Greece, Sicily, Tunisia
In the couple of days leading up to our passage to Sicily, and due to lack of any wind, we hung out at anchor in Pylos, Greece, This gave us time to explore the city and to visit Pylos Castle, also known as Niokastro. A bastion against sea-faring intruders, it was originally built in the 16th century by the Turks. It was fun to walk around the ruins and visit the museum attached that has some excellent exhibits in the underwater archaeology domain. The grounds are full of pine trees that add a nice scent as you survey the scene, imagining the military battles that occurred here hundreds of years ago. Ancient cannons, cannon balls and anchors are placed around the place like sculptures and the views of Navarino Bay are stunning.
On a visit to town, and because it was so calm, and well, one of our paddle boards had steadfastly refused to be repaired - despite Gavin’s best attempts - we bought a new orange one. She’s a bit of a beast but my fav colour!
When you see the pictures above you can understand how calm it was in Pylos and why we had to wait around for wind. The last picture shows wind developing as we headed out that morning, 27th of July, to Sicily. Using Predict Wind’s departure planning feature, Gavin plotted what seemed like the most efficient course. It was south of the lay line and had us arriving in two days time. We hoisted our sails at 7:30am and immediately were faced with 25 knot winds and a sea coming from two directions. This caused the boat to leap around uncomfortably and render me fairly useless as a crew member- the only crew member I might add. Two reefs were put in very quickly and later the second day we reefed the head sail too. We averaged 8.5 knots boat speed for the first 12 hours and would have gone faster but for the big sea state, two metre swells from the north, with the odd one coming from another direction, yeah, I didn’t love it much. There’s something about waves crashing over the helm stations and drenching the cockpit and the big crash that happens when you go over a large wave mid-ocean that will never agree with me. Meanwhile, Gavin maintains a grin, he is a true and capable mariner. I should add that there was a calm patch in the middle where we motor sailed and I was able to make some breakfast. We even put the Code O up for a period on the second day. Had we altered our course to Malta it would have been an easier passage but we pressed on and finally arrived in Syracuse Sicily on the 29th of July at 5:30am.
The Grand Harbour in Syracuse is something to behold and our first glimpse of it was with a behemoth of a cruise ship tied up to the port against the old city. It seemed so out of place! Also highly visible, and comforting as well, the big ship Humanity used for rescuing people at sea. This felt very significant to us knowing the sea we are currently sailing in is often the path refugees are taking to escape impossible situations in their homeland, and tragically, dying in.
We were feeling whacked and salty and in need of some boat cleaning and re-provisioning, so we took a marina berth for two nights in Marina Yachting Syracuse. Here Dino runs the show and soft jazz music is played all day. It was 200 euro a night, plus power and water, but we reckoned it was a worth it to rebuild the boat (and me), after our tough passage.
Getting our documentation sorted was interesting. You need a Constitutio di Arrivió to have a boat in Italy and we diligently turned up to the Coast Guard and Port Police to sort this. Long story short, due to their lack of interest and conflicting information on who provides this document, along with it being the weekend, it took several days to sort. It was comedic at times, us begging the powers that be, to make us legal tourists in Italy, but we got there in the end.
We enjoyed exploring Ortigia Island, (connected by a bridge and considered the historical centre of Syracuse), having our aperitivo and doing some shopping there too. Seeing the locals and other Italians enjoying their high summer on the beaches was amazing. They raft up their fizz boats together and all float around on inflatables, families and friends on the sea, well into the evening. Who can blame them, the temperature remains in the late 20’s most of the night and the sea a comfortable 27 degrees.
The market in Syracuse is probably the best we’ve seen, everything you can imagine in one outdoor space and produce so fresh and cheap! Needless to say, we stocked up before leaving the marina.
Our last day we visited Neapolis, the Archaeological Park, an important site containing the remains of the ancient Greek and Roman city of Syracuse, (founded in 734BC), now a UNESCO listed site.
Our next stop was Catania, an ancient port city on Sicily’s east coast. We took a couple of days to get there enjoying different anchors along the way. Catania sits at the foot of Mt Etna and while we’d talked about doing a tour up to the volcano, we chose not to, rather watched her from various anchor positions, steam continually blowing out of her cone. The town is a bit edgy and wild compared to Syracuse, (we thought) no doubt due to the large student population who live there and who attend the University of Catania. We watched student protests in the main square and even witnessed a wedding procession enter the main gate to the city. There was a miniature train tour on offer that visits the most popular city sites so we took it, an easy way to take it all in while sitting down in the heat! We also visited the famous La Pescheria weekday fish market which is quite a noisy spectacle with all the vendors shouting their particular offer. It was in Catania that we fell in love with a delicious breakfast treat enjoyed by the locals, sweet ricotta cheese stuffed into a light and fluffy pastry. We will have to wean ourselves off that in time…….
A sail around Sicily wouldn’t be complete without a stop in Taormina, especially for people who loved The White Lotus, Season 2! For boaties the gig is that you take a mooring ball, or, find a place to anchor in reasonably shallow water nearby. The mooring ball guy couldn’t possibly fit everyone into his ‘paid for’ section of the bay and when we arrived in the afternoon, it was evident he was full, and anchoring among the super yachts (and other boats) was our best option. From anchor you gaze up at the city of Taormina and just know it’s going to be a fun, but fairly vertical and hot walk up to it. Interestingly, we met a few people in the bay, including a Kiwi, London based woman who was skippering her own Catamaran, who advised strongly against walking up. They all insisted that taking the bus for a mere 3 euro was the way to go. We ignored that advice and struck out early the next morning. In fact it was a great walk up and a pretty sacred experience to arrive in Taormina before the crowds. We explored every street, park and alley plus the famous sites. We especially loved checking out the places where Tanya and others in White Lotus had scenes! It’s a gorgeous town and we’d both love to come again and stay in the village as I think it would offer unlimited delights in restaurants and nightlife.
Getting down from Taormina, well, we kind of messed that up, taking the gondola option (6 euros a piece) and arriving about 6 kilometres from where our dinghy was beached. It was around 1pm and hotter than hell and while we scoped out for a bus or taxi we couldn’t find one. In the end we walked all the way back to where our dinghy was (an hour) and ordered a cold beer and sandwich from the beach bar before heading back to the boat.
The Straits of Messina can be a complicated piece of water that link mainland Italy with Sicily. You have to pay attention to currents and tides and the huge amount of ferries and ships that cross here daily. For the first part of the day we motored close to the shore on the west side, crossing over at the very end to the east side, where we were now on mainland Italy. We had a night in Scilla, a town with ancient origins and is the traditional site of the sea monster Scylla in Greek Mythology. It was odd that we were the only (big) boat in the bay as we’d travelled up the Straits with several other yachts that were on their way somewhere! It was a gem of a place to stay where a mooring ball cost 80 euros. For that 80 euro they pick you up and bring you back to your boat after you have had a tour of the city and/or dinner, which we appreciated. The Ruffo Castle was a short climb up and offered a gorgeous view of the bay and Waiata floating solo.
At this point we had intended to spend some time and fully explore the Aeolian Islands, including, but not limited to, Stromboli, Salina, Vulcana and Lipari. But we were running out of time and wind, in our quest to get to Trapani, our launching spot to exit Italy (temporarily) and arrive in Tunisia, (a necessary stop to cover off our boat VAT issues, more on that later). We needed to keep moving, thus we only managed to have a couple of nights anchored in Lipari as the sum total our Aeolian Islands experience this season - we vow to revisit it!
From there we scooted over to Cefalu on mainland northern Sicily, a gorgeous and crowded town where we watched the most amazing fireworks display either of us have ever seen, that started at 1am, an annual celebration for the city.
We then sailed on to Palermo and anchored near a marina in the industrial part of town. It wasn’t a pretty anchorage, but it’s one of only two places where yachts are permitted to anchor and you can easily take a bus into Palermo for a few euro, which we did. In Palermo we took an open bus tour of the city sites, it really is the best way to see it all, keep cool and rest your feet. So many beautiful buildings, cathedrals and monuments are in this city, including one modern looking sculpture dedicated to the victims of the Mafia.
I had one of the best meals of my life in Palermo, found in the back streets, a wee restaurant which served up a delicious pasta vongole (clam linguine) for 8 euro!
Our final anchor before arriving in Trapani was at San Vito Lo Capo, a town whose surrounding land was on fire in July and was looking mighty fine in August, the clearest water ever!
Trapani is an ancient town (most towns here are ancient!) on the west coast of Sicily and was the perfect place for us to make the trip to Bizert in Tunisia. Why Tunisia? The rule is if you own a boat that hasn’t paid VAT, (value added tax) because, say, you are a foreigner who bought a boat here, you need to take the boat out of the EU every 18 months. It only needs a stamp in, or a receipt in fuel to cover this administrative detail off and many, many boaties are doing this all the time.
I was quite fearful of going there for two reasons. One, I still had a bit of PTSD from the Pylos to Sicily trip, but also, I was aware of the conflicts going on and migrants fleeing from there, often with disastrous outcomes. But there was no getting out of it and in fact, it was becoming a ‘monkey on our back’ of worry as we’d met some Kiwi’s on a boat in Syracuse who’d got stung over the Covid period. They were unable to get to Italy and their new boat - and take her out of the EU - and it was subsequently seized and they had to pay hundreds of thousands of tax dollars they could have avoided.
The passage would be 120 nautical miles and we took extra care to ensure the wind would be favourable. After another lengthy process to check out of Italy, (sigh), we set sail around 11am to Tunisia and I’m pleased to say it was a most enjoyable overnight passage. Putting the table down in the main salon to create a bed was genius and we had nice linen and fluffy pillows to add to my comfort, LOL. A relatively calm sea and a 15 knot sou’easter meant for some good hours sailing. Then of course, it died for a bit, and then it came back, but there certainly were no dramas to write about.
The officials in Tunisia were nice but very official and inspected our boat many times. They took our drone and passports until we would check out the next morning. We paid a few bribes as we’d been told that was to be expected, let’s call them ‘tips’. If you know me, you’ll guess that I possibly overdid it, (picture Gavin rolling his eyes), but they liked me! We had bought bottles of whiskey for ‘tips’ as our friends told us it was a good idea to offer, but the policeman didn’t like that, ‘we’re Muslims,’ he said, ‘we don’t drink!’
One of the best parts of the 24 hours we spent in Tunisia is that we met two very nice couples from Sydney, Australia on sailing vessel Caramel, who we would sail in tandem with to Sardinia and then ended up having a few anchors together.
I write this from Maddalena in Sardinia, a little late, we have had technical issues with our computer. Funnily enough there are two other Kiwi boats in our bay, we’ve yet to meet them!
There will be a final blog coming soon, thanks for reading!
Best wishes
Dona and Gavin on Waiata
