Much as we didn't want to, we had to leave Palermo and move on to our next stop, Castellammare del Golfo. At this time of the year it is a sleepy place and not a single umbrella is to be seen on the long white beach. This felt more like the level of activity we had become accustomed to and we spent a very relaxing couple of days here. One hour of which was spent at the top of the mast sorting out a wiring issue and releasing the spare halyard which had become stuck. This is an activity usually reserved for someone much lighter than me, but given that Catherine would rather be in control of the winch (and my fate) than be 20 meters up in the air on a rocking piece of aluminium, it fell to me to pretend I was fearless. I do quite a good impression - on the outside.
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| Arrival view of Castellammare |
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| Co-skipper's reading room |
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| A shrine to plasterers |
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| Restaurants a plenty |
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As the timetable to get to Ragusa started to catch up with us we left two days later for Trapani, a town neither of us had heard of, but which we discovered to be a charming place. In this instance though safe refuge was probably the main quality we shall remember it by. We had seen bad weather forecast and since we knew it was the kind where you can't even leave the boat, we took the opportunity to visit Marsala by car before things got windy. After working out the pedals and mirrors and indicator thingies we set off - I haven't driven a car in months. Of course we went Marsala tasting too and some preconceived notions of the wine being a sickly sweet cooking tipple for chicken were soon dispelled when we tasted an ancient blend made according to the Soleras method. A word of advice, "Fine Marsala" is the lowest quality and is to be avoided.
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| Marsala |
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| 5000 litre barrels of Marsala |
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We made our way back to Trapani and the marina in the evening and found that the Ormeggiatore had moved our boat from the external SE facing pontoon to an inner NW facing one to make room for a 66ft Oyster. This turned out to be very fortuitous as early the next morning, exactly as predicted, the low pressure system kicked in and the Scirocco started blowing with a vengeance. Well, actually it started with what we later thought was quite a gentle 35 knots, as in the afternoon it was gusting past 50 knots and making life for the Oyster and his neighbours on the outer pontoon very bumpy. So much so, in fact, that the pontoon snapped in half. the Ormeggiatori were amazing and were able to secure everyone, despite some boats breaking cleats as well as multiple mooring lines. I had switched off the instruments but the chap opposite told me he had measured 60.5 knots. In the morning it all seemed to have returned to relative calm. I looked at the reading and it was only 30 knots... there is a palpable sense the season is drawing to a close.
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| Broken Pontoon |
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| Christian fixing in the morning |
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| Bumpy for some |
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Since the sea takes a day or more to settle down after this kind of wind, we took the opportunity to visit Erice, which is not far away. The village is perched on a hilltop 750 metres above sea level and on a clear day you can see Tunisia. This was not a clear day though and we could barely see to the bottom of the hill. We managed to dodge most of the tourists and spent a couple of hours there before returning to the marina and preparing for our sail the next morning. As it turned out a number of us were leaving very early in the morning, some for Sardinia, some for Malta and one for Gibraltar so we gathered at the marina cafe and had a few beers before getting an early night.
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| Trapani polished |
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| ..yet to be polished, |
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| playful, |
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| ..life's a beach. |
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ERICE
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