Adventures of Thésée: The start of the Sicilian Adventure

Sunday 19th July... Dean - We decided to move on today as the wind looked right for our trip across to Sicily. We took Saffy ashore after the morning radio net and bought a few last minute items such as new fishing line and a super fishing lure. We then spent the next hour trying to unravel the fishing line and get it onto the reel.

We had quite a nice sail in the end but the sun was hot so I made sure to keep my hat on.

Trying to cover the white bits

Approaching Capo di Orlando anchorage

First views of Sicily

Impavidus radioed to say the anchorage was fine with lovely turquoise water. Just as we arrived, a dredger from the marina arrived too and started dumping dirty sand right next to us and near the breakwaters. The dredger was rather close for comfort so we thought it a good idea to move to a better spot, leaving Eternite now in the firing line!

Italian coloured dredger..... and Eternite

The water was fairly calm so we decided to stay overnight as planned, taking the dogs ashore for walkies before dusk.

Oscar ready and waiting

A Sicilian family leads the way to the beach exit

The small sign says no dogs!
Too late now

And of course as you would guess no fish during the journey today.

Monday 20th July...Dean Well after a rolly night in the anchorage we decided to move on westwards and find somewhere better for the next few days. We took off in front of the other boats as they needed diesel and water. The sea had quite a swell but very little wind. We looked into our first anchorage but that seemed just as bad so we carried on to a place called Cefalu. We dropped the anchor in a nice part of the harbour but within minutes we were asked to move. We are now anchored just inside the breakwater and all is fine. Warm clear water 5 meters deep.

View along the way

Close up

Strange monument

Motor way

Close up

The rejected first anchorage

hilltop town

Guess what

Finally the anchorage

And of course a close up

The three other boats joined us here in the anchorage a couple of hours later, we had a quick look ashore with Saffy. It's just the marina here so not much to see, but still very nice.

Tuesday 21st July....Dean We had a few jobs to do today as usual so after our walk ashore we got stuck in. When we land on the beach Saffy always seems to pick up some seeds or thorns in her feet so apart from the sand which we try to keep out of the dinghy and boat she has to have her feet cleaned. She has got used to the ordeal.

Time to clean your feet Saffy dog

Sunset

I did a few jobs about the boat and then took a short break out on the paddle board, it's hard work against the wind.

Break time

We needed to discuss our next move so got everybody together for a quick dog walk and beer when the day cooled off a little. The bar by the marina was closing so we went into the posh restaurant and they let us in for drinks and even with the dogs they treated us extremely well.

Posh restaurant

Cheers

We decided to stay for another day as it's quite nice and free. I think tomorrow we will try and walk around to the next bay to look at the town there and after David's exploits on the paddle board today we hope to have a standing up race! I don't think that will last long! It's still a thumbs up for Sicily.

Wednesday 22nd July... LINDA - What's up with Dean? He really got out the wrong side of bed this morning..... complaining about everything and anything. Then at 10am we decided not to stay, but to up anchor and move on 35 miles to Palermo with Bora La. It didn't get any better out at sea because the Chartplotter had a really bad headache and decided it wasn't going to do its thing, and then only after 3 hours it decided to give us some kind of basic information. Now it keeps sounding AIS alarms all the time even though we have got the alarms switched off. Good job we have Navionics on the Ipad as our backup electronic chart, plus we could always use paper charts (yikes 😲) if we really had to. We'll have to try and rectify it over the next few days.

It was about 6pm when we arrived at our pre-booked berth at Sitimar Marina (pontoon) in Palermo. We've read such good reports about this marina so it has a lot to live up to. As we neared Palermo the views were lovely, very mountainous, and a busy port too. Well it is the capital of Sicily after all. Here's some photos of our first impressions....

Views of leaving Cefalu

Leaving Cefalu

Nearing Palermo

Big ships in port

So after arrival we settled and booked in, and indeed the marina manager casually told us to make ourselves at home. It really does have a nice feel and the good reports seem to be spot on. Later in the evening we had a brief walk about in town. It was buzzing with life, with a real vibe about the place. Plus we saw two Wedding couples!! Dean treated me to an ice-cream cone and he had ice cream inside a brioche bun.... that's a new one on us.

Wedding number 1

Thursday 23rd July... LINDA - After checking in and filling out forms (including asking us to take and record our temperature! ) we made a b-line for the Printer Cartridge shop. Ben, the marina manager had already called the shop to check they had the specified cartridges in stock. Brilliant! It was about a 15 minute walk but we didn't mind as we had left Saffy on the boat so we could get a sprint on. The other boats wanted cartridges too so we ended up getting 6 all in all. On the way we passed some fabulous old historical buildings including the wonderful Cathedral.

Not sure what is is/was but looks like

volunteers helping to clear the land

The busy & mad streets

Bank of Italia

Tourist touts

Massimo Theatre and Opera House

Ornate urned rooftops

Welcoming tables

Humungous caulis

Tambourines for dancing the Tarantella

Well, whatever these are, they are bigger than the watermelons

First view of the Cathedral

Fancy decorative brickwork

Palm trees as high as beanstalks

Beautiful colours

Lush gardens

Religious windvanes

Wow

Now along the main street called Via Vittorio Emanuele

..on the corner of Quattro Canti (four Churches)

Our stash of printer cartridges at last,

only 3 for us

Late afternoon we went shopping to Carrefour and they deliver your purchases to the boat for free. Unfortunately by 8pm they hadn't arrived and we had to go out and meet the others. Dean spoke to the night watchman in the marina who said he would take care of the groceries when they arrived. We never got to meet up with the gang in the end but we did have a lovely meal at one of the very many restaurants in town. When we got back our groceries were there waiting for us. Excellent.

Friday 24th July... LINDA - Today was spent washing and brushing up Thesee. Dean hosed the decks, it's a very hot job at the moment so the earlier you get on with it the better. Even though it's already hot at 8am. I did some tidying and catching up with computer stuff whilst we have free wifi. We made another attempt at fixing the Chartplotter issue from Wednesday, Dean even phoning the Raymarine helpline. Their help wasn't very helpful, and as we were about to give up, we fixed it ourselves!! We have two screens (one inside the boat and one at the helm outside), one is the master and one is the repeater. We remembered that on Wednesday when it all went kaput, we changed the helm screen to be the master. So we tried changing it back, and hey presto everything worked just fine. We don't know why it only works that way but for now that's the way it's going to stay! The truth of the matter is that Linda fixed it in the end.

This evening we walked up to the Royal Palace about 30 minutes along the main street. It's impressive but not particularly Royal looking, however there were some lovely gardens surrounding it, so was definately worth while making the effort. On the way back David & Caroline were eager to get some 'street food'. Again, the place he chose was buzzing with life. Dean was well into the scene. I was hesitant at first but once we sat down i felt quite at ease. It was like a piazza and you just get your food and sit anywhere, and a waitress came over from a nearby bar and asked us if wanted to order a drink/food. It seems like anything goes. Tonight instead of a John Travolta we had a Bob Marley. Well at least it's music we like (and know!). Photos to follow...

Yet another church

Nice apartments by the palace

City gates

The Royal Palace

Statue in the palace garden

Saturday 25th July... LINDA - Well we had a rare tourist opportunity today. Leaving Saffy on the boat, we went to the Cathedral again and this time we paid to go inside. It's not often we get to actually go inside somewhere. It was quite amazing and the Crypt itself spooky with so many tombs underground. These first photos show the tombs of Frederick II and Roger II, both Kings of Sicily in the 12th/13th century.

Here's some more photos of other stuff...

This is the resting place of Blessed Giuseppe Puglisi
Murdered by the Mafia in 1993
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pino_Puglisi

Moving on to more views around the Cathedral...

Strangely painted ceilings

Arrows in his torso

Now in the 'underground rooms'....

Some strange contraptions down here

Who goes there?

More tools?

The stairway is so narrow it has traffic lights

Into the Crypt....

Back upstairs....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palermo_Cathedral

After the Cathedral we made our way back via one of the street markets, and this is one of the fish stalls.... with a whopper on the table.

Well it was Saturday night in Palermo and some of us decided to have a bit of a pub crawl.... It was a late night, 1pm to bed. Oh dear, that's all i'm saying.

Sunday 26th July...Dean Not much to report today really. We're leaving here tomorrow so it's a matter of filling water tanks and charging batteries while we can. Hopefully we can anchor for the next few days. I have been concerned about a noise that the Duogen has been making. That's the wind charger. Anyway I decided to take it down and have a closer look at things. One of the gears was badly worn and luckily I had a spare here on the boat. There are two gears that turn through 90 degrees, one is metal (zinc) and the other is nylon. The nylon gear is designed to wear first because the zinc gear is complicated to change.

The zinc gear cleaned up

It's a bit of a dirty job as the grease for lubricating the gears is black and sticky so it attracts the dust and dirt. Once cleaned up and fresh grease is applied and we're good to go.

The new nylon gear

Ready for action

Water tank filters ready for action

Monday 27th July... LINDA - Time to say cheerio to Palermo and onwards to our next stop, somewhere near Capo San Vito which is the headland where you go round the corner to the West Sicilian coastline. Everyone got a good sail in with wind on the beam and a fairly flattish sea.

We opted to go for the anchorage at Macari. We're here tonight sitting out some katabatic winds from the high cliffs, let's hope it doesn't last all night long.

Tonight's anchorage...

these are the low cliffs!

Walkies before sunset

Thesee and Impavidus

Rocky beach landing

Tuesday 28th July... LINDA - The wind stopped in an instant last night about 11pm and we had a very peaceful night thereafter, waking up to a magnificent morning. The anchorage was serene, the water so still we could see the sandy bottom clearly at 7 metres below with lots of fish swimming about. Morning walkies was a delight.

Now that's the kind of anchorage we like

Crystal clear water

Shame to leave when it's like this

No sunbathers yet, just us four dog walkers

The fishes

It was 10am when we all departed for a 17 mile journey down the coast to Trapani. Once we were out of the bay we realised how protected it had really been and we soon picked up the North Easterly winds behind us which were already gusting around 20 knots. The point of sail we were on is called a 'training run'....so we were about 150 degrees off the wind direction. After about 3 hours we rolled the genoa away and gybed the mainsail to head the last couple of miles towards Trapani harbour. Well as always happens, the big ferry appears and then the fishing boats so it was a bit tricky trying to turn head to wind to get the mainsail down and we had to pick our moment.

The wind was still blowing 20 knots and we still had to call the Port Control on VHF Channel 10 for permission to enter the harbour. The communications were quite difficult at first but after a number of questions they asked including 'how is your hurt?' (which we later found out to mean 'how is your health?)' we were granted permission to enter the harbour and go into the anchorage for 2 days maximum. Following that, the Port Patrol had to go through it all again with Impavidus, and then Eternite, so we kept them busy for a while!

More jagged headlands on the way

The anchorage is unusual being inside a harbour and it kind of feels like being in a lagoon. It's pretty much protected 360 degrees, and we've read good reports about it. So later on we went ashore to have a quick look around, and for the obligatory glass of beer and wine.

Heading to the bar

Wednesday 29th July.... LINDA - A great night's sleep apart from Saffy having a cough now and again. And another super morning although not clear water today, being in the harbour.

Looking over to Eternite this morning

9am we were all back on dry land strolling around the fishing harbour looking at this morning's catch which the fishermen were selling straight off their boats. Then to the Fruit & Veg market, which turned out to be one stall (but it was a big stall). They had the biggest watermelons i've ever seen. Six in one shopping trolley and five in the other!!

All sorts of fish varieties available to purchase

Whopping watermelons

Next stop, coffees, cakes, and ice cream (for me). I guess we're a way out of the town but there were a couple of shops about and a few monumental buildings to look at. You kind of feel a bit of Arabian architecture creeping in.

David posing at the monument in the small park/piazza

Now David posing in the cafe!!

A weird and wonderful building next to the cafe

In the backstreets

So it's mid afternoon whilst i'm writing this, and Phil & Cris, David & Caroline have gone off to see the hilltop village of Erice. There is a cable car that goes right up to the top.

We decided to stay on the boat with Saffy, and will hopefully be able to come back during the wintertime when it's a lot cooler than today 😎.