We are off! Really we have got everything done and
a little later than we wanted, at 10:30 we slip our mooring to make our way to
Marzamemi. Richard told me it was
a short hop, but it turns out to be 35 miles! The day is lovely.
Sunny, but not too hot. In
fact, on the boat under the shade of the bimini and in the breeze I am cold! I
wind up having to sail in long trousers a tee shirt and a Breton top, and I’m
still not warm.
We start out in a force 2,
but Richard really wants to sail.
It is a following wind, so he poles out the genoa and we proceed at a
gentle 3knots. But as usual, the
wind is fluky. It was forecast to
be a four, and for most of the morning that is what it is. But of course it starts to gust. The problem is that we have the genoa
poled out and the wind shifts so we need to gybe. That means Richard going up to the bows to move the
pole. Not a problem in a force 4,
but when it starts to blow a steady 5 gusting 6, it is a bit more dicey. After lunch the wind really gets up and
we a on a steady force 6 for about an hour.
Finally the wind settles
down again to the top of a 4 and bottom of a 5. We are going along nicely and suddenly I am very
sleepy. The fresh air has got to
me and I keep dozing off.
With the late start and the
light winds to start we are taking rather longer than we hoped. But when the wind picks up we get back
on to target. On the way we see three
Italian naval vessels. We wonder
if this has anything to do with the immigrant boats. But luckily we see nothing of that.
The wind is continuing to
build and has gone around a bit, so R goes forward to take down the whisker
pole. But guess what, it won’t go
down! In the end he has to take it
off altogether and pass it to me.
We store it below, but it takes up all the saloon. Hopefully, R can sort it out when we
get to port.
As we approach the last 3-4
miles the wind really gets up. At
first it is just 19-20 knots, but then as we approach the harbour it is up to
25 knots! Not what I wanted on my
first trip out of the season. But
Richard is having great fun and is really pleased that we have sailed all the
way here.
We arrive at our mooring at
5:30pm which is not bad going. The
fees are a bit higher than I remember, but it does include water, electricity,
wifi and toilets and showers. I
have a great shower, but apparently the showers in the gents are rubbish.
Richard does manage to free
up the runner for the whisker pole and gets it mounted back on the mast. Silicon spray is wonderful!
We have decided to eat
out. We remember when we were last
here that there was a little restaurant that served very good fresh fish. However, when we walk there it seems to
have changed into a cafeteria and is closed. So we find another (the only other) place. It at first appears to be just a pizza
place, but we find it does have a proper restaurant menu as well and we have a
pleasant enough meal. We try
Botarga, something I’ve meant to eat for some time. It is dried and salted tuna roe. They made a spaghetti dish of it and it is very tasty. We have also drunk too much of their
house white wine. Not good, but it
went down well, nonetheless.
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