The social side of our stay in Marina di Ragusa started before we had even put the passarelle down, when Bill and Judy from S Y Bebe came over to welcome us. So nice to see them again, they have been cruising the globe for some years in their Amel 53, we last met them in 2012 whist chartering in Turkey. On our first evening in Marina di Ragusa we happened upon Restaurante Alle where we were warmly welcomed by the staff and dined on superb fillet steaks, perfect for Charles’s last evening with us.

After waving goodbye to Charles next morning the work started to prepare Pamarzi for the winter. There was a great deal to do but the weather forecast was good and despite the amount of work we looked forward to completing it at a steady pace over the next three weeks and to organising the guardinage and winter jobs list with Willet Marine as well as spending some time exploring Sicily by car.

Bicycles were hoisted out of the lazarette for this is a sizeable marina and the town and supermarket are a couple of miles away along the beach front.

Unfortunately shortly after our arrival we learnt that Lynn’s mother had had yet another fall and was back in hospital (with what turned out to be a broken hip and femur). Inevitably this meant finding earlier flights home and compressing the winter preparations into ten days.

It was hard work but we did manage to get most of the jobs done and the remainder I will complete when I go back out again in December. I won’t bore you with all the boat job details but despite the more intense nature of our preparations we had a wonderful time thanks to the super people we met with. Peter and Virginia on Saildance II, Hugh and Kate on Indaba, Peter and Dee on Invictus and Keith and Stella on Ananda, all of them global voyagers and all like us working hard preparing their boats for the winter but what fun and laughs we had in the evenings at the bar, dining out together, eating aboard each other’s boats, celebrating Lynn’s birthday, making music (three of us could knock a tune out), visiting ‘Montalbano’ sets and any other excuse we could find to get together and enjoy each other’s company . Such friendships have been forged in so short a time, we will miss them all and very sincerely hope that our voyaging paths will cross again and that we will all keep in touch; special people with a special place in our hearts. Simon and Kim on Britican yet another Oyster arrived a little later so nice to meet them and their four year old crew member (daughter) Sienna.

It was with heavy hearts that we locked up Pamarzi on Sunday the 19^th  October and with all our new found friends we walked up the broad central pontoon nicknamed the runway to our taxi which drove us to Catania airport. We wishing that we were with the others breakfasting at the marina restaurant!

Despite the more rushed than we had hoped for end to our season we have really enjoyed the last couple of weeks and it has rounded off what has been a wonderfully exciting, interesting, fun and occasionally scary cruising season.

For next year we are thinking about Malta and Pantellaria, Tunisia, Greece, Montenegro and Croatia. It’s a big, big world and so much to see and experience, we can’t wait but we must –watch this space!