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37:05.47N
13:56.71E Friday
8th August Slipped
away at 07.45am, but not before Agostini, the friendly custode had been along
to say good morning. He seemed a little aggrieved that we would not stay for a
coffee! Again
a day of little or no wind and so we pottered the 50 miles to Licata, passing a
fairly constant stream of trawlers heading home to Porto Empedocle, which is
about half way along our route today. Behind Porto Empedocle is the ancient
site of Agrigento which is Sicily’s oldest tourist site (Valley of the
Temples) but has also achieved some notoriety as being home to some of
Sicily’s mafia families, reputedly the key players in Italy’s
narcotics trade. (Let’s hope they do not read my blog!) Arrived
off Ligate and paused to swim off the stern to cool down before going in. At
this point the cockpit chart plotter decided that it was just too hot to go on
and it dimmed suddenly. I turned it off to let it cool down, but then found
that it would not restart at all. Decided that we did not really need it at
this stage so left it for 10 minutes and tried again and this time it restarted
perfectly! Phew! Entered
the harbour, but immediately got quite confused by what we saw. We knew that
this was not a place that seemed to welcome any yachts and mooring was limited
to either a rundown and rickety walkway which was probably too shallow for us
anyway, mooring alongside the harbour wall, or an anchorage with dubious
holding! But we could see three yacht masts that appeared to be behind the
outer harbour wall. In the event we discovered that they have built two new
inner sea defences (since our 2006 guide was written and the Navionics card was
updated) which partially embrace an old wreck and now provide a large anchorage
with quite reasonable protection from most wind directions and no wash from the
busy fishing and commercial fleets running out of the other side of the port.
(in fact, a perfect Chris Mortimer anchorage – no sight of open sea!) The
view is not too exciting as we are surrounded by rough rock walls on three
sides and a construction site situated between us and the town itself! At
6.00pm the wind got up to welcome us to the anchorage and reached 25 knots for
a while before dropping away around 7.00pm. By 9.00pm the sound of disco music
drifted across the bay to us, making us all the happier not to have tried to
head for the old quay. |