18th May Licata

Psyche Blog
Christian Koefoed-Nielsen
Sun 20 May 2012 15:01

18th May   LICATA  (Marina Cala del Sole)

 

37 05.10 N   13 56.48 E

 

Spent yesterday in Marsala – tried to buy a cafetiere to replace the broken one. One or two Italians have heard of the UK/French version, with plunger and pyrex jug, but they don’t sell them and look at you pityingly……

 

Today we left at 05.30. We had a ca 90 mile leg to cover to try and make up some ground. We had wind on the nose, not much, but a smooth sea, so I had no hesitation in using the engine. We sailed along the coast, high spot of which was passing the Greek temples at Agrigento, which I had visited on land about 5 years previously….I spotted them through the binoculars. You could clearly see how they’d used the lie of the land in framing them in the landscape, if you could only photo shop out the rest of civilisation it’s easy to picture the temple processions in Arcadia.

 

We made it to Licata. I had phoned the marina a couple of days earlier (pilot book said still under construction, I wanted to check it was actually open) and a charming lady assured me they would have a berth for me. We needed fuel, looking at the pilot guide it was unclear whether fuel was in the marina, the town quay, or both. As we entered the breakwater a rib sped out, and the guy circled us and said “Follow me!”

“Hang on – we want the marina and we want fuel!” “Yes, yes, follow me! I’m from the marina” (Had thought he might be looking to put us on some crap town quay by a load of trawlers). He led us in, berthed us, by 18.30, and then took me by golf buggy to the marina office.

 

The receptionist was fabulous: “Ahh Psyche! You must have a cup of proper Italian coffee! Then we do the papers!” The process took ages, but I ended up with electricity, water and shower electronic tags, wifi codes, maps of town etc etc. Giuseppe (the rib guy) waited with his buggy, made helpful interjections, told me of his love for football, was exultant about Mancini and City and Ferguson being pissed off, (“Ferguson – ha ha ha!”) was a Juventus fan, and agreed that Newcastle coming 5th was a good result “for such a club…..” !

 

The place is obviously in an early state of development. The showers were great, there were restaurants around, the staff were absolutely charming. When Paul had a problem accessing wifi Giuseppe put him in the buggy and drove him straight to a hut behind the restaurant where some wifi expert was busy installing stuff, and said, basically, what this guy doesn’t know about wifi ain’t worth knowing, he’ll sort you out….! (His technical advice was along the lines that iphones and pads were not as good as netbooks for reception, so tough shit! That’s IT expertise in a nutshell….)

 

At dinner Tim wondered why we didn’t sail. I pointed out we were trying to cover a lot of ground in a short time, and that we had little wind, and that on the nose.

 

Today we covered 92 NM