Siciliae

The marina in Favignana has room for 20 boats. Still, there are two marinas. One on each side of a concrete pier. We breathed the northern and were greeted by two men in identical red t-shirts.

The two men were also responsible for registration.

Reception and registration have otherwise been sharply separated jobs in the ports in the Mediterranean we have visited so far.

«When the season starts » one of the men answered when Lars asked where toilets and baths were

Yet another reason why the fee was doubled in the season.

But annoying

We had been looking forward to a hot bath after the long and cold crossing. Instead, we walked up to the small town adjacent to the marina. With just 3.000 inhabitants, many cafes, restaurants and hotels it looked like a popular tourist resort.

The season had clearly started here.

We found a free table at one of the cafes. Had croissants and cappuccinoes and watched life in the small square.

A little history

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean. It has 5 million inhabitants and has been influenced by many cultures.

The founder of modern history Thukydides wrote that the original population consisted of three groups. One of them was called Siculi. They emigrated from southern Italy. It was from them that Sicily had got its name.

The Phoenicians (also called Carthaginian and Punic) were the first to colonize Sicily. They settled on the western and northern part. A little later, the Greeks came to the east coast.

Favignana is first mentioned by the Punics. They used the island as a trading station.

Close to Favignana, a few hundred years later, there was a great naval battle. Between Romans and Punics. Many dead soldiers drifted ashore in one of the island's bays. In memory of the bloody battle, the bay has since been named Cala Rossa (the red bay).

The battle ended with a Roman victory over a far larger Punic fleet. Shortly after, the first Punic war ended and Sicily became the first province in the Roman Empire.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the island was taken by Vandals and Ostgates. Around the year 800 came the Saracens, which were expelled by the Normans. Later, the island was occupied by Aragonese and was then part of the principalities in Naples and the Savoy. In 1860, Garibaldi invaded Sicily, which became part of the new Italy.

Sicily has not, unlike Corsica and Sardinia, had a desire to be independent due to linguistic or cultural reasons.

When the Allies occupied Sicily in 1943 , the freedom movement MIS was formed. The movement was rooted in the fear that Italy would become a communist republic. A desire to become a state in the United States could not be met. In 1946, Sicily became part of the Republic of Italy. However, with a comprehensive self-government.

Big catchers

When we came back, one of the two men in the red t-shirt was lying on his stomach on a tiny fleet next to Heron. He stared down into the water. Made gestures with his arms while he shouted excitedly to the man in the other red t-shirt on the concrete pier. He immediately ran down to his colleague on the tiny fleet. Stretched out to the edge where he stared down into the water. Then he shouted as loudly and excitedly as his colleague. The fleet heeled heavily. It looked dangerous. Pia prepared for this year's recording on her mobile phone. Just before the two men were about to fall off the fleet and out into the water, they realized what was happening. The man threw himself over to the opposite side and got the fleet up.

Then he ran up to the concrete pier and came back with a long shaft with an eel knife at one end.

Again, the two men were close to slipping into the water. Again, the man avoided the threatening situation by jumping to the other side in the last minute.

The man on his stomach jogged the shaft with the eel knife towards the bottom. Then he exclaimed a triumphant howl. Quickly pulled the shaft up. On the eel knife was a huge squid. The two men went back to the concrete pier with the catch, which they gesturing and proudly showed to the passers-by.

Decay or?

The night's sailing was still in the body. We relaxed at Heron. Before we really knew and without having planned it, we all slept. A few hours.

When we woke up, we walked over to the other side of the island. It was chilly.

Houses in decay, semi-finished new buildings, waste flowing and lots of cats gave a completely different impression than the cities in Liguria and Tuscany and on Elba and Sardinia. Was it a coincidence ? Was it because we hadn't seen the outskirts of the other cities? Did we seek confirmation that Sicily is a poor region? Were we too tired to receive new impressions? Or?

The questions were many. The answers more.

When we returned to Heron, we went to bed early. Enjoyed the undisturbed sleep until we woke up the next morning.

Tunna hunting

The weather window that had brought us from Sardinia to Sicily was to close the next day. Then there would be a Scirocco from the south. Then a Mistral from the west. Both powerful and with rain. That meant 4-5 days of weather downtime.

We decided to use the window's last day to sail to Trapani in Sicily. We said goodbye to the two men in the red t-shirts. In the late morning we slipped out of the harbor.

Just off the harbor was a fishing dinghy. There was no one on board. There was a special mark on a pole in the middle of the dinghy. This meant that we were in an area that required special attention. Below the mark was a small bow. From the dinghy and 1 mile towards the shore, we saw several dinghies and fish nets in the surface. The area was used by tuna fishermen. Here they caught and slaughtered tuna. The fishing method had been brought to the island by the Phoenicians nearly 3.000 years ago. Later, the method was developed by the Saracens and widely used in most of the Mediterranean.

The method was long ago replaced by other fishing methods and was now used primarily in honor of the tourists at Favignana.

We kept clear of the catch area and headed for the harbor in Trapani.

Inspired by Trapani

Trapani is the westernmost city in Sicily. It's an old town. It was founded by the Elymians - another of Sicily's original three population groups. The town has a little less than 70.000 inhabitants, a large industrial port, several marinas and a few boat yards.

As we approached the harbor entrance, we called the port office on the VHF. Got a receipt right away. The voice in the VHF then asked about our nationality and the latest port. After our reply we got a «You may enter the harbor»

In the large outer harbor we were received by an 'ormeggiatore' in a tender.

«How many days? » He cried to us.

… Hmm.

Agreements on stays are not made with an 'ormeggiatore'. His task is to assist the visitors to the berth. We had read stories of fake 'ormeggiatori' that cheated fees from naive visiting sailors. But our skepticism proved unfounded. We were shown into a vacant berth in the marina Vento di Mistrale.

When we had moored and had been registered in the office, we went for a long walk in the old town, which the marina was next to.

The architect (Mikkel) now came to work and explained about the urban plan and the typical features of buildings and decorations.

The next day, the meteorologists (as usual) were right. In the morning, Scirocco came. From the south. With a strength of 18 m / s.

Trapani is known for its fish market. The marketplace was a few hundred yards from us. A rich selection of fish, cephalopods, lobsters, shrimps were sold from stalls by loudly shouting stallholders, but also from the fishing boats. Here, the marketing was subdued and far less aggressive, yes almost passive. The market was lively. The buyers city residents. The supply of tuna was plentiful and cheap, We had tuna steaks for dinner. Every night the next few days. The Scirocco blew over a day. It was cold. Sometimes it rained heavily. It was hard to believe we were in the Mediterranean at the end of May. Facebook flowed with comments about the exceptionally cold weather throughout the Mediterranean. But the nice lady in the harbor office reassured us with "This is what you can expect in May"

At night we were awakened when Heron was tearing hard in her mooring lines. The wind had turned south and increased. There was nothing else to do but to get out of the warm bed. Put on the strong headlamp and rearrange the mooring lines in the cold rain. After an hour of work, creative thinking and a lot of swearing we could go back to bed.

The next morning, the wind died for a couple of hours. Then it came with renewed strength. Now from the west.

Conversation on the pier

«They are from North Germany » it sounded in an American accent from one of the two men on the pier.

«Oh no we are from Denmark » we said.

«Oh, that's where you're from. We´re from the States, » the man replied and added grinning but with a little seriousness in the voice «You gotta excuse us about Trump »

The two Americans had been sailing from Sardinia one day later than us. They had had cooling problems with the engine and then had turned it off. In the light wind it had gone very slowly. After a day they had lost patience and had started the engine and went at half speed against Trapani. Then they were met by the Scirocco. Now they got lots of wind and big seas. The crew Bob, who was an inexperienced sailor, had anxiously asked the skipper if it was now time to use the ‘heave to’ thing. The skipper didn't think there was any reason to. All was just fine.

«It was only when we came here to Trapani that it became dangerous » he explained. «We dropped the anchor in the outer harbor, but the anchor did not hold and we began to drift towards the break water» he continued.«Then the coast guard came and ordred us to go into the marina. Here we came tonight »

«Bob goes home to Boston tomorrow. My wife comes aboard in a few days. We are waiting for a couple of friends. They have sailed 12 years in the Mediterranean. They are the types that are at least one month in the same place. We sail to Palermo with them. Where are you going ? »

«Palermo too. But we probably won’t see eachother. We sail when the Mistral has settled »

«Too bad. It would have been fun to go together »

Continue

The fourth day the sun came out. The Mistral settled, but there were still big swells. We postponed the departure from Trapani to the next day and left the big port in the morning.

The wind turned to the southwest. That meant it was with us. We put out the genoa. The wind reached a strength of 8-10 m/s. We turned off the engine. Went the same speed as before, but now only with the wind as the driving force. There was still a lot of swell. With the wind in from behind, Heron rolled a lot. Perfect conditions for seasickness. But the whole crew was in great shape when we reached the cape Capo San Vito.

Here we changed the course by 200 degrees and steered directly into the port of San Vito on the eastern side of the cape.

Resort City

Capo San Vito has a long white sandy beach. The water is crystal clear and coloured turquoise by the white sandy bottom well off the shore. It was getting warmer. Tempting with a swim.

But we had to work first.

During the docking a mooring line had gone into the bow thruster. Now the propeller did not move at all when the electric motor was turned on.

We guessed that the drivepin had fulfilled its function and was broken to prevent the engine from burning down. An extra drivepin was, in all luck, part of our spare equipment. The engine had to be removed and the new one inserted.

Hopefully that would solve the problem.

Every man came to work.

Front man handed cushions, sheets, mattresses and cushions to the next man who expedited it further back in the chain. When the cabin was empty, tools were sent the opposite way. The engine was removed. And yes the drivepin was broken. The spare pin was inserted. After some trouble, the engine was put back in place. The four bolts were tightened well. Cushions mattresses, sheets, pillows were put in place in the cabin.

After 5 quarters of an hour we were ready to go over to the white sandy beach with the turquoise water.

Brown seal or?

The bow thruster worked perfectly when we went out the next morning.

...wov

We sailed to the diesel station, filled the 1 / 4 empty tank up, sailed out of the harbor and started the day's voyage to Palermo.

The wind had gone in a westerly direction. Again we got it from the aft. We put out the genoa and turned off the engine.

The swells were smaller than the day before. The rollings as well. After a couple of hours of sailing, the waves' backlash from land became strong and we started the engine to pull properly through the seas.

A little before we had to point the bow to Palermo, a seal stared at us a few hundred yards away. The seal stood with the head and neck out of the water. We could see it was brown. Was it the rare brown seal. Away from the Aegean Sea in Greece?

…Unfortunately.

We didn't come close enough to get a photo of it. But if it wasn't the brown seal, what was it?

Palermo

Palermo is the main city of Sicily. It has one million inhabitants. The harbor is huge. Here are industrial boat yards, a large cruise terminal and ferry connections to Sardinia, Naples and Tunis. The old harbor is for pleasure boats and has many different marinas. Most with visitor berths.

The marina named Sitimar received exceptionally fine reviews. Here we had booked a berth using the Navily app.

An hour before the approach Carl's mobile phone rang.

«Hello this is Ben from Sitimar. We are expecting you this afternoon. Go to the third pontoon. We will be waiting for you there. Call us on channel 72 if you have any problems, » Ben said in perfect English.

And quite right. When we reached the third pontoon in the old harbor, three men waved us into the last vacant berth in the Sitimar marina.

«Only one day? I think you will find it so interesting that you will spend one week here, »said Ben, when we all four were in his office with the cup of coffee he had insisted on serving.

« I always start a relationship with a cup of coffee,» he said and continued, « I want you to see me as your concierge. Table at a restaurant? Rent car? Need a repair? Tickets for the theater? A taxi? Nothing here Ben can’t get for you »

We ordered a taxi to the airport to Mikkel and Lars. Explored Palermo the next day. Early the next morning, while it was still almost dark, we followed them to the end of the marina.

Here Ben's taxi was waiting. Mikkel and Lars got into the taxi and waved goodbye as they headed out towards the airport.

Over noon, an SMS ticked in.

“The flight went fine. Sitting on the train on the way home. Thanks for now"

Strange.

We had spent a month sailing 400 nautical miles from north-eastern Sardinia to Palermo.

And yet we were no more than a couple of hours flight from home. By plane.