Santa Marina Salina, Cefalù, Palermo

Cefalù seen from La Rocca

We spent a very pleasant few days at anchor on Vulcano, well, aside from one night when the equation of 30 or so yachts all trying to calculate the optimal swing distance in a small bay didn't quite work out as a sudden squall hit us.  The island is almost tropical and has that same run down feel that buildings in the tropics get when exposed to too much humidity.  The pilot book is less kind though and scoffs about the kind of tourist who comes here for the thermal mud baths. Our vantage point in the bay meant we could not see them anyway. Come to think of it was that the smell of sulphur or, oh, never mind.  Some of our time was spent doing the planning for the last leg of the sail this season, which either meant sailing to Palermo and around Sicily anti-clockwise, or retracing our steps and heading back down the Straits of Messina. Given that we are used to long passages now and wishing to make the most of our last weeks, we decided on the Palermo route. This meant that Salina then the most westerly islands were our next stops.

Peak hour traffic on Salina	Even past residents get a great view
I think Pirates were following us	The industrial centre

The capital, Santa Marina di Salina is a small village, but could survive equally well in the bohemian quarter of any large world city.  The harbour is a well manicured, lava rock construction with good amenities and great shelter. As such they rather exploit the monopoly they have and charge eye-watering amounts for the mooring. I was just looking back at my log book and was reminded how I tried to bargain down the price of a second night in Galixidi. Unsuccessfully I am happy to say, as Salina was tenfold the price plus a bit, and Galixidi is certainly more in need of the revenue.  Nevertheless we stayed two nights and enjoyed a really good meal at a place on the hill that was a recommendation by Gino and Nadine. It was very civilised and felt like we were on holiday.

The Old Man and the Sea - and no fish.

Filicudi was the last of the Aeolian islands we visited. Well, not really visited as we ended up arriving in the late afternoon, attaching ourselves to a buoy and getting an early night for a long sail in the morning. I woke up before dawn and set off while Catherine was still sleeping so we could make more of the daylight when we got to our destination. Cefalù is on the northern Sicilian coast not that far east from Palermo. It is a very popular destination on Sicily, but starting to wind down as the holiday-makers have mostly left. Its colourful history, being occupied variously by Greeks, Normans, Ottomans and now northern europeans has not done much for the selection of fridge magnets on display, but maybe I am just fussy.

Autumnal calm	Terrible marina in a great setting
Evidence of Normans	Walking into town from the marina

After two days and nights in the very exposed and roly harbour it was time to find a more sheltered place. The marina is really awful, but someone there obviously has a sense of humour as the WiFi password is 'thebestmarina' - seriously. Palermo was only 7 hours away and we had a very  pleasant and brisk sail.  As a side-note I can verify that there are absolutely no fish whatsoever between Cefalù
and Palermo, so anyone reading this, wishing to invest time and hope into catching anything along the way is better off reading a book.

Adding colour	Oasis in the chaos
Reality	Bygone glory

Palermo is a gritty, grimy yet delightfully colourful place. You are never more than a few yards away from some facade that is either of huge historical importance or about to fall down, or both.  Of course the clichés about the mafia persist, but that is quite a boring topic given the many more interesting things there are to see. It is a place with its own scars, but unscathed by the presence of the likes of Starbucks, et al. Why would you think of going near a chain for a coffee, when a great espresso costs 90 Cents? Why also would you go to a supermarket chain when the food markets in the bustling alleys offer the freshest, ripest produce for silly low prices? Even the pickpocket threat is exaggerated or maybe we, I mean me of course, look too much like country yokels now and they just move on to clean-shaven tourists (I mean the men of course) with their designer T-shirts and bright sneakers.

Puppet maker

Milliner

Beer drinker

As the last leg of our journey for this season is only just over 200 nautical miles and we have a good two weeks to complete it, we decided to stay on in Palermo for a bit longer and enjoy being in a city again. Who knows, I might even get a haircut.