Our journey for this year is nearly over, we spent one day/night in Taormina on the east coast of Sicily due to the inclement weather forecast to descend on us in a few day’s time. We therefore took the opportunity to take the bus up to the village of Taormina high on the hillside.
The village is very touristy without being tacky, the views from the top are spectacular and the narrow streets a hive of activity.
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| Taormina bay |
In one of the plaza's there were some street musicians and thee seemed to be a party atmosphere all around us. We decided to have a meal out, but as it was early it was difficult to find a restaurant that was open, eventually we found one which looked quite quaint, unfortunately the food wasn't and so we were a little disappointed. We caught the bus back down to the small town at the foot of the cliff and had intended to stop off and have a drink before taking the dingy back to the boat, unfortunately nowhere was open and so we just headed back to the boat.
The following day we set off early for Siracusa which is approximately 30 miles further down the coast. As we left we could clearly see Mount Etna surrounded in a red haze it looked spectacular.
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| Mount Etna |
It was obviously getting to the end of the season as we hardly saw any other sail boats the entire journey.
On arrival in Siracusa we set anchor in the south anchorage and initially decided to stay there for four nights, and take shelter from the storm expected in a couple of days. The anchorage was fairly sheltered but the water was not very clear and so not fit for swimming in. The following day we headed ashore in the dingy which we secured just by the marina, then walked into the centre of the town to get some provisions, the weather was not very good and at one point it started raining and so we decided to head back to the boat and tour the old part of the town the following day.
Back on board we shut all the hatches and spent a leisurely afternoon below decks. The next day we set off back to shore, this time we secured the dingy in the town harbour just under the bridge, however there had been reports of dinghies being stolen from around there and so we just hopped it would still be there when we got back. First task was to deposit the laundry and the laundrette before heading off to the old town.
The old town of Siracusa is again filled with impressive old buildings, very narrow streets, some of which no cars could possibly navigate.
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| Old Town of Siracusa |
Earlier in the day we had passed a very nice looking pub which we decide we would have lunch at, on arrival we took a table outside, within seconds we were inundated with flies which were driving us mad and so we decided to find somewhere else. We ended up in a small plaza just off the main one by the cathedral and had a pizza, I have to say it was one of the best we had had this year and the price was good to.
Before heading back to the boat we had to wait for the laundry service to open and so we took the opportunity to sit and watch what looked like a game of water polo in canoes commencing but after forty five minutes we came to the conclusion it was just a practice session. The other fascinating thing was watching the small tourist boats navigate under the bridge, passengers had to more or less lie down in the bottom of the boat in order to get under it
After a bit more sight-seeing we headed back to the boat, we decided to head off early in the morning for Ragusa as we felt there was not really any point in staying in Siracusa any longer, this meant another full day as it was 60 miles around the coast. We did however have the option of stopping of at Porto Pollo on route if we wanted.
During our stay in Siracusa we were entertained by a large fish which constantly jumped out of the water, Kevin nicknamed him “Jumping Jack Flash”, we were not sure what type of fish it was but if we were in Scotland we would have said it was a salmon, unfortunately we were not able to get a photo of our energetic fish.
The following day we set off at 04:00, it was still dark and Kevin had to navigate around the shallows and rocks, along with the small fishing boats in order to get out of the bay.
When daylight broke we found we had two stowaways on board in the guise of flying fish, unfortunately they didn’t survive, and so we initiated our first and hopefully the last burial at sea with Kevin as the skipper doing the honours.
The overall journey was quite uneventful, and we did manage to sail about 50 percent of it which was great as this was to be our last sail this year. We arrived in Ragusa mid-afternoon, the entrance to the marina is quite silted up in places and so we had to follow the direct line of the marianaro into our berth, as we entered the channel for our pontoon Kevin informed me that we had nothing under the keel which was a bit scary, however we managed to secure up without a hitch and were met at our berth by Julie and Dave from Carla Christina, it was great to meet up with them again.
Berthed next to us was a large catamaran owned by an American couple named Rick and Barbara and the berth the other side was empty in readiness for the arrival of Marcel and Helen on Dakini due to arrive in a couple of weeks.
Marina Di Ragusa is situated on the south west coast of Sicily and I have to say is far better than we had been led to believe. The marina is clean and well run and the staff are very friendly, the toilet block is not the twenty minute walk away we had been led to believe, it's more like five minutes. The small village is a short walk and there are sufficient shops to get all you need, the locals are lovely and again very friendly, there is also a lovely beach which is also a short walk away, so all in all we are very pleased with our winter mooring.
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| Stormy clouds at Marina Di Ragusa |
There appears to be a lot going off here, and there is quite a large live-a-board community of varying nationalities and so we are looking forward to meeting up with people, making new friends and attending the various activities before we head back to the UK on the 7th November.
Our Present Position:
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