23. A beautiful bay at Tindari - Baia de Oliveri

Tindari has a very large bay and on the west side it is protected by a very high cliff with a majestic monastery with golden domed church on the top which glistened in the evening sun as we arrived. It is one of those special places and I suppose why the monks built a monastery there. 

The wind was starting to build up as we arrived and there were motorboats enjoying the weekend. 

One advantage of the wind was that it kept most of the small motorboats away so there were just some large motor boats which again left as the sun went down. 

The yachts were then left on their own at anchor. The north west corner has a long sand spit reaching about one and half kilometres or one mile approximately to the East and this provided good protection from the sea but not necessarily the wind. 

We depended on the cliff with the monastery to provide that shelter. 

The monastery is home to a black madonna where pilgrims come to pay homage so we felt we were in safe hands.

By morning the wind got up gradually increasing to gusting up to 28 knots or 32 mph.

We were swinging quite a lot fortunately on a flat sea as we were protected by the sand spit but it seems the cliff and the monastery was not helping too much as we were being blown about but we felt quite safe.

                                    The monastery at the top of the cliff

    

                

                        Someone arrived early to get a good place!             

                                        The sand spit ended in a beach

It is remarkable with the ingenuity of how many varied ways there are now to harness the wind 

This fellow was actually very good but I guess was just too tired as he had been going up and down for hours.

By evening the wind was settling and we had a peaceful night and the morning was blissful with a flat calm sea so a swim was called for. Exercises were done so now ready for the next burst of wind energy which was due from the West. Again as the evening came the wind subsided and calm arrived. But not for long! The local restaurant started the rock and rapping music with inevitable boom boom. The restaurant was packed and everyone having a great time and then suddenly at 9 pm it all stopped. Peace again!