Our Wakes: 2016

The end of our second season was approaching. It was the end of September and we decided to sail to Rome where  we would leave the boat. Timing was perfect as early October the weather deteriorated and sailing would have been less pleasant. En route to Rome we passed by Giglio island. This small island became famous when the Costa Concordia hit the island and the huge liner sank.The wreck has been removed but to our surprise a huge crane was still on the site. This crane is now removing the platforms that were built to remove the wreck. The people on the island opposed this project as they wanted the platform to become a place where divers would visit  an artificial reef. The ministry of the environment rejected this proposal and now the platforms are being removed using the crane. Our passage from Elba to Giglio was very pleasant with a wind of around 10-12 knots. Once we were close to the island at around 11am, the wind dropped and we had to start the engine and motor for the rest of the day. Rome was still too far away so we headed to the port of Santa Marinella. We spent the night anchored next to the marina. The day after, we visited  the village, but it had nothing of interest to us. At mid-morning we started the engine and headed directly to the port of Rome. The distance was around 44km. As we neared our destination we saw more and more planes landing at Rome's main airport. Our marina is located close to the airport so we knew we were on the right course. The marina (Porto Turistica Roma) is modern and from there it is easy to reach the center of Rome by subway although it does take about 90 minutes . The only disagreeable feature of the marina is the airport, but luckily, from 2300hrs until 0700hrs we are not disturbed.  We now started to prepare the boat for the winter on the days when the weather was not ideal, but when the weather was good, we decided to visit Rome. So far we have visited mainly the Vatican as well as the old port of Rome, Ostia Antica. This place is considered as beautiful as Pompeii, but less frequented by tourists. For more details of our visit to Rome, please go to the stopover section . On the 30 of September we boarded the plane to Belgium and started our cold months in Europe