Adriatic Sailing
3rd-9th April 2026

Martin was relocating his sailing yacht from Tuscany to Bibione on the Adriatic, in range for sailing weekends, and asked me if I'd like to join the crew for part of the adventure. I flew to Bari and joined the second week of the tour. I could then play the Ljubljana Masters Squash tournament (10th-12th April) on the way home, as Ljubljana's a 90 minute Flixbus ride from Trieste, which we'd pass just before Bibione.

Munich to Bari via Milan, with Air Bolomiti and ITA Air

On Friday 3rd April I flew from Munich to Bari via Milan, arriving early afternoon, so I had time to look round Bari. I'd booked a a room for the night and was planning to board Martins 15 metre yacht Jubel on Saturday morning.

Bari

Due to heavy storms in Sicily, the yacht was stuck in Catania harbour on Sicily for 2 days, so would not get to Bari for several days, so I booked a Flixbus the next afternoon to Crotone in the south of Italy.

I spent Friday afternoon & Saturday morning wandering around Bari, witnessing the trasitional, solumn Good Friday Procession of the Mysteries, a centuries-old tradition, where 15-20 sacred statues depicting the Passion of Christ are carried through narrow streets, accompanied by candlelit vigils and funeral marches.

Crotone

After a half hour hike from the Flixbus terminal I arrived at Crotone's Porto Touristico and, in the dark, boarded Jubel, just in time for Spaghetti Vongole with Martin and his crew:

Rainer (who Martin met on his trans-alantic sailing tour),
Klaus (an old friend of Martins with over 30 years of sailing experience),
Alex (Julia's husband) and
Tom (Isabella's husband).

Map

Sailing from Crotone to Santa Maria di Leuca.

After spending the night in Crotone harbour and making some final repairs to the storm-damaged boat, we sailed from Crotone, heading around the heel of Italy, towards Bari, sailing through the night in 3 hour shifts, with an experienced sailor and a deck-hand on each shift. In the evening we had a good westerly wind, and were making 6-8 knots, but during the night the wind shifted to a northerly headwind. So we used the motor to avoid getting even further behind schedule.

Early on Monday morning the motor was no longer moving us forward: was the propellor broken? We slowly sailed into the nearest harbour, Santa Maria di Leuca, for repair. Using the dinghy and diving mask, Klaus saw that a large rope was tightly wrapped around the propellor.

As it was a bank holiday, no diver available to check out the damage: I tried snorkelling below the hull with a knife to cut away the rope. But the water was so cold that after 5 attempts I was starting to go numb, so gave up and we had to wait for the diver. He arrived at 07:20 on Tuesday morning and quickly fixed the problem.

Santa Maria di Leuca

I walked up the 284 steps to the lighthouse and walked around the town, stocking up with a few bare essentials at a small supermarket (water, milk & aperol spritz).

In the eveing we had an excellent sea-food meal to celebrate Tom's birthday.

The rope which was wrapped around our propellor

Santa Maria di Leuca to Pescare

After leaving St.Maria we had permanent headwind, or complete calm: the sea was incredibly flat! So we had to motor all the way. As the autopilot went on the blink, I had plenty of opportunity to practice steering!

As Rainer had to disembark at St Maria di Leuca, Martin & Klaus took alternative 2-hour shifts, whereas the deck-hands could have 4-hours sleep between shifts.

Dolphins near Pescare

I unfortunately only caught the end of the acrobatics, and while I was filming, a dolphin popped up right next to the boat, but was gone before I could pan to it.

Pescare

I disembarked at the port petrol station, catching a bus, 3 trains and a flixbus to get to Ljubljana, via Bologna, Venice and Trieste.

Unfortunately the petrol station was out-of-order, so the crew had to fill up later, and to dontinue the run of bad luck, the boat struck a sandbank whilst leaving the harbour. Fortunately they could free themselves and continue the journey.

Pescare - Bologna

The train tracks are close to the sea all the way to Rimini, offering a wonderful view of endless beaches, although it's fairly built-up with a variety of holiday homes, amusement parks, campsites and blocks of flats.