive us into town and help us get gas from a station a few miles away. But only if we could wait 2-3 hours for him to come back from class.



Given our options, we decided to wait. In the meantime, dad took his bike out to look around and see what else he could find. On his journey he ran across a few other people searching for gas like we were, and a man who said that he had a friend who could deliver gas to us in about 1 hour. Even though we already had Giovanni comming back for us later, dad thought that we would need both options in case one fell through.

In the end both options came through. Giovanni took Bec and I into town and we carried about 70 liters back.



The other guy gave us another 70 liters or so and we were able to fill our tanks.

Finally at about 1:00 pm we were on our way to Crotone. On the way, we saw dolphins again. They were more in the distance today but they were jumping out of the water a lot, sometimes two at a time.



I finished my fourth book so far for the trip. I love endless vacation! We finally arrived a little later than planned but relieved to have made it without loosing too much time.

Crotone is an ancient city that is more of an industrial center now. It's one of the poorer areas of Italy and it's not as pretty as the other towns that we have been staying in. After we got docked, Linds, Becca, and I walked into town to check out the festival/celebration that was going on in town. A lot of people were out and there were a few special karaoke performers including this guy:



Even with this jacket, gold Nikes, and the fog machine that he used for dramatic effect, the Italians seemed to be taking him very seriously.