37.03.525N 15.16.961E

For the last week we have been at anchor in the bay at Syracuse.

Living at anchor instead of the marina is totally different – the boat rocks and rolls all the time making any task more of a challenge and we have to be very careful with minimising water and electricity usage.

On Tuesday we just relaxed, pleased that we had escaped the clutches of a comfy marina. On Wednesday we launched the dinghy ready to go into town. Unfortunately once we were both in the dinghy we couldn’t get the outboard motor to start. After various checks we realised that the problem was the connector to the fuel tank wasn’t fitting properly. We found some spare connectors and found one that fitted. Of course this took most of the morning, so by the time it was fixed it was too late to go into town (Siesta would be starting). One thing that puzzled us was how it worked when we tested it in Marina di Ragusa, especially as Stephen had even done a test around the marina. Such is life!!

We decided it was probably just as well we couldn’t get into town anyway as a large ship had moored up on the grand Harbour wall, so town would have been busy. The ship was Club Med 2, which we later found out has computer controlled sails (maybe we could/should get some of those)

Club Med 2 leaving Syracuse

For one reason or another we still haven’t made it into town yet, the main reason being the weather. We wanted to wait for a calm day so if we have another problem with the outboard motor it won’t be too difficult to row back to Wanda.

Unfortunately we have noticed we have a problem with our engine cooling system which will need more investigation. At low revs the engine cools ok but at higher revs it overheats. Until we figure what the problem is we don’t want to travel too far. In addition the weather is very unsettled so it looks like we won’t be going to Greece this summer.

Syracuse bay is quite a nice anchorage, the only downside is the water quality. This means we can’t run our watermaker while at anchor. So on Sunday we lifted the anchor and went out to sea. We put the sails up and actually sailed, with no help from the engine. Unfortunately we did have to have the engine running to run the watermaker and to re-charge the batteries. As it was Sunday, there were quite a lot of other boats around, so it was a bit chaotic at times trying to avoid the other boats, especially the small pleasure motor boats that just drifted around while the occupants fished. As we came back to Syracuse the wind picked up and we ended up having to anchor in 17 knots of wind, however we managed to set the anchor first time with no problems – so we were quite pleased with ourselves.

One of the other boats out on Sunday

On Monday we had another set of high winds come through the bay meaning we were still “boat bound”. It has now been 8 days since we stepped on land. Hopefully the weather on Tuesday will be calm and we can start to explore Syracuse town instead of just the bay. If not there might be mutiny on board!

We have enjoyed our week at anchor learning how to conserve water and electric use. It’s amazing how little water you really need for a shower!! (4-5 litres is the answer). Yoyo has taken to being a good ships cat and was not too upset with the Sunday sail.