15 Mar - 04 Aug 2001 Sibari

Mediterranean Sea
Southern Ionian Sea
Gulf of Taranto
Sibari
SY "Kamu II" stern to the pontoon, between two steel pilings.
L 225,000.- or DM 225.- per month for low season (Oct - April) and L 490,000.- or DM 490.- per month for high season (May - Sept).

Click below for an interactive aerial view of our marina berth:

Click below for a summary of this year's travels:
2001 Map Konni & Matt







Mediterranean Sea
Southern Ionian Sea
Gulf of Taranto
SY "Kamu II" on the hard.
L 225,000.- or DM 225.- per month for low season (Oct - April) and L 490,000.- or DM 490.- per month for high season (May - Sept).

Click below for an interactive aerial view of our ship out of the water:

Click below for a summary of this year's travels:
2001 Map Konni & Matt







Arriving by plane from Johannesburg (where we had been travelling as livaboards 24/7 in our Series III Land Rover I6 LWB, with Salisbury rear axle and a roof-top tent, through South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana and Namibia for the previous six months) via Zurich and Rome, and preparing our reliable 43-foot Trireme steel ketch SY "Kamu II" for the next years of cruising and “perpetual travelling” through Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Socialising, sharing food, drinks, know-how and cars with a group of wintering yotties from many different countries, especially with Greta & Odd (with their little sons Endre and Lars-Erik) from Norway; with the Germans Jessika from SY "Scheherazade", Klaus from SY "Kailua" and Vera & Werner from SY "Laplayus"; with the Brits Tina & Steve from SY "Esante", Jan & Peter from SY "Harlequin" and with Ria from Holland, and meeting many other great people, such as the marine electrician Vincenzo from Corigliano, the very helpful ship chandlers Loana and Vanni from Sibari, the Italians Mariella and Duilio (the new marina manager from Trieste) and his excellent and helpful crew of technicians: Gaetano, Gino, Mario, Fortunato, Fidele, Pascale and Vincenzo - molto grazie!

Hiking on mule tracks with our Norwegian friends Greta & Odd and their sons through the Pollino National Park in the Sila Mountains, exploring the 910 m deep Raganello gorge which cuts through the park in a north-south direction, crossing the Raganello torrent at the Roman “Devil’s Bridge” (aka Ponte del Diavolo), discovering the old "Albanian" village of Civita and learning about Albanian traditions and customs in these isolated mountain communities in Calabria.

Visiting the Museo Archeologico Nazionale della Sibaritide +390981794869 (entrance fee: L 8,000.- or DM 8.- per person) in Sibari and learning about Magna Graecia, the Greek colonization of Southern Italy and the history of the ancient, 8th-century BCE city of Sybaris, both the most powerful colony of Magna Graecia and the city which created the legendary sybaritic lifestyle.

Exploring the beautifully restored houses and streets of Altomonte (a small gem of a town in the heart of Calabria's "Entroterra"), visiting the famous 14th-century CE church of S. Maria della Consolazione, having a great dinner together with Mariella and Duilio (only a bit overshadowed by an urgent telephone call for Duilio about a fire in the marina where a long-standing difference of opinion between two local families had been sorted out with a few Molotov cocktails thus burning down a nice sailing yacht which belonged to one of the families and had been waiting in the travel lift to be relaunched the next morning) and watching the opera-like performances of the carabinieri, the polizia and the histrionic Calabrese public prosecutor with his inflammatory speech against the local men of honour after our arrival in the marina - to us it was all excellent entertainment.

Konni: Borrowing an asthmatic Volkswagen LT 28 campervan from our Dutch friend Ria and driving all the 1,500 km to Freiburg i.Br./Germany thus traversing almost the full stretch of the long Italian boot from S to N, bypassing Lake Constance, climbing over the Austrian Alps and the Black Forest Mountains in Germany in order to pick up some heavy-weight cruising equipment (e.g. one dive bottle and 101 bottles of South African shiraz) that had proven as far too heavy for airfreight and had been shipped and trucked from Cape Town via Southampton/UK and Bremen/Germany to our daughter Ulrike’s digs in Freiburg i.Br.

Matt: Travelling to Germany by means of a (very social) Italian long-distance bus (one-way ticket from Sibari to Munich for L 150,000.- or DM 150.-), visiting his family in Saxony and our son Armin at the university in Munich, picking up a new 4-seater BFA/DSB life raft in a plastic container and taking the (very agricultural) Italian railway (one-way ticket from Munich to Sibari for L 125,000.- or DM 125.-) back to Sibari.

Cycling together with fellow yotties Debbie & Gary from Sibari to Corigliano, the city of clementines, strolling through the historic city centre and pushing our bikes uphill to the old ducal castle, which was built by Robert Guiscard around 1073 CE as a military post.

Listening to Paulo Coelho (“… the boat is safer anchored at the port; but that’s not the aim of boats ...”), throwing a farewell party for our Italian friends with German pasta and South-African red wine and motoring the first nautical mile of our upcoming long sea journey behind Duilio and Gaetano who piloted us with the marina launch through the dredged, but still shallow (about 2 m of depth) and narrow (about 5 m wide) canale from the marina into the open water of the cheeky Gulf of Taranto.


Recommended books - click below for our order from Germany

For your order from the United States click here
For your order from Canada click here
For your order from the United Kingdom click here