37.30.251N 13.04.697E

Friday: We gave the hill a miss today. Stephen checked the engine over and spotted the fuel filter bowl was looking rather odd ie not clear any more. Today’s job was to change the fuel filter. It would appear we have some dirt in our diesel tank. This is proving to be rather a mystery as the fuel being pulled to the engine is from our “clean” tank. We cleaned it last Autumn in Hammamet and have only filled it with filtered fuel from our other tank. The filter it goes through is still looking clear. The only explanation is we didn’t clean the tank properly. This is actually the problem. We could not clean 100% of the tank as a baffle was in the way but we decided that we had cleaned the majority of the tank. As it was a bumpy passage we think the “last” bits of dirt were agitated and found their way into the filter. We have never had this problem before even across Biscay so we are still a little puzzled. Our theory is over time if we only ever put in clean diesel it will one day be clean. We will also keep cleaning the tank each time it is low to help with the cleansing process!

We changed the primary filter but could not remove the secondary filter. The diesel coming out of the secondary filter looked clean so we will change it when we arrive in Marina di Ragusa (hopefully next week sometime).

The large motor boat that was next to us left this morning so we now have a view of the town, which is far better than staring at the side of a motor boat!!!

The weather is still hot and humid meaning the afternoons are low activity times! The evenings are spent playing cribbage, eating wonderful Italian food and the odd glass of Sicilian wine.

Sunset over the pontoon

The view from Wanda overlooking Sciacca without the motor boat!