We had hoped to make our way up on Thursday towards Bari or Monopoli to meet our first guest of the season, Michael, but it was not to be. We were waiting for the delivery of a new passarelle (gangplank) we had ordered before going back to the UK. Apparently, the supplier in Italy had sent it to the local warehouse and they had tried to deliver it but the marina had no knowledge of it. Our patience was being tried as we wanted to get away. Jo ended up waiting 2.5 hours at the marina office for the courier to turn up. Finally, at 12.30 the package arrived and we could leave. At 1.45pm we slipped our mooring and went the couple of miles to the Town Quay in Brindisi to meet up with Michael who had taken several trains from Naples to join us.

After a meal out at one of the nearby restaurants, we retired to bed as we had a very early start the next day. At 6.45am we left with virtually no wind to make the 60nm up the coast to Bari. With very little wind and some current against us we had the motor on 2,000 revs for the next 11 hours. All in all, an uneventful journey.

Bari is the second city of Southern Italy after Naples and has many ferry lines going across to Greece, Croatia and Montonegro so the harbour is huge with several marinas in both the commercial port and the old town port. We decided on Nautica Ranieri in the commercial port as we are considering leaving the boat there over the winter and wanted to check out the boatyard.

We were going to leave at midday today to make our way to the Tremeti Islands just north of Vieste. It should take us about 18 hours. However, the weather gods had other ideas (again) and the wind was forecast to pick up from the NW as would the swell. This would make it a long tack up the coast with a large swell. All in all an uncomfortable and long journey so we decided to wait 24 hours and enjoy Bari.  So, this morning after a leisurely breakfast we took the bus into town. The old city is lovely and even had a fish market where we bought some seppia (a sort of cuttlefish) to cook for lunch. There is a basilica and a cathedral as there are two patron saints – bit greedy, I thought. Lazy afternoon back on the boat after our lunch of breadcrumbed cuttlefish and salad and now watching Eurovision on the iPlayer!