A Tantalizing Preview of Sardinia

We made a pre-dawn departure from Favignana for an overnight passage to Sardinia, 32 hours of sailing.  

Pre-dawn departure from Favignana, Sicily

This overnight passage was not quite as peaceful as our passage from Corfu to Sicily.  Although there were no big winds (about 8-12 kts for most of the passage) the seas were quite rocky-rolly and we had a bumpy ride of it.  For most of the night we were crashing through the waves with a fairly insistent headwind.  Finally in the last few hours of sailing, as we approached Sardinia, the seas had flattened out a bit and we arrived in Villasimius feeling a bit more comfortable.

Land ho.  Good to see Villasimius

Villasimius beach was a quiet, pleasant resort area.  While we were there it was filled with Norwegian families enjoying the last of the summer.  Early October is the Norwegian autumn school break.  We spent a few days catching up on laundry and walking along the beach watching the families swimming and building sand castles.

Nature's strange rock sculptures

Next we sailed across the Gulf of Cagliari to the main city of Sardinia, Cagliari.  About an hour out from Villasimius a nasty storm with lots of lightning was brewing south of us.  The lightning kept its distance but we did get rained on for about an hour.  The storm stirred up the seas and we had another bumpy ride into Cagliari.

Storm brewing

The stormy weather continued all night with a spectacular lightning show and throughout the next day but we were nicely tucked up at the Marine del Sole.

Approaching Cagliari harbour

We spent a few days in the marina at Cagliari, doing some minor repairs and provisioning.  We decided to haul out Songster for winter in Cagliari, which has plenty of chandleries and facilities for any work that may need doing.  But it was still a bit too early to end the season so we decided to take a bit of a trip around the southwest of Sardinia before returning to Cagliari to haul out.

Our first stop was a pleasant little bay near Capo Malfatano.  We had a fantastic sail there in near perfect conditions – a rare treat in the Mediterranean.

Nuraghe, bronze age edifice, which dot the coast

Beautiful end to a great sailing day

The next day we rounded the corner of Sardinia to Carloforte, a small island off the southwest coast.  Again we had good sailing conditions over the 35 nm passage, even though there were some rough seas.  We were flying along on a beam reach with just a handkerchief of a genoa.

Rough seas

Scooting along at 7.8 kts in 18 kts of wind apparent

We spent 5 days in this wonderful town. Pastel coloured buildings and palm trees lined the waterfront.   Around every corner was a charming narrow street or interesting shops.  We stumbled upon an open air market that had wonderful cheeses, small goods and fresh fruits and veggies. 

Cafes along the waterfront in Carloforte

Market full of cheeses, tuna and speciality oils

Pecorino cheese - a speciality of Sardinia

Pretty pastel coloured buildings

Then we had one of those amazing serendipitous encounters.  Bob had gone to a nearby grocery store while I stayed on the boat cleaning.  While there he met this vivacious petite elderly lady who noticed the Antarctica badge on his coat and started up a long conversation about Antarctica. Bob mentioned it when he got back but didn't think much more of it other than a pleasant encounter.  Then two days later we bumped into her again just outside the marina.  Apparently she had been trying to find Bob but only knew him as an Australian with a boat in the marina.  The office couldn’t help as Songster is British registered so it wouldn’t be apparent that we were Australians.  She then had enlisted the help of some friends who also had a boat at the marina.  This determined lady wanted to invite us to dinner at her house in the hills outside the town.  So two hours later we were being driven to Manuela's house by Paolo and Sylvia and another of their friends from the marina.

We had a wonderful meal and fantastic conversation. Manuela Cadringher is quite an amazing woman.  At 83 she is feisty, vivacious, has a love of life, engaged and engaging.  She said she worked as a journalist at RAI - the Italian television station.  We found out later (after doing Google searches) that she was in fact the editor-in-chief of RAI, won many awards and considered a major international environmental journalist.  She stands only about 4 1/2 feet tall - I tower over her - but she is quite an impressive presence.  We were very much reminded of our other older friend, Tazeena.  It is odd how these 80 something remarkable women somehow latch onto Bob!

The evening was special on so many levels.  After almost 5 years in the Mediterranean this was the first time we spent an evening at the house of a local without any other native English speakers.  (We had been to the homes of expat English but this was the real thing.)  I was struck at how knowledgeable and insightful the company was on world affairs.  The Italian hospitality was fantastic.  The fact that this all came about with two chance encounters (meeting in a supermarket then bumping into them outside the marina) is just boggling. I might just start thinking there is some hand of destiny working on us!

Old city wall

View from the marina

Sadly it was time to leave Carloforte but we vowed to return next season.  We sailed (motored) to a beautiful anchorage off Tuerredda Beach and spent several days swimming, walking along the beach and now watching the Danish families enjoying their autumn school break.

Tuerreda Beach

Songster at anchor

Another Nuraghe - looking forward to exploring these and finding out more about the Nuragic age next year

Full moon rising in Tuerreda

I didn’t want to say goodbye to the season but Mother Nature insisted and it was time to return to Cagliari to get Songster ready for her winter sleep.

 

Hopping Along the South Coast of Sicily

After a rather boring 9 hour motor (no wind) from Malta we arrived at a very nice marina in Marina di Ragusa on the south coast of Sicily.  This is a popular wintering marina in Sicily.  Many people were coming in for the end of the season and getting their boats ready for winter life.  We arrived just in time for the end of summer celebrations held every year in the town.  There was a huge waterfront festival and great fireworks display - actually a competition between three teams.  The fireworks started at midnight and the celebrations went into the very wee hours.  We had a great view from the deck of Songster to watch the fireworks.  

 

 

 

Marina di Ragusa is the port town for the inland city of Ragusa, about 20 km away.  We took a bus to this town which is made up of an old medieval town and a new modern town.  The old town, Ragusa Ibla, was a rabbit warren of winding streets and stairways going up the hillside.  At one point we got quite lost.  It was enjoyable walking all around looking at the beautiful, is sometimes run down, baroque buildings and churches.

The winding pathways along the hillside dwellings in the old town of Ragusa Ibla

Gargoyles supporting a balcony

Duomo San Giorgio

Marina di Ragusa has some lovely beaches and the usual waterside cafes and gelato bars.  It is a popular tourist spot for Italians.  One evening as we were walking through the town square, we came upon a boot scooting, country line dancing competition.  Various groups in American West outfits entertained a fairly bemused crowd with their line dancing and singing of country western songs.

 

 

 

We stayed at Marina di Ragusa for nearly a week as there was some bad weather predicted.  As it turned out it wasn't so bad where we were but other parts of the Eastern Med experienced a very nasty Medicane (Mediterranean hurricane).  We knew some people who were in the middle of it and thought they were going to lose their boat, others did.  A boat tied up to the wharf in Lefkas was bashed so badly it sunk in a matter of minutes. See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_lQ2LBCHWw  We had walked along this stretch of waterfront many times during our winter in Lefkas.

Since leaving Marina di Ragusa we have been doing relatively short hops to marinas along the south coast.  The south coast of Sicily is open and sandy with very few protected places to anchor.  This means we must stay in marinas, which tend to be much more expensive than marinas in Greece or Turkey.  We knew this was going to be the case as we moved west and we just accept these differences as we travel.  Bob is getting much better at manoeuvring Songster, with its long keel, into tight spots so berthing at a marina isn't quite the trauma it used to be (except on the wallet!) 

The definition of a marina is quite different in Italy.  There are some professionally run places like at Marina di Ragusa, but more often a harbour will have multiple pontoons for pleasure boats with each individual pontoon run by a different group or family with varying degrees of facilities and professionalism.  Yet a berth at a pontoon offering only water and electricity, no toilets, showers, laundry or café, will charge as much as a well set out marina providing all these extra facilities.  These ‘pontoon marinas’ really are equivalent in facilities to the town wharfs in Greece and Turkey.  At those town wharfs we would be charged about 10 Euros per night and often they were free.  In Italy a no frills berth on a pontoon costs 4 or 5 times that.  That is as much as we normally would pay for a hotel room when we do land travel.

After leaving Marina di Ragusa we moved on to Licata.  This was a rather run down, poor town with rubbish everywhere - rather sad and depressing. The best kept area was the huge cemetery.   This was a terraced area covering a whole hillside, the size of a small village, filled with ornate and well maintained headstones and mausoleums for whole families.  It was very pretty and interesting to walk amongst the memorials to family, yet just outside the gates were people living in slum conditions.

Town hall in Licata

View of the cemetery and harbour

Next stop was San Leone.  This was a stopping off point to visit the Valley of the Temples, a site of a 5^th Century BC Greek city.  We spent the day tramping around the dusty rocks enjoying the impressive Doric style temples.

Temple of Concordia

The old and the new

Temple of Juno

Temple of Hercules

The rare Agrigento Goat in a pen near the temples - amazing horns!

We did another relatively short hop to Sciacca, a pretty town on the hillside above the waterfront.  To get to the town from the marina we had to walk up over 200 steps.  Once in the piazza we had a fantastic view of the sea and were surrounded by lots of up-market shops and cafes.

Just the right kind of car for Italian streets

Sunset over the harbour at Sciacca

Our final stop in Sicily was Favignana, a pretty island off the northwest cost of the main island.  Favignana was a big tuna fishing area in the mid 19th Century until the locals totally fished out the area.  We went to the tuna museum hoping it would be similar to the great sardine canning museum we saw in southern Portugal ( https://shamballacyc.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-algarve-portugal.html ). Sadly the museum was just the shell of the old facilities and lots of old tins in which the tuna use to be packed. 

The smokestacks and tubs used for processing the tuna

The beach at Favignana with the old tuna processing plant on the left

But there was another archaeological section to the museum which was fantastic. There were displayed bronze naval rams from ancient battle ships. These rams were from a great battle in 10 May 241 BC.  This Battle of the Egadi Islands, which took place a few miles from Favignana, was the decisive battle of the first Punic War between Rome and the Carthaginians. The naval rams were recovered from the ocean floor only a few years ago.  Before this find of 11 rams there were only two in existence and very little known about them.   I was just blown away by these artifacts.  They were decorated in reliefs of Gods or other symbols and in such good condition after 2200 years at the bottom of the ocean.  

A 2000+ year old naval ram

A relief of Nike on the naval ram

The naval ram attached to a reconstructed Roman battleship

Then on our last day at Favignana a boat with lots of divers came into the port.  There was great excitement and back slapping and then an object in a net was lifted onshore by a crane.  It looked like another bronze ram.  It is amazing that the discoveries from over 2000 years ago are still continuing.  I found an article about the recovery of the rams on the internet which may be of interest to anyone wanting more information.  I find it all quite fascinating. http://www.sebastianotusa.it/testi/Royal-Tusa_Egadi_battle%20Curr_WArch.pdf