From Sicily we needed to make two long crossings to get across to the heel of Italy. The evening before we'd planned to leave for the first of those (a 24-hour journey), the weather forecast suddenly changed to predict storms for the next day, scuppering our well-laid plans. We decided to set off immediately so rushed around trying to get everything ready. Ironically, that night we were pretty much surrounded by the thunderstorms we'd hoped to avoid but fortunately managed to dodge the worst of it, at one stage narrowly outrunning a particularly ominous-looking cloud using its own wind. We arrived totally exhausted at Le Castello, only to spend an hour trying to find a decent spot to moor. Not our best day - by the end of it tiredness had completely sapped Gerard's ability to tie knots.

We spent a recovery day in Le Castello which was mostly dedicated to navigational planning and a quick evening stroll to check off the main attractions of the town - a castle (hence the name) and, an obvious highlight, a giant soup bowl that was used in 1998 to make a Guinness Book of Records-worthy fish soup. Awesome.

Next day we had another 24-hour stint to Santa Maria di Leuca which passed reasonably uneventfully. Long crossings generally mean no sleep and lots of snacking for us so our first task on arrival was to restock. We found the only shop in town that was open and wound up being given a taste tour by the friendly shopkeeper. Not a bad business plan because we left with half a kilo of local biscuits (mustazzoli - so good!) and a big slab of cheese (we were unable to discern what type of cheese beyond that it was "fresh cheese") that we hadn't intended on.

From there we hopped along the coast to Brindisi where we tied up on the town quay and spent a really productive 2 days, the crowning achievement being that we finally managed to get our laundry done. The morning we left we discovered the depth meter wasn't reading and suspected it might be dirty. With it not quite being snorkelling weather just yet, the cleaning had to be done from inside which meant temporarily opening up a hole in the bottom of our boat. The two of us managed an Indiana Jones-esque manoeuvre, swapping the meter for a plug but it was incredible to see how much water erupted into the boat in the split second that this 2cm diameter hole was unplugged. It was a bit of an eye opener that it wouldn't take long for the boat to stop being floaty if we had the misfortune of acquiring a permanent hole. Luckily for us the cleaning worked so our depth meter is back in action which hopefully reduces the chance of creating permanent holes.

Our next stop, Monopoli, was our last in Italy - sad! It was a perfect spot to end on with a nice atmosphere and a really cute little old town where we indulged ourselves with a last proper Italian pizza, ice cream, aperitivo and espresso - all of which were delicious of course.

The final big crossing of the recent hat trick took us across to Croatia, to a place called Cavtat just south of Dubrovnik. Unfortunately the forecast wind never materialised so we spent 22 hours on engine - not fun. We were treated to an abundance of dolphins throughout the journey though and experienced our first night sail without a moon; it was so intensely dark that it was impossible to distinguish sky from sea but the stars were amazing.

So that's it for Italy, probably one of our favourite countries in the world. Let's see how Croatia treats us!