37: 55.88N 12:19.56E

September is a transitional month in the Mediterranean. Some years it has typical settled summer weather and other years it is more like winter weather with gales and rough seas. Guess what?

We stayed in Mahon tied up to this square floating pontoon for 5 days as gale after gale blew through. And this was still the back end of August!

Still we had a great view of the cruise ships as they berthed just up river from us.

There was some more interesting traffic on the river as well

But eventually we got a weather window and on September 1^st set off to attempt to get past Sardinia and on to Sicily. Our longest double handed passage so far was 41 hours and we knew this was going to be at least 4 days. We would have to see if we could cope and if the answer was no we would stop somewhere on Sardinia to rest up and break the passage in two.

The wind was from the south east so against the favoured shorter southern route. We headed towards the north end of Sardinia. Not a promising start! After 24 hours the wind went East which didn’t favour either route and we were now making slow progress.

But there were some good moments. Just after midday on the 2^nd September she who’s in charge of everything chalked up her 10,000 miles on this voyage.

And later that day we left Spanish waters after over a month and hoisted the Italian flag

The wind had a chuckle and went north east blocking the route between Sardinia and Corsica so we headed south again and got round the southern end before it changed its mind. By now two and a half days had passed and we felt ok. The wind obliged for once and went north and we started to make rapid progress towards Sicily.

Another milestone – just after dawn on 5^th September the Purser became the second highest mileage person by passing Biggle’s total of 10,276.

And then another record for the double-handers – 5 days after leaving Menorca we tied up on the Island of Favignana – one of the Egadi islands just off the West coast of Sicily. 5 days and 481 miles - we were tired but happy.

The marina was tiny and ridiculously shallow – skipper tentatively went in and rapidly backed out again when he got down to 40 cms under the keel and still hadn’t reached the berth. Eventually the marineros helped us to berth on the outside of the pontoons as they knew the deeper spots.

Pat jumped in the water to investigate and nearly turned as white as the skipper. “There’s only about 60 cms under the keel” she spluttered. “No problem” said the skipper. “The gale is coming from the south east so we won’t bounce around much as there’s no room for the sea to build up”

The threatened gales brought the yachts in thick and fast and the marineros were packing them in. They managed to get a Dufour 52 into the slot skipper rejected. The gales came and went. And then the Dufour tried to leave. Problem was it’s keel was now caught round the chains holding the pontoons in place.

It went back and forth to no avail. A large crowd of arm waving Italians soon appeared. Each of them knew what he would do and all of them had different opinions which they were sharing with anybody who wanted to listen.

We had the best view on the dock as these photos were taken from our cockpit. Eventually a marinero got in the water and directed operations. With several ropes attached to the chains and with the yacht heeled right over and maximum revs back and forth it eventually came free to much cheering. 2 hours had passed but the pontoons remained intact!

The marineros were great fun and we spent some amusing hours teaching each other some English and Italian. When we asked to stay another night one said “is it because the wind is too strong?” only he mis-pronounced wind and rhymed it with kind. We thought he meant the wine was too strong! Pat announced she hadn’t drunk any and Paul said he had stuck to beer! The marinero looked very confused at this point. It was 24 hours later before the next language lesson cleared up the confusion!

Favignana used to be the centre of the tuna fishing industry but that has now been replaced by tourism. The old massive tuna net anchors lie piled up on the shore as a reminder of the past.

The whole island depended on tuna for its living. Those who weren’t involved with catching the fish either chopped up the fish, made the cans or packed the fish in the cans. The women mostly packed the fish into cans.

To catch the migrating tunny they put out these massive tuna nets between the islands using the above anchors to keep them in place. The nets would steer the fish into the end killing zone where hundreds of men in huge rowing boats would haul the tunny out of the net into the rowing boats. Here’s one boat.

Here’s the oars and the gaffs they used to drag the fish into the boat - massive

And those were the smaller rowing boats – the next one was 75 foot long

The museum is impressive. Here’s a photo of what life in the killing zone was like.

Favignana had its best year in 1859 when they managed to catch over 10,000 tunny. But declining stocks meant dwindling returns and now the island makes its money through tourism.

The town is delightful and reminded us of Split in Croatia.

While we waited for the wind to turn in our favour we had another grandstand view of 2 days of swimming races off the town beach. There were hundreds of competitors and the crowds were nearly as raucous as those in the Caribbean at the Nevis schools sports day! We found out later it was actually the all Sicilian National championships.

There are lots of lizards on the island – nothing unusual there. But we were amazed when we saw a couple stand up on their back legs and run away upright like raptors. Never seen that before.

As the gales subsided the rain, thunder and lightning took over and visibility dropped to near zero. We decided to stay put another day.

As soon as the electrical storm passed the the wind changed direction and pounded us from the North East. Our shallow berth became dangerous and with help from the marineros we moved inside the harbour to a deeper berth before the increasing swell had a chance to bounce us on the bottom of the harbour which could damage the yacht.

We were forced to stay longer so skipper decided to look at the prison.

One sweaty hour later it was a lot closer.

As ever though some great views from the top.

In all we had to wait 6 days for favourable weather. Since we entered the Mediterranean  at Gibraltar we’ve had to wait 3 days at Cabo de Gata, 3 days at Mazarron, 5 days in Mahon and now 6 days in Favignana. It’s a good job we didn’t leave for Corfu any later. As I said at the start – September can be a transitional month – and it’s still only the 11^th.