37.30.251N 13.04.697E

Sunday: We went for a little sail today. It was very bumpy, extremely rolly and every one felt a little sea sick. The cats were not happy and slept all day. It’s a shame we were not actually moving but still tied to the pontoon! We have decide to award this harbour the 2011 award for “the greatest swell for least amount of wind”.

We managed some more washing, cleaning and writing up our blog of the exploration of Sciacca. In the evening we met up with a German couple, Anna and Willie, whom we met on the hard in Monastir. They had just arrived from Pantelleria. We had a quiet drink in the marina’s bar.

Monday: The forecast was for more wind from the same direction, so we all went for another sail while finishing cleaning the boat. We are now planning the great escape from the washing machine marina. The marina facilities are brilliant, very clean, lovely ceramic tiles everywhere, a bar and restaurant, friendly people, supermarket on the  doorstep and a lovely town. However it is not a place to live aboard over winter, or as we are finding out, even summer.

It does appear we will be doing one long hop down the coast to Ragusa where we plan to stay for winter. The largest issue is the cost of the marinas along the southern coast (around 90 Euros / night). Instead of mooring for a few nights in each town, we can explore more cheaply by renting a car and staying in hotels over winter. Looking at the weather window before the winds turn against us for a week (or more?), we can either sailing down in large lumpy seas (bad) and high winds behind us (good), or in calmer seas (good) and risk having light wind against us (bad).

This afternoon a French boat arrived during the “blow” and had great difficulty mooring next to us. He damaged the boat on the other side but we defended Wanda so sustained no damage. It was obviously a bad day for him so after he was moored up we gave him a bottle of wine. This rather confused him but we explained that every bad day must end and this is the end of the bad bit.

Below is a picture we took when we first arrived to remind us the marina can be calm and flat. It is a picture of all the trawlers moored up. Sciacca is the fifth largest trawler port in Italy. The yacht pontoons are on the right off the picture.

The trawler fleet

We mentioned the large map of Sciacca, here it is. Can you spot Anne in the picture?