Week 14: Syracuse to Sciacca (144nm)

This was largely a week of rest for Serenity First and her crew, after doing three passages in quick succession over the previous two weeks. We spent 5 days in Syracuse catching up on sleep, eating as much pizza as we could fit in our bellies and exploring the town, as well as fixing various bits on board and doing a few other boat jobs. We finally pulled up the anchor again on Thursday and started working our way along the southern coast of Sicily.

We celebrated our arrival in Siracusa with an evening out in the town. We were pleased that we managed to make it until about 9pm, when the sleep deficit finally caught back up with us, after which we waddled back to Serenity full of bread, cheese and Italian lager for a solid 12 hours of shut eye. When we finally came to in the morning (I think it was still morning), we took stock. We’d managed to get across the Ionian Sea in good time, so we had nearly 2 weeks to get to the west side of Sicily (in prep for our next major hop across to Sardinia). This meant we could afford to settle down in Syracuse for a little while. The boat jobs list never ends, but it had gotten a little longer than we felt comfortable with over the last few weeks so we first set aside a couple of days for maintenance. Of greatest importance for me was giving the engine some TLC – especially the drive belt, which had been wearing quite badly and was starting to look like it might be on its last legs… On the other hand, we’d been going pretty hard since we left Turkey, so we decided we also deserved a couple of days completely devoted to fun and chilling out. With that, our next week had pretty much planned itself and we celebrated with copious gelato. As an aside, I think it’s perhaps a good thing that we are only in Italy for a few weeks as otherwise our waistlines may suffer extensively!

Inexplicably, the nearly empty town quay was still decreed as off-limits by the Guardia Costiera, so we left the marina and anchored off in the bay amidst a selection of other cruising boats, where we’d stay for the rest of our time in Syracuse. I had hoped that a silver lining of being relegated to the anchorage would be that we’d get away from the swarms of mosquitoes that plagued the harbour, but sadly they found us anyway. Even Alec was getting bitten (much to his displeasure, as usually I am their preferred victim)! We waged a strong campaign against the little devils throughout the next four days, brandishing the flyswatter, burning citronella candles and spraying vast quantities of Deet, but these Sicilian bugs are tenacious. At last count I had >20 bites; I am still feeling a bit sorry for myself and consuming a lot of antihistamines to keep my reactions down!

We like to get work out of the way first, so we started off the week with our two days catching up on maintenance. I finally finished repairing the grips on the steering wheels, while Alec wrestled with the rigging and stanchions. One of the zippers on our spray hood (the retractable “windshield” of the boat, if you will) had started to detach itself, so I happily took the opportunity to get my new sewing machine out again and stitch it back up. Meanwhile, Alec worked on upgrades and adjustments to our gas locker, spinnaker set up, deck fittings and reading lights.

By Monday, we were finally ready to face Mick (our nickname for the engine, after Mick Jagger, because he turns in a great performance every time despite age or wear and tear). The alternator needed to be moved for me to get the drive belt off, so we figured while we were at it we’d service that as well. The wiring was largely original and not up to standards, plus the brushes and casing could probably use a clean. So, we started by fully dismounting it, which was harder than it needed to be because there is terrible access to that area of the engine room on Serenity. One of her few flaws! But between Alec and I, each working from one end of the engine (and mostly at least one of us feeling blindly), we eventually eased off all the connections and bolts and pulled the thing out. I then left Alec happily taking it apart while I went out to find a new drive belt and some engine oil (I had miscalculated ahead of the engine’s previously scheduled maintenance and not had enough oil on board to change it at that time – so now needed to rectify that!).

This necessitated my first solo outing in the dinghy (to get me from Serenity’s spot at anchor to the mainland), which I’m proud to say went without a hitch. I managed to start our 2-stroke outboard by the second pull (on both the outward and return journeys) and most importantly didn’t hit anything. I triumphantly arrived back to Serenity a couple of hours later with oil, belt and some additional goodies for our spares stock (I love shopping!). By then, Alec was reassembling the squeaky-clean alternator. While he wrapped that up, I got down to changing Mick’s transmission oil. Interestingly, the transmission uses the same oil as the engine itself. Using our little red hand pump, I managed to manually extract the old oil before dumping in the new. I was pleased to see that the oil, though a bit dirty, didn’t show any signs of water ingress. This meant the seals on the drive leg below the water were doing their jobs correctly – sigh of relief!

Once Alec had the alternator back together, we carefully attached all its new wiring and manoeuvred it into its position on the engine. We took great pains to try to ensure it was properly aligned with the other pulleys before installing the new drive belt and carefully tightening up all the bolts. We then fired it up and were delighted to see that the alternator was working as it should and the drive belt appeared happily seated. After running it for 10 minutes, we agreed it was good to go, and then got to work cleaning out all the mess we’d made in the bilges.

Having stormed through two long days of boat jobs, we were excited to explore Syracuse the following day. We started with a stroll around the perimeter of Ortiga, the island that forms the north side of the bay. Ortiga is the old town of Syracuse and is a lovely mishmash of crumbling old buildings, beautifully ornate balconies and facades, and the odd, slightly incongruous, streamlined modern addition. The southern tip of the island is commanded by a large fortified castle, while the north end is tipped by an enormous, creepy disused prison. In between there is a lively market, where we procured optimistic quantities of sun-dried tomatoes, and countless cosy cafes. We also enjoyed how the locals made a point of taking advantage of every tiny scrap of beach that could be found around the island. In some cases, they’d constructed elaborate, rickety staircases down to these tiny strips of sand. One has to admire their will!

After Ortiga, we headed inland to the site of the ancient city, on the hillside above the current town. We were amazed to find a large, steep-sided valley (or an extremely large pit) just off to the side of the complex. It turned out to be man made – leftovers from a stone quarry where they had for centuries cut out rock to use for the city’s buildings, altars, walkways, etc. The information at the site explained that the Romans believed the best stone came from deep down, so they excavated a lot! Down in this valley there was a huge, echoing cave where the tyrant Dionysius I apparently liked to keep his prisoners, and another where rope-makers used to work because the moisture helped to shape the fibres. The remains of the city itself were dominated by an enormous amphitheatre that was hewn largely directly from the bedrock. From the top there was a great view all the way down to the water!

It was too hot to stay outside for long, so by lunchtime we retreated to a café for some respite in the air conditioning. It was so nice, we spent the whole afternoon there happily working through life admin. One of our accomplishments was that we finished and posted our newest page on the site here: Visit Us 2019 – the Caribbean! Please check it out (under the “Visit Us!” menu at the top of the page) and come see us next year!

Our second Day of Fun included a trip to the nearby Baroque village of Noto for a mooch round looking at the impressive architecture, followed by a lazy afternoon on the boat. Feeling fully restored after our long stay in Syracuse, we planned out our route towards Sicily’s west coast and got set to leave the following morning.

Come Thursday morning we were all ready for a quick departure. I simply needed to go by the Coast Guard office and check us out, which I though should be a c.15 minute task. Oops! After being sent around all over the Coast Guard headquarters, I finally reached the man I needed to see, who informed me that I would need a transit log for Italy and it would take him some time to prepare. My spirits fell… I had thought only Greece employed the pesky transit log for foreign flagged yachts. Basically, it is a booklet that you have to get stamped by the Coast Guard in every port you stop at, both when you arrive and before you leave. This can be a tough brief to fulfil, because the Coast Guard are not always easy to find and often in the smaller ports they’ve never seen a transit log before. But, dealing with odd bureaucracy is part and parcel to the cruising life, so we soon laughed it off and finally pulled up anchor (we also had to ask permission to do this by calling the Coast Guard over the VHF!).

Around lunchtime we were finally working our way south. The wind sadly refused to play ball, so we ended up motoring the whole way, eventually dropping the hook in the sheltered fishing port of Porto Palo on the SE tip of the island. The next day, Friday, we did not expect to get much in the way of wind until the afternoon. But once it did fill in, it was meant to be a good, steady breeze through the night. So, we decided to take advantage of this and do a 24hr jump. We left Porto Palo early and motored west along the coast through the first half of the day. As promised, around 2pm the wind finally filled in enough for us to sail and we could give Mick (the engine) a rest. But then, about 2:30pm the wind died again. This became a repeated occurrence through the rest of the day – the wind would start to pick up, we’d put out the sails for maybe 20-30 minutes and then it would die on us. After three more such attempts to get sailing, we gave up. It was bad luck; the forecast had just been completely wrong. So, we accepted that we’d have to motor through the night. Poor Mick! Thank goodness we’d given him some love in Syracuse so we knew he was up to the task. Unfortunately this was only the beginning of a series of difficulties that made this passage particularly mentally tough. Despite negligible wind, we had big seas that crashed on the nose and slowed our progress down to a crawl at times, even with the engine at high RPM. The sea was also an utter minefield of poorly marked fish traps. Despite vigilant watches, we accidentally caught one on our fishing line and, later, got one wrapped around the rudder. It was pretty frustrating, but, hey, sometimes this kind of day happens. And each difficulty taught us something (like how to free a fishing line from the rudder), so we take heart from that!

We finally arrived at Sciacca the next morning, where we found a berth at one of the local boat clubs. A lively and very congenial place, several of our neighbours immediately came over to say hello and have a chat. I’d never heard of this town before, but it is beautiful and clearly a lovely community. The land slopes steeply up from the water, and the town looks almost built on top of itself as it rises. One of the great things about cruising is finding little gems like this! Makes a somewhat crappy passage well worth it :).

Next week, we head for the nature reserve of the Egadi Islands and finally the west side of Sicily!