Sailing up the Calabrian coast we were hit by our first
really bad squall off the fashionable resort of Tropea.
One minute we were motor sailing in a
moderate breeze and the next the wind was literally screaming through the
rigging with rain stinging our faces.
Instinctively we got the sails down fast and started to motor further
offshore.
It lasted about two hours
during which we bucked up and down in a very short and uncomfortable sea,
continually drenched with cold rainwater and occasionally lashed by warm
seawater as the fifty-knot winds whipped the top off a wave and smacked it in
our faces.
During the squall and its
aftermath we were actually approached by two Italian Coastguard Search and
Rescue boats to check that we were OK.
That day we stopped at Vibo Valentia where we chilled out
for a few days and hired a car to explore the Calabrian hinterland.
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