Archive | Seabird RSS feed for this section

We will really miss the food and the people of Italy. We struggled a bit with the language, but probably because we never put the effort into learning it like we did learning Spanish. I possibly know (or knew) more Japanese than Italian, which is sad, because I am half Italian! I have found, though, to get along in any country, if you can learn maybe, 20 verbs and 100 nouns, along with some common phrases, you will get along just fine. We have also found that in most countries, many people know at least a little bit of English.  Japan was the most difficult because it is not a Latin based language, so, for instance, there is no direct translation to, say, “nice to meet you”. The closest you can come is a phrase that means something like “I beg you for your kindness”. It may be difficult for us to imagine saying that, but that’s how it is. 

So although we will miss Italy, we were excited about our cruise to Menorca, which is the eastern most of the Spanish Balearic Islands. 

 
Our course from Cagliari, Sardinia to Mahon, Menorca.

The trip from Sardinia to Menorca was to be 250 miles, or about 31 hours of cruising. We decided (as we always do on a trip of this distance) to leave at first light, which would give us a theoretical arrival time in Menorca of 1 pm the following day. You might wonder why we would leave so early being that sunset was not until after 9pm on the day of our arrival. Here is why. Although we are diligent about mechanical maintenance, things can always go wrong and if it does, for some reason it never happens near shore or during the day and since there are no “real” mechanics at sea, Seabird is stuck with me and Carol to fix things.  It takes me a lot longer to fix something than it does a professional mechanic and to make matters worse, if it’s rough out, you need to hang on with one hand sometimes and wield the wrench in the other. One time we were 50 miles off the coast of Nicaragua when our stabilizers failed. At the time, we were in 8 foot beam seas and it was midnight. The problem turned out to be a failed cooling pump which was located 10 inches underneath our hot exhaust pipe in a not so accessible place. It took 3 hours to fix it in rough seas. On this trip to Menorca, if for some mechanical reason we had to slow down 2 or 3 knots it would have delayed our arrival time by many hours, possibly putting our arrival time after dark. We have arrived in plenty of strange harbors in the dark, but it can get confusing, especially if you are tired. For that reason, we like to leave as early as possible to arrive as early as possible in daylight. 

Unlike the last trip, this one was gorgeous. The first day we had 15 hours of daylight. We saw lots of Dolphins and a few Swordfish. I wish we were the fishing type. We quit that a few years ago after going 12 straight years never catching a single fish other than Carol’s “Lunch Dolphin” (a tiny fish) 10 years ago. We also saw some large Sea Turtles, which I think are unusual in the Med.  

On this trip, both of us were able to get some rest while underway. We probably got 4-5 hours of sleep each, which makes a huge difference in how alert you feel in the morning. By 8 am and a few cups of hot coffee later, we were starting to get excited about our arrival into Spain. By 9:30 am we could see the outline of Menorca on the horizon. 

I think I had mentioned before how we depend on the highly accurate digital charts we use, which are connected to our GPS. Normally, they are accurate to within a few feet and you could depend on them without reservation when entering a harbor in low visibility conditions or at night. 

Because anything electronic is subject to failure, we absolutely NEVER depend on a single source. Coming into Mahon, we discovered that, although visibly, we were in the center of the channel, our navigation system charting software showed us actually crossing over land on the left side of the harbor. Of course visually, I knew we were in safe water, but if we had limited visibility, I always have my radar on, which also has a separate GPS chart plotter on it, which in this case, was very accurate. 

I also have a third electronic chart system on my iPad, completely
independent of the boat’s two GPS systems if I needed it.
Better safe than sorry!

 Our primary chart plotter started going haywire after this was
taken and we turned on our secondary one for assurance.

Mahon, Menorca has one of the largest natural harbors in the world at 3.1 miles long and up to 3000 feet wide. The inlet itself is narrow, affording great protection for moored vessels and yachts in bad weather.  Mahon itself has a population of about 30,000 people. 

The Marina was a (ugh!) Med Moor situation but I have come to accept that. The efficient marina staff waved us over to back in between two multimillion dollar 100 foot custom racing sailboats with a minimum of 8 crew on each. WE knew we were fine but I gathered from the looks on the faces of the crew that they could see that the beast was bearing down on them and it was about to turn ugly. There was some current in there and I probably came a LITTLE closer to the boat on the starboard side than I would have liked (that’s what fenders are for).  In the end, there was little drama coming in and soon enough we were tied up and plugged in. 

Fortunately we were there early enough to climb the hill into town and find a Vodaphone store for telephone and Internet SIM cards. We use quite a bit of data and Spain does what they can to thwart that. The most you can get is 1.6 GB and that has to last you 30 days. I asked if I could buy more for the card and they said no. I then said ” can I buy more SIM cards?”. They said “Si, señor”.  So, you can buy 100 1.6 GB cards if you want. I wish they would just give me 30 GB on one and be done with it!

An hour later we were in Internet heaven. 

We really dont look squeezed in here but the looks on the faces of the crew on either 
side of us gave the impression of impending doom. Maybe it was because they saw only
two of us on board. In Europe, most boats our size would have a captain and one or two
crew  aside from the owners on board.

I haven’t really spoken Spanish in almost 7 years. When we were in Panama, Carol and I went to school for a week to learn it and we could communicate fairly well. Since then, I forgot most of it but it is amazing how fast it comes back. A word here, a phrase there.  Within a day or two, we were actually doing ok. The little translator App that we have on our smartphones really helps. One App, called “Say Hi” allows you to speak English to it and it immediately starts speaking in Spanish and vice versa. You can actually hold a conversation with someone in any number of languages. I prefer not to use it here because I need to practice the language, but it is there if I need it. 

The main town of Mahon is up on a hill above the water and marina. It is an old Spanish town very similar to what you would find in Italy, with narrow streets and a town square complete with a cathedral. We see a lot of towns raised up in Europe. I suspect it had something to do with defending the village from attack back then. 

 A beautiful picture of the town (We didn’t take it!)

Mahon does not really sound Spanish because its roots are elsewhere. During the 1700’s it was first taken over by the British, then by the French, then the British again! Finally, in the early 1800’s, the Brits gave it back to Spain, who have had claim to it ever since. 

One of the things Carol and I were very interested in doing was sampling the food here, so after Bill and Janet arrived on their boat Airstream, we headed out for Tapas and San Gria. We were hoping to find an authentic Spanish restaurant and we found it in Sa Gavina II Port. They had really great Tapas of Calamari, Chorizo Sausage, Garlic Shrimp, tomato bread and of course, freshly made Sangria. The food was so good that we just had to overlook the fact that the owner of the restaurant was actually IRISH, and a delightful person at that!  

We also seem to put a lot of miles on by foot in these places. Much more than when we are at home in Florida. We both used to have these tracking devices called Fitbit, which wraps around your wrist like a watch and tracks the number of steps you take in a day. After having 3 that stopped working, we have given up on them and simply use our smartphone to track that stuff. We are both walking between 5 and 7 miles per day, believe it or not. In other words, if you look at Carol, you will believe it, but if you look at me, you might not! 

We ended up staying 3 days in Mahon and loved it, but because we had reservations for the boat in Barcelona in less than a week, we decided it was time to move on.  

Next up:  Mahon to Cala Galdana and Cala de Sant Vicenc

A few more pics…..

 An overhead of the harbor. Our marina is on the middle right of the photo.

 Our marina from across the harbor

 
Chart of our cruise from Sicily to Sardinia

I am always a bit anxious about our first overnight trip of the season and I am not quite sure why. With our array of instruments, including 2 radars, 4 GPS, AIS, night vision and depth finders, it is as safe as cruising during the day. The issue is that you don’t get much sleep. If you are on a 5 or 6 day passage, you get into kind of a rhythm. We normally do 3 hour shifts at the helm from 6 pm until 6 am. After a few days, you develop the ability to fall asleep shortly after your 3 hr shift and wake up to do another 3 hours later with no problem. Doing it for just one night leaves you kind of beat the next day. the 12 to 3 shift and the 3 to 6 shifts are probably the worst because getting up at midnight or 3 am after having only a few hours rest is unnatural.

One of the questions people always ask us is “How do you prevent yourself from falling asleep at the wheel”.  Well, it is not easy!  Fortunately we installed a device called Watch Commander.

As you can see in the picture, it has a timer switch on it. We normally set it for 20 minutes. Before the twenty minutes expire, you need to push the red reset button or a subtle alarm goes off, loud enough to wake you, but not everyone else on the boat. Should the alarm continue to beep for more than 20 seconds, the LOUD alarm goes off, and that will wake EVERYONE on board. It is a good thing because if the person at the helm cannot shut off the first alarm within 20 seconds, it means that they are not there or incapacitated. Let’s say that during the night the helmsman decided to step outside for some fresh air and somehow fell over the rail and into the sea. If the shift had just started, it could be 3 hours before they were discovered missing, leaving little or no chance of finding them. If the watch commander is used, only 20 minutes would have expired, making the chance of recovery much better. Also, on seabird, we are supposed to wear inflatable vests if going outside at night with a strobe light attached.

When we installed it, I connected it to the circuit breaker on the compass light so that no one could figure out how to turn it off. While on one trip,we had friends aboard who found the device distracting and while on their shift, traced the wire to the compass light circuit breaker and shut it off. Needless to say, when we discovered this, we “spoke to them”, reminding them that while at sea on Seabird, it is not a Democracy and we set the rules. 

Having said all of that, a beautiful moonlit night cruise with flat calm seas is a delight. Well, the weather gurus promised but in this case did not deliver. Late in the day, the waves started to build. We were heading directly into it which meant the bow would be pitching up and down, making the trip uncomfortable and eliminating any possibility of sleep!  Then, on the radar…….

Storms. All of the red that you see in the above picture of our radar indicate storms. Storms unfortunately can bring much higher winds and lightning. We have been through them many times before but my fondness of them has not grown one bit. On top of that, if the rain is heavy enough, it just about obliterates any radar targets out there, leaving you to fly blind. Fortunately, most of the big boats that could squash me like a grape have an AIS (Automatic Identity System) which will show up on my chart plotter in any weather with position, speed, course and most importantly, CPA (Closest Point of Approach). The small boats, which I could squash, usually don’t have an AIS and I am also worried about them. In this weather, they should not and probably aren’t out here in this. 

Interestingly enough, there was not all that much wind. If you had not experienced it before, you might wonder how it could be so rough with so little wind. These are referred to as swells. In New England, where we grew up, swells could be very large, but with long spaces between them, causing little discomfort. In other places, like the Med, the swells can be large, with almost no space between them and no apparent wind pushing them. 

The other things we have experienced here in the med that we did not see much of elsewhere were conflicting wave patterns. On this trip, we had big, choppy swells coming from the south/southeast and in addition to that,  a good size chop coming from the northeast. This produces these pointy waves that Seabird does not like one bit, nor does the crew! On this trip, the seas were 7 to 12 feet of pointed ugliness.

The night was predictable. Unless you can sleep while being slammed up and down in the bed with all of the noises that accompany that, it would be a long night. On the off shift, all you can do is lay there on your bed with your eyes closed hoping to get a few moments of shuteye before the 3 hour alarm goes off. At midnight, my iPad annoyingly beeped at me. I dragged myself out of bed, splashed some water on my face and went into the engine room to do the 3 hour check. Just a not: VERY few times have I gone into the engine room  for that check and found anything amiss. We have a checklist of about 25 items to verify. Odd smells, loose or missing belts, high temperatures, fuel flow problems, leaks. For those few times myself or Carol have found a problem, it has been worth going down there. Good periodic maintenance prevents problems. This time, everything was fine and I went up to the pilot house to take my watch from my tired and bleary eyed wife. In 3 hours time, I would be equally bleary eyed.

My shift went just fine, but the weather never improved. I was not surprised when Carol came up at 3 am slightly less bleary eyed and said that she had not slept much. I did another engine room check and hit the hay for another 3 hours of trying to sleep on the roller coaster.

I have never ceased to be amazed at the ruggedness of these boats. They can be slammed mercilessly for days at a time with hardly a complaint. WE may complain, but we never hear a peep from the boat. We have been through much, much worse for much longer periods on Seabird, so, even though it was uncomfortable, I knew she would get us home, as she did this time.

As the sun rose and we got closer to Sardinia, the weather started to improve. We were tired but happy to see land.

In my previous email, I complained about med mooring. Carol corrected me the other day. I do hate the “slime lines”, but we can get through that. The real problem is our Passarelle, which we use for getting on and off of the boat while med moored. Deploying it and keeping it in place is a full time job in bad weather. It was not really well thought out. Had I given it more thought, I would have heaved the hundred pound thing overboard and gotten one of the attached systems with a hydraulic lift. They are not cheap, but would have made our stay here in the med more enjoyable. I also would have installed a vertical rope windlass, even a hand operated one, to use for hauling in and tightening the slime line one we were in the slip.

 Our big beast of a Passarelle. It is welded aluminum and nearly indestructible except that 
Carol and I nearly self destructed several times getting it off of the roof and onto the dock.

We landed in Sardinia at a town called Villasimius. It is on the southwest corner of Sardinia and has a beautiful marina, one with a few restaurants, a decent marine store and some nice shops. Once we were tied up, connected to shore power and registered at the office, we made the decision to do our touring later, after a well deserved rest.

Our marina in Villasimius

We spent the next day touring the town of Villasimius. It was about a two mile walk which took us mostly by pretty homes and a few farms. One of the farms we went by had these cute little miniature horses.

Minature horses in Villasimius. Who told the people of Sardinia that bangs are back in style?

The town was a surprise. It was very upscale. You can always tell by the type of cars that you see in the town. In this one, it was probably 50% Mercedes, Audis and BMWs. Interesting, in the land of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati, you rarely see one of them. The people that can afford them are buying German. Anyway, I could tell that if you wanted to live there, even for the summer, it was going to be expensive. Not that we people on boats are suffering too much! If I had to burn a single memory into my brain about the town, it would be how clean it was. I didnt see a scrap of paper on the street. It seems that the more trash cans that are available in town, the less trash on the street. In Japan, it was the quite the opposite. You NEVER saw a trash can on the street, but everyone knew that the trash was your responsibility and you were supposed to bring it home with you.

The next day, our friends Bill and Janet arrived on their boat, Airstream. Its funny, we met briefly in Turkey and lost track of them until Italy. Even though we had our own individual cruising agendas, for several months we ended up in the same location. When Bill was in the Marines over 40 years ago, he had a drill seargent with the same last name as me (not exactly, but close enough so that when he overheard me giving my name to the customs agent, he asked if I was related). Turns out it was my cousin Sonny! Fortunately, even though it was basic training on the famous Paris Island “resort”, Sonny was not too mean to Bill and he was happy to make my acquaintance. In Villasimius, we had dinner several nights.

Although we liked the marina, we were hoping to stay at a place with a little more to do, so we moved on to the town of Cagliari, a two hour cruise from Villasimius.

Cagliari is the capital of Sardinia. The attraction for us is that the marina is in the center of town, which meant restaurants, shops and good people watching. We really liked the town, but it was either not that spectacular or it was just time to leave Italy. I think it was a little of both. We loved Italy and the people who lived there, but we were also looking forward to moving on to Spain and the Balearic Islands, our next cruising grounds. So, a few days after arriving in Cagliari, we set out for our next overnighter to Mahon, a small city on the western tip of Menorca, the first of the Spanish Balearic Islands.

Next up: Mahon, Menorca.

a few more pics:

A view of our marina in Cagliari from high up

A city street in old Cagliari

 The cruise ship Queen Elizabeth as it departs Cagliari in back of our boat.

And last but not least….

Look, I am not a complainer.  I could not be charactarized by anyone who knows me as 
a “foodie”.  My tastes are very simple.  You might even call it “truck driver food”. 
Many years ago, my brother in law Chip, who was also my good friend and fellow boater, 
established “Cheeseburger Sunday”. It is every Sunday and I look forward to my 
Cheeseburger. You can imagine my glee when I saw the sign in Cagliari that advertised
the best Cheeseburgers in town. I pictured a big, fat, juicy half pound job and my mouth was watering
just thinking about it.  You canjust imagine my disappointment……..

 
Chart of our cruise from Sicily to Sardinia

I am always a bit anxious about our first overnight trip of the season and I am not quite sure why. With our array of instruments, including 2 radars, 4 GPS, AIS, night vision and depth finders, it is as safe as cruising during the day. The issue is that you don’t get much sleep. If you are on a 5 or 6 day passage, you get into kind of a rhythm. We normally do 3 hour shifts at the helm from 6 pm until 6 am. After a few days, you develop the ability to fall asleep shortly after your 3 hr shift and wake up to do another 3 hours later with no problem. Doing it for just one night leaves you kind of beat the next day. the 12 to 3 shift and the 3 to 6 shifts are probably the worst because getting up at midnight or 3 am after having only a few hours rest is unnatural.

One of the questions people always ask us is “How do you prevent yourself from falling asleep at the wheel”.  Well, it is not easy!  Fortunately we installed a device called Watch Commander.

As you can see in the picture, it has a timer switch on it. We normally set it for 20 minutes. Before the twenty minutes expire, you need to push the red reset button or a subtle alarm goes off, loud enough to wake you, but not everyone else on the boat. Should the alarm continue to beep for more than 20 seconds, the LOUD alarm goes off, and that will wake EVERYONE on board. It is a good thing because if the person at the helm cannot shut off the first alarm within 20 seconds, it means that they are not there or incapacitated. Let’s say that during the night the helmsman decided to step outside for some fresh air and somehow fell over the rail and into the sea. If the shift had just started, it could be 3 hours before they were discovered missing, leaving little or no chance of finding them. If the watch commander is used, only 20 minutes would have expired, making the chance of recovery much better. Also, on seabird, we are supposed to wear inflatable vests if going outside at night with a strobe light attached.

When we installed it, I connected it to the circuit breaker on the compass light so that no one could figure out how to turn it off. While on one trip,we had friends aboard who found the device distracting and while on their shift, traced the wire to the compass light circuit breaker and shut it off. Needless to say, when we discovered this, we “spoke to them”, reminding them that while at sea on Seabird, it is not a Democracy and we set the rules. 

Having said all of that, a beautiful moonlit night cruise with flat calm seas is a delight. Well, the weather gurus promised but in this case did not deliver. Late in the day, the waves started to build. We were heading directly into it which meant the bow would be pitching up and down, making the trip uncomfortable and eliminating any possibility of sleep!  Then, on the radar…….

Storms. All of the red that you see in the above picture of our radar indicate storms. Storms unfortunately can bring much higher winds and lightning. We have been through them many times before but my fondness of them has not grown one bit. On top of that, if the rain is heavy enough, it just about obliterates any radar targets out there, leaving you to fly blind. Fortunately, most of the big boats that could squash me like a grape have an AIS (Automatic Identity System) which will show up on my chart plotter in any weather with position, speed, course and most importantly, CPA (Closest Point of Approach). The small boats, which I could squash, usually don’t have an AIS and I am also worried about them. In this weather, they should not and probably aren’t out here in this. 

Interestingly enough, there was not all that much wind. If you had not experienced it before, you might wonder how it could be so rough with so little wind. These are referred to as swells. In New England, where we grew up, swells could be very large, but with long spaces between them, causing little discomfort. In other places, like the Med, the swells can be large, with almost no space between them and no apparent wind pushing them. 

The other things we have experienced here in the med that we did not see much of elsewhere were conflicting wave patterns. On this trip, we had big, choppy swells coming from the south/southeast and in addition to that,  a good size chop coming from the northeast. This produces these pointy waves that Seabird does not like one bit, nor does the crew! On this trip, the seas were 7 to 12 feet of pointed ugliness.

The night was predictable. Unless you can sleep while being slammed up and down in the bed with all of the noises that accompany that, it would be a long night. On the off shift, all you can do is lay there on your bed with your eyes closed hoping to get a few moments of shuteye before the 3 hour alarm goes off. At midnight, my iPad annoyingly beeped at me. I dragged myself out of bed, splashed some water on my face and went into the engine room to do the 3 hour check. Just a not: VERY few times have I gone into the engine room  for that check and found anything amiss. We have a checklist of about 25 items to verify. Odd smells, loose or missing belts, high temperatures, fuel flow problems, leaks. For those few times myself or Carol have found a problem, it has been worth going down there. Good periodic maintenance prevents problems. This time, everything was fine and I went up to the pilot house to take my watch from my tired and bleary eyed wife. In 3 hours time, I would be equally bleary eyed.

My shift went just fine, but the weather never improved. I was not surprised when Carol came up at 3 am slightly less bleary eyed and said that she had not slept much. I did another engine room check and hit the hay for another 3 hours of trying to sleep on the roller coaster.

I have never ceased to be amazed at the ruggedness of these boats. They can be slammed mercilessly for days at a time with hardly a complaint. WE may complain, but we never hear a peep from the boat. We have been through much, much worse for much longer periods on Seabird, so, even though it was uncomfortable, I knew she would get us home, as she did this time.

As the sun rose and we got closer to Sardinia, the weather started to improve. We were tired but happy to see land.

In my previous email, I complained about med mooring. Carol corrected me the other day. I do hate the “slime lines”, but we can get through that. The real problem is our Passarelle, which we use for getting on and off of the boat while med moored. Deploying it and keeping it in place is a full time job in bad weather. It was not really well thought out. Had I given it more thought, I would have heaved the hundred pound thing overboard and gotten one of the attached systems with a hydraulic lift. They are not cheap, but would have made our stay here in the med more enjoyable. I also would have installed a vertical rope windlass, even a hand operated one, to use for hauling in and tightening the slime line one we were in the slip.

 Our big beast of a Passarelle. It is welded aluminum and nearly indestructible except that 
Carol and I nearly self destructed several times getting it off of the roof and onto the dock.

We landed in Sardinia at a town called Villasimius. It is on the southwest corner of Sardinia and has a beautiful marina, one with a few restaurants, a decent marine store and some nice shops. Once we were tied up, connected to shore power and registered at the office, we made the decision to do our touring later, after a well deserved rest.

Our marina in Villasimius

We spent the next day touring the town of Villasimius. It was about a two mile walk which took us mostly by pretty homes and a few farms. One of the farms we went by had these cute little miniature horses.

Minature horses in Villasimius. Who told the people of Sardinia that bangs are back in style?

The town was a surprise. It was very upscale. You can always tell by the type of cars that you see in the town. In this one, it was probably 50% Mercedes, Audis and BMWs. Interesting, in the land of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati, you rarely see one of them. The people that can afford them are buying German. Anyway, I could tell that if you wanted to live there, even for the summer, it was going to be expensive. Not that we people on boats are suffering too much! If I had to burn a single memory into my brain about the town, it would be how clean it was. I didnt see a scrap of paper on the street. It seems that the more trash cans that are available in town, the less trash on the street. In Japan, it was the quite the opposite. You NEVER saw a trash can on the street, but everyone knew that the trash was your responsibility and you were supposed to bring it home with you.

The next day, our friends Bill and Janet arrived on their boat, Airstream. Its funny, we met briefly in Turkey and lost track of them until Italy. Even though we had our own individual cruising agendas, for several months we ended up in the same location. When Bill was in the Marines over 40 years ago, he had a drill seargent with the same last name as me (not exactly, but close enough so that when he overheard me giving my name to the customs agent, he asked if I was related). Turns out it was my cousin Sonny! Fortunately, even though it was basic training on the famous Paris Island “resort”, Sonny was not too mean to Bill and he was happy to make my acquaintance. In Villasimius, we had dinner several nights.

Although we liked the marina, we were hoping to stay at a place with a little more to do, so we moved on to the town of Cagliari, a two hour cruise from Villasimius.

Cagliari is the capital of Sardinia. The attraction for us is that the marina is in the center of town, which meant restaurants, shops and good people watching. We really liked the town, but it was either not that spectacular or it was just time to leave Italy. I think it was a little of both. We loved Italy and the people who lived there, but we were also looking forward to moving on to Spain and the Balearic Islands, our next cruising grounds. So, a few days after arriving in Cagliari, we set out for our next overnighter to Mahon, a small city on the western tip of Menorca, the first of the Spanish Balearic Islands.

Next up: Mahon, Menorca.

a few more pics:

A view of our marina in Cagliari from high up

A city street in old Cagliari

 The cruise ship Queen Elizabeth as it departs Cagliari in back of our boat.

And last but not least….

Look, I am not a complainer.  I could not be charactarized by anyone who knows me as 
a “foodie”.  My tastes are very simple.  You might even call it “truck driver food”. 
Many years ago, my brother in law Chip, who was also my good friend and fellow boater, 
established “Cheeseburger Sunday”. It is every Sunday and I look forward to my 
Cheeseburger. You can imagine my glee when I saw the sign in Cagliari that advertised
the best Cheeseburgers in town. I pictured a big, fat, juicy half pound job and my mouth was watering
just thinking about it.  You canjust imagine my disappointment……..

I am kind of waiting for the shoe to drop. We have had nothing but flat calm water and perfect temperatures since leaving Marina di Ragusa. We have not even used the air conditioning once yet. On top of that, the boat is running just perfectly. I hope I am not jinxing myself.

 This was our course to Cefalu, still on the island of Sicily

We had yet another perfect trip of 64 miles to Cefalu. The water out here is so clear and calm.  Schools of Dolphin who seem to spot our boat from a great distance do an about face from wherever they are going and do a beeline for our bow. For the next ten minutes or so, between 2 and 10 of them will swim just under the surface a few feet on either side of our bow. Every so often, one or more will turn sideways and look up at you with that smirk that Dolphins seem to have. Watching them do that and then leaping out of the water convinces you that they are intelligent and very aware, almost trying to show off. 

 Dolphins – for some reason they seem to be attracted to our bulbous bow on Seabird

We were getting close to the our final waypoint on the trip and Carol quipped “uh, where is this marina?”  We were very close and it was not what we were expecting, at all. The course pointed us to a cement pier with a few raggedy, bobbing, floating docks off of it. The whole place was exposed directly to the open water and if a wind were to come out of the Northeast, Seabird would turn those puny would be docks into floating mush. Carol actually thought we should leave, but it was later in the day and we really did commit to staying there. I thought that as long as the weather experts stayed expert, we would not have a problem. 

 The dock you see in the photo is the hefty one.  Where Seabird is, it drops down to 
a flimsy floating dock.

The docking situation was a classic Med Moor, where you back into the allotted space, tie two lines to the dock and then pick up the “slime line”.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a slime line is really a mooring line that you attach to the bow of the boat to keep the stern away from the dock. That line is tethered to a cement block some distance from the bow of the boat, and you need to pull it piano wire tight. The “slime” part comes from the way the line is attached to the dock from the cement mooring. It usually has been lying in the mud and God knows what else before you pick it up in the slip. It is handed to you by the dock hand and you then work your way up to the bow with it to secure it to the cleat. By the time you are done, you are usually spotted with mud and water. This is why we prefer the side tie with conventional dock lines.

So….we finish tying up to the saddest excuse for a dock we have ever been to and go to the marina office to check in. Marinas around here are usually categorized by “Charge Bands”.  We usually see Charge Band 4, 5 and 6, the 6 being the most expensive and usually reserved for exclusive marinas or special destinations. This place was neither.  It was advertised in the guide we used as a Charge Band 5, but, that was a very optimistic rating. I would have given it a 2, but the town was so charming, I raised it to a 4.  At a 5, the nightly rate should have been $125, but I was shocked to find that he wanted $200!  Since we were already tied up, I begrudgingly accepted it but said we would leave in the morning. 

Shortly after that, our friends Bill and Janet called. They were about an hour behind us. I asked him what they were charging for his 42 foot sailboat and he said “$50”.  What??!! I stomped up to the office and asked why I was being charged 4x as much as a boat that was only 25% smaller than Seabird. He responded “seabird is BIG boat”. I said “yeah, but not 4x as big”. He then went to the owner and voiced my complaints and the owner agreed that if I stayed 3 nights, he would lower two of the nights to $100 per night. Ok….I was still getting fleeced, but it was now a low level fleecing and I left the office with some of my pride intact, sort of. 

The town of Cefalu, as I mentioned, is charming. It was about a 10 minute walk from the marina and I guess you could call it a “typical” Sicilian seaside village, if there is such a thing. It was built on a hill with narrow streets barely wide enough for one car to skim by you, brushing your clothing as casually as could be. Walkers generally have the right of way, but even those tiny little cars they drive weigh 2000 lbs, so we generally yield! In addition, per usual, it seems that every other business on the street is a restaurant or a cafe.

Trying to pick a restaurant in a place like this is difficult. The menus all look so good and the aromas coming out of each place make you want to choose them all. It is especially difficult for me because Italian food is kind of my thing. So, we usually end up choosing, as we did this time, a place with exceptional atmosphere, overlooking the beach and a good rating on Trip Advisor. 

Of course, the food was spectacular and, as in the case of everywhere in Sicily, a relative bargain!  I suspect one of the reasons for the low pricing might be their food transportation costs. The last photo in the blog is an example of their innovative thinking…..

We spent a good part of each day walking through the narrow streets of Cefalu. You always find something new that you have not seen before. All of these towns in Sicily seem to have a large town square, a grand cathedral being the centerpiece surrounded by cafe’s and outdoor restaurants. The cathedral, in this case, was just this week named a Unesco Heritage Site. Pretty spectacular. 

 The Cathedral in Cefalu

Our last day at the marina proved the weather gurus wrong. There was not a huge amount of wind, but a good size swell started to develop from the Northeast. With no protection from any sort of breakwater, our boat started to pitch a bit in the berth, stretching the slime line and our swim platform started creeping perilously close to the dock. In addition to that, our passarelle,  basically a fancy name for a boarding plank, started dancing on the dock, threatening to pulverize the electrical post next to it or detach itself from the boat and then deep sixing  itself. We decided it best that we disconnect the electrical cord from the dock and pull up the passarelle. Having done that, my only fear left was that the slime line would give out, sending the 70 ton Seabird into the flimsy floating dock. So, since we had no intention of getting off of the boat again, we loosened the two stern lines, giving us an additional 4 feet of slack, then tightened up the greasy slime line as taught as we could make it. We were now a minimum of 8 feet away from the dock with no more worries. 

We had 225 miles to our next destination, Villasimius, Sardinia, so we scheduled our departure from Cefalu at 7am the following morning. At 8.5 knots, we can usually cover up to 110 miles on a day trip.  This was going to be a 17 hour trip and an overnighter. We actually enjoy an overnighter with a full moon and calm seas. You don’t always get what you want…..

Next Blog:  Cefalu to the island of Sardinia

a few more pics from Cefalu…….

 
Italy seems to have lots of wild cats.  Every once in a while we find these 
kittens that have not learned to be skittish yet.

this is a very common sight from this season.  Calm seas and beautiful 
sunsets

Our morning walk usually resulted in spectacular views

Seaside view of Cefalu.  Just around the corner is a beautiful beach

this was taken during our departure from Cefalu in the morning

And last but not least…….

You now know the secret to low fish prices in the restaurants in Sicily.  Normally, from the dock to the restaurants
means wholesalers, agents, refrigerated delivery trucks etc.  Not is Cefalu. We watched this guy make several
trips from the fishing boat at the pier that caught these to the individual restaurants. Notice there is no 
“Wide Load” sign on the bike……

I am kind of waiting for the shoe to drop. We have had nothing but flat calm water and perfect temperatures since leaving Marina di Ragusa. We have not even used the air conditioning once yet. On top of that, the boat is running just perfectly. I hope I am not jinxing myself.

 This was our course to Cefalu, still on the island of Sicily

We had yet another perfect trip of 64 miles to Cefalu. The water out here is so clear and calm.  Schools of Dolphin who seem to spot our boat from a great distance do an about face from wherever they are going and do a beeline for our bow. For the next ten minutes or so, between 2 and 10 of them will swim just under the surface a few feet on either side of our bow. Every so often, one or more will turn sideways and look up at you with that smirk that Dolphins seem to have. Watching them do that and then leaping out of the water convinces you that they are intelligent and very aware, almost trying to show off. 

 Dolphins – for some reason they seem to be attracted to our bulbous bow on Seabird

We were getting close to the our final waypoint on the trip and Carol quipped “uh, where is this marina?”  We were very close and it was not what we were expecting, at all. The course pointed us to a cement pier with a few raggedy, bobbing, floating docks off of it. The whole place was exposed directly to the open water and if a wind were to come out of the Northeast, Seabird would turn those puny would be docks into floating mush. Carol actually thought we should leave, but it was later in the day and we really did commit to staying there. I thought that as long as the weather experts stayed expert, we would not have a problem. 

 The dock you see in the photo is the hefty one.  Where Seabird is, it drops down to 
a flimsy floating dock.

The docking situation was a classic Med Moor, where you back into the allotted space, tie two lines to the dock and then pick up the “slime line”.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a slime line is really a mooring line that you attach to the bow of the boat to keep the stern away from the dock. That line is tethered to a cement block some distance from the bow of the boat, and you need to pull it piano wire tight. The “slime” part comes from the way the line is attached to the dock from the cement mooring. It usually has been lying in the mud and God knows what else before you pick it up in the slip. It is handed to you by the dock hand and you then work your way up to the bow with it to secure it to the cleat. By the time you are done, you are usually spotted with mud and water. This is why we prefer the side tie with conventional dock lines.

So….we finish tying up to the saddest excuse for a dock we have ever been to and go to the marina office to check in. Marinas around here are usually categorized by “Charge Bands”.  We usually see Charge Band 4, 5 and 6, the 6 being the most expensive and usually reserved for exclusive marinas or special destinations. This place was neither.  It was advertised in the guide we used as a Charge Band 5, but, that was a very optimistic rating. I would have given it a 2, but the town was so charming, I raised it to a 4.  At a 5, the nightly rate should have been $125, but I was shocked to find that he wanted $200!  Since we were already tied up, I begrudgingly accepted it but said we would leave in the morning. 

Shortly after that, our friends Bill and Janet called. They were about an hour behind us. I asked him what they were charging for his 42 foot sailboat and he said “$50”.  What??!! I stomped up to the office and asked why I was being charged 4x as much as a boat that was only 25% smaller than Seabird. He responded “seabird is BIG boat”. I said “yeah, but not 4x as big”. He then went to the owner and voiced my complaints and the owner agreed that if I stayed 3 nights, he would lower two of the nights to $100 per night. Ok….I was still getting fleeced, but it was now a low level fleecing and I left the office with some of my pride intact, sort of. 

The town of Cefalu, as I mentioned, is charming. It was about a 10 minute walk from the marina and I guess you could call it a “typical” Sicilian seaside village, if there is such a thing. It was built on a hill with narrow streets barely wide enough for one car to skim by you, brushing your clothing as casually as could be. Walkers generally have the right of way, but even those tiny little cars they drive weigh 2000 lbs, so we generally yield! In addition, per usual, it seems that every other business on the street is a restaurant or a cafe.

Trying to pick a restaurant in a place like this is difficult. The menus all look so good and the aromas coming out of each place make you want to choose them all. It is especially difficult for me because Italian food is kind of my thing. So, we usually end up choosing, as we did this time, a place with exceptional atmosphere, overlooking the beach and a good rating on Trip Advisor. 

Of course, the food was spectacular and, as in the case of everywhere in Sicily, a relative bargain!  I suspect one of the reasons for the low pricing might be their food transportation costs. The last photo in the blog is an example of their innovative thinking…..

We spent a good part of each day walking through the narrow streets of Cefalu. You always find something new that you have not seen before. All of these towns in Sicily seem to have a large town square, a grand cathedral being the centerpiece surrounded by cafe’s and outdoor restaurants. The cathedral, in this case, was just this week named a Unesco Heritage Site. Pretty spectacular. 

 The Cathedral in Cefalu

Our last day at the marina proved the weather gurus wrong. There was not a huge amount of wind, but a good size swell started to develop from the Northeast. With no protection from any sort of breakwater, our boat started to pitch a bit in the berth, stretching the slime line and our swim platform started creeping perilously close to the dock. In addition to that, our passarelle,  basically a fancy name for a boarding plank, started dancing on the dock, threatening to pulverize the electrical post next to it or detach itself from the boat and then deep sixing  itself. We decided it best that we disconnect the electrical cord from the dock and pull up the passarelle. Having done that, my only fear left was that the slime line would give out, sending the 70 ton Seabird into the flimsy floating dock. So, since we had no intention of getting off of the boat again, we loosened the two stern lines, giving us an additional 4 feet of slack, then tightened up the greasy slime line as taught as we could make it. We were now a minimum of 8 feet away from the dock with no more worries. 

We had 225 miles to our next destination, Villasimius, Sardinia, so we scheduled our departure from Cefalu at 7am the following morning. At 8.5 knots, we can usually cover up to 110 miles on a day trip.  This was going to be a 17 hour trip and an overnighter. We actually enjoy an overnighter with a full moon and calm seas. You don’t always get what you want…..

Next Blog:  Cefalu to the island of Sardinia

a few more pics from Cefalu…….

 
Italy seems to have lots of wild cats.  Every once in a while we find these 
kittens that have not learned to be skittish yet.

this is a very common sight from this season.  Calm seas and beautiful 
sunsets

Our morning walk usually resulted in spectacular views

Seaside view of Cefalu.  Just around the corner is a beautiful beach

this was taken during our departure from Cefalu in the morning

And last but not least…….

You now know the secret to low fish prices in the restaurants in Sicily.  Normally, from the dock to the restaurants
means wholesalers, agents, refrigerated delivery trucks etc.  Not is Cefalu. We watched this guy make several
trips from the fishing boat at the pier that caught these to the individual restaurants. Notice there is no 
“Wide Load” sign on the bike……

Our Stay in Malta was brief and we did not do much in the way of exploring other than taking a taxi a few times to town for groceries. The grocery stores in Malta are completely unlike the European ones in that they stock more American goods. Cereals, potato chips, condiments, REAL roast beef, you name it. We really stocked up. After that, we had nothing more to do except to set out for Siracusa, Sicily and then on to Taormina, a picturesque anchorage on the eastern side of Sicily within viewing distance of Mt Etna and with a romantic mountaintop village. 

Sunset in Siracusa Harbor

The trip from Malta to Siracusa was pleasantly uneventful. Seas were flat calm for the entire 85 mile trip. We arrived at the anchorage mid afternoon and actually dropped our anchor in the exact spot that we did last year. Siracusa is a near perfectly protected anchorage if you pick the right spot. We dropped anchor in 25 feet of water and spooled out 175 feet of chain, which is way too much, but I sleep well at night that way. 

Last Christmas, Carol bought me a drone with a built in video camera. I had used it quite a bit over land but for some reason I was hesitant to try it over the water. The wind was at 0 knots and I figured if I was ever to do it, now was the time. It was fun, but I was so nervous that the video was kind of crappy, so, I won’t post the link here. I tend to get braver as time goes on,  so stay tuned!

Our friends Bill and Janet on Airstream, who we met while in Turkey a few seasons back, were also anchored in Siracusa. Through them we were introduced to another family, Bill and Judy on BeBe, who had their Granddaughter Elizabeth along with them for a few months. They in turn introduced us to yet another couple, Suzanne and Bob, which gave us a perfect excuse for a party aboard Seabird!

 The Cocktail Party

That lead to dinner the following night at our favorite Siracusa restaurant, La Tavernetta da Piero. It really is nice meeting new cruising friends. It is interesting, because back in Connecticut, our former home cruising grounds, sail boaters and power boaters were like the Hatfields and the McCoys! They had their marinas and we had ours. I have no idea how that started, but it was long before we got into boating. It may have been the tendency of power boaters to pass sailboats close by at 25 kts and sailboaters tendency to cut us off in a channel. When we started cruising, things changed. Most of our friends that we met along the way owned sailboats and we have had a lot of fun. Of course, at Seabird’s cruising speed of 8 knots, I would be hard pressed to throw a 6 inch wake!

Taormina 

The Cruise to Taormina was a short one at 48 miles. I had mentioned before that we had no mechanical issues. I had forgot about the battery issue. Toward the end of last season, the battery that starts our generator and emergency wing engine was starting to fail. On my list of springtime repairs was to replace it. As it turned out, getting a large 8D size battery was an issue and we had to settle for two smaller ones connected together. After the repairs were done and the mechanics had left Marina di Ragusa, the engines still barely turned over and started. I decided that I probably never had a bad battery and it was probably something else. After tracing the wires I found the problem. One of the tiny wires connected to the starter was chafed and touching the oil filter, causing a partial short circuit. I felt really stupid for not having checked that out initially but I repaired it and it was working fine now so not to dwell on it………

Taormina is a special place. It is a mildly protected anchorage as long as the wind is not coming from the South, Southeast or East with a beautiful mountaintop ancient city towering above you and an active volcano just off in the distance. While there, we rented a mooring from our friend George, who operates his business “Yacht Hotel” from his sailboat in the mooring field. Yacht Hotel is not a hotel at all, but a mooring field for small and large boats. It is aptly named, however, because of the price (gulp!) he charges per night.  For a mooring ball in the most spectacular anchorage in all of Sicily, it costs 80 Euros per night. Well guess what? In prime season, you need to call well in advance to secure a spot there and just after our departure from Taormina he was planning on adding more mooring balls to meet demand. This is truly capitalism at its best. Supply and demand sets the price. I recommend it wholeheartedly as a stop. 

 The City of Taormina on the hill

Straits of Messina

After staying in Taormina for two nights, it was on to our next stop, Milazzo after passing through the Messina Straits.

Traversing the Messina straits is VERY interesting. First of all, you have ferry boats going back and forth all day from Sicily to the Italian mainland, crisscrossing your path all the way up. Secondly, and most important, is the current, which can run 4 to 5 knots in either direction. You might think it is a tidal situation, but since the Mediterranean has very little tide, it has to be something else. To make a point, the tide is ALWAYS flowing into the med from Gibraltar. That seems strange, but the Med is such a large area that the evaporation rate is huge, so water from the Atlantic is always pouring into the Med. slowly at low tide and fast at high tide to replenish what is lost.  

On one side of the Messina Straits is the Tyrrhenian Sea and on the other side is Colder and saltier Levantine intermediate water. The explanation gets very complex and wordy, but in short, the small changes in tide from Gibraltar cause huge current variations that are difficult to predict and have been studied since the days of Homer.  

If you are interested in a more thorough explanation of this phenomenon, this link below will take you to an explanation:

http://www.internalwaveatlas.com/Atlas2_PDF/IWAtlas2_Pg199_StraitofMessina.pdf

We have been fortunate going through three times and had at least most of the trip going with us. It is a very wild ride for sure! You would think it would be fun getting a 4-5 knot push from the current, but it is not!  The current is not always straight and you encounter counter currents and whirlpools intermittently, which creates havoc with the steering system. 

Milazzo

We arrived in Milazzo in late afternoon. We arrived in the harbor and called the harbor master on channel 9 as directed. He motored out in his small inflatable and directed us to enter the basin between two boats. Seabird is 19 feet, two inches wide. I have never been afraid to squeeze through a tight space, but it looked to me like he was directing me through an opening about 17 feet wide. I know a little bit of Italian, but not the words for “Too narrow!!,”.  Finally, after 10 minutes of Carol and my sign language, a light bulb went off in his head and he directed is around the outside corner to, for us, docking heaven: a side tie!

 Seabird with our treasured Side Tie against the dock in Milazzo

It was a nice, but expensive marina.  I don’t know what else to say about the place.. The town was a nice stopover and we had dock water to wash the boat. The guy in front of us on a gorgeous 80 foot sailboat asked for a tour of the boat and he told us that If we wanted to sell it to him, he would buy it. I don’t know what his infatuation with Seabird was, especially coming from his beautiful, sleek sailboat. That just NEVER happens to us when we actually WANT to sell a boat.  

Our plan was to stay for a couple of nights, then move on to another small port on northern Sicily, Cefalu.

Next blog….Seabird gets fleeced…….

A few more pics…

Our friends Bill and Janet aboard Airstream in the Messina Straits

A cliffside home in Milazzo, Sicily

Periodically, during the month, in Siracusa, they close an entire street
and cover it with artwork made of flowers.  It is a huge project, very
beautiful, and sadly, gone the next day.

Mt Etna as seen from our boat while moored in Taormina

This is a view from the harbor we anchored in
while in Taormina

On the streets of Taormina, Sicily. To get to the
top from the harbor, the road meanders back and
forth and the houses are terraced.

Siracusa in the Background

You can cruise the world this way…or that way……

 This ship is called “The World”, aptly named because that is all it does. It continuously circles the globe.  It is basically a huge floating condominium complex with homes starting at over $1,000,000 each. On top of the purchase price you pay a large maintenance fee.  The Sicilian Coast 
Guard kicked us out of our favorite anchoring spot here in Siracusa harbor because this
beast was arriving and wanted our spot.  I didnt argue…

 And last but not least…….

While our boat was out of the water being worked on in Marina di Ragusa,
The marina was kind enough to rent us one of their apartments at a 
bargain price! This picture was taken from our balcony.  There were some-
times as many as 8 of these bulls in the yard at any given time. This was
as close as I wanted to get. It was the way that they stared at you…..

Our Stay in Malta was brief and we did not do much in the way of exploring other than taking a taxi a few times to town for groceries. The grocery stores in Malta are completely unlike the European ones in that they stock more American goods. Cereals, potato chips, condiments, REAL roast beef, you name it. We really stocked up. After that, we had nothing more to do except to set out for Siracusa, Sicily and then on to Taormina, a picturesque anchorage on the eastern side of Sicily within viewing distance of Mt Etna and with a romantic mountaintop village. 

Sunset in Siracusa Harbor

The trip from Malta to Siracusa was pleasantly uneventful. Seas were flat calm for the entire 85 mile trip. We arrived at the anchorage mid afternoon and actually dropped our anchor in the exact spot that we did last year. Siracusa is a near perfectly protected anchorage if you pick the right spot. We dropped anchor in 25 feet of water and spooled out 175 feet of chain, which is way too much, but I sleep well at night that way. 

Last Christmas, Carol bought me a drone with a built in video camera. I had used it quite a bit over land but for some reason I was hesitant to try it over the water. The wind was at 0 knots and I figured if I was ever to do it, now was the time. It was fun, but I was so nervous that the video was kind of crappy, so, I won’t post the link here. I tend to get braver as time goes on,  so stay tuned!

Our friends Bill and Janet on Airstream, who we met while in Turkey a few seasons back, were also anchored in Siracusa. Through them we were introduced to another family, Bill and Judy on BeBe, who had their Granddaughter Elizabeth along with them for a few months. They in turn introduced us to yet another couple, Suzanne and Bob, which gave us a perfect excuse for a party aboard Seabird!

 The Cocktail Party

That lead to dinner the following night at our favorite Siracusa restaurant, La Tavernetta da Piero. It really is nice meeting new cruising friends. It is interesting, because back in Connecticut, our former home cruising grounds, sail boaters and power boaters were like the Hatfields and the McCoys! They had their marinas and we had ours. I have no idea how that started, but it was long before we got into boating. It may have been the tendency of power boaters to pass sailboats close by at 25 kts and sailboaters tendency to cut us off in a channel. When we started cruising, things changed. Most of our friends that we met along the way owned sailboats and we have had a lot of fun. Of course, at Seabird’s cruising speed of 8 knots, I would be hard pressed to throw a 6 inch wake!

Taormina 

The Cruise to Taormina was a short one at 48 miles. I had mentioned before that we had no mechanical issues. I had forgot about the battery issue. Toward the end of last season, the battery that starts our generator and emergency wing engine was starting to fail. On my list of springtime repairs was to replace it. As it turned out, getting a large 8D size battery was an issue and we had to settle for two smaller ones connected together. After the repairs were done and the mechanics had left Marina di Ragusa, the engines still barely turned over and started. I decided that I probably never had a bad battery and it was probably something else. After tracing the wires I found the problem. One of the tiny wires connected to the starter was chafed and touching the oil filter, causing a partial short circuit. I felt really stupid for not having checked that out initially but I repaired it and it was working fine now so not to dwell on it………

Taormina is a special place. It is a mildly protected anchorage as long as the wind is not coming from the South, Southeast or East with a beautiful mountaintop ancient city towering above you and an active volcano just off in the distance. While there, we rented a mooring from our friend George, who operates his business “Yacht Hotel” from his sailboat in the mooring field. Yacht Hotel is not a hotel at all, but a mooring field for small and large boats. It is aptly named, however, because of the price (gulp!) he charges per night.  For a mooring ball in the most spectacular anchorage in all of Sicily, it costs 80 Euros per night. Well guess what? In prime season, you need to call well in advance to secure a spot there and just after our departure from Taormina he was planning on adding more mooring balls to meet demand. This is truly capitalism at its best. Supply and demand sets the price. I recommend it wholeheartedly as a stop. 

 The City of Taormina on the hill

Straits of Messina

After staying in Taormina for two nights, it was on to our next stop, Milazzo after passing through the Messina Straits.

Traversing the Messina straits is VERY interesting. First of all, you have ferry boats going back and forth all day from Sicily to the Italian mainland, crisscrossing your path all the way up. Secondly, and most important, is the current, which can run 4 to 5 knots in either direction. You might think it is a tidal situation, but since the Mediterranean has very little tide, it has to be something else. To make a point, the tide is ALWAYS flowing into the med from Gibraltar. That seems strange, but the Med is such a large area that the evaporation rate is huge, so water from the Atlantic is always pouring into the Med. slowly at low tide and fast at high tide to replenish what is lost.  

On one side of the Messina Straits is the Tyrrhenian Sea and on the other side is Colder and saltier Levantine intermediate water. The explanation gets very complex and wordy, but in short, the small changes in tide from Gibraltar cause huge current variations that are difficult to predict and have been studied since the days of Homer.  

If you are interested in a more thorough explanation of this phenomenon, this link below will take you to an explanation:

http://www.internalwaveatlas.com/Atlas2_PDF/IWAtlas2_Pg199_StraitofMessina.pdf

We have been fortunate going through three times and had at least most of the trip going with us. It is a very wild ride for sure! You would think it would be fun getting a 4-5 knot push from the current, but it is not!  The current is not always straight and you encounter counter currents and whirlpools intermittently, which creates havoc with the steering system. 

Milazzo

We arrived in Milazzo in late afternoon. We arrived in the harbor and called the harbor master on channel 9 as directed. He motored out in his small inflatable and directed us to enter the basin between two boats. Seabird is 19 feet, two inches wide. I have never been afraid to squeeze through a tight space, but it looked to me like he was directing me through an opening about 17 feet wide. I know a little bit of Italian, but not the words for “Too narrow!!,”.  Finally, after 10 minutes of Carol and my sign language, a light bulb went off in his head and he directed is around the outside corner to, for us, docking heaven: a side tie!

 Seabird with our treasured Side Tie against the dock in Milazzo

It was a nice, but expensive marina.  I don’t know what else to say about the place.. The town was a nice stopover and we had dock water to wash the boat. The guy in front of us on a gorgeous 80 foot sailboat asked for a tour of the boat and he told us that If we wanted to sell it to him, he would buy it. I don’t know what his infatuation with Seabird was, especially coming from his beautiful, sleek sailboat. That just NEVER happens to us when we actually WANT to sell a boat.  

Our plan was to stay for a couple of nights, then move on to another small port on northern Sicily, Cefalu.

Next blog….Seabird gets fleeced…….

A few more pics…

Our friends Bill and Janet aboard Airstream in the Messina Straits

A cliffside home in Milazzo, Sicily

Periodically, during the month, in Siracusa, they close an entire street
and cover it with artwork made of flowers.  It is a huge project, very
beautiful, and sadly, gone the next day.

Mt Etna as seen from our boat while moored in Taormina

This is a view from the harbor we anchored in
while in Taormina

On the streets of Taormina, Sicily. To get to the
top from the harbor, the road meanders back and
forth and the houses are terraced.

Siracusa in the Background

You can cruise the world this way…or that way……

 This ship is called “The World”, aptly named because that is all it does. It continuously circles the globe.  It is basically a huge floating condominium complex with homes starting at over $1,000,000 each. On top of the purchase price you pay a large maintenance fee.  The Sicilian Coast 
Guard kicked us out of our favorite anchoring spot here in Siracusa harbor because this
beast was arriving and wanted our spot.  I didnt argue…

 And last but not least…….

While our boat was out of the water being worked on in Marina di Ragusa,
The marina was kind enough to rent us one of their apartments at a 
bargain price! This picture was taken from our balcony.  There were some-
times as many as 8 of these bulls in the yard at any given time. This was
as close as I wanted to get. It was the way that they stared at you…..

After launching the boat, we waited a few days to get things straightened out and it was time to move on to our next destination, Malta, which is a small island nation about 60 miles due south of Sicily.

Our exit from Marina di Ragusa got complicated when we went to get money from an ATM in town.  It was closed.  All of them… We then went to recharge our phones and found that they could not do it.  We then went to pay our bill at the marina by credit card and found that they could not do it either. We then went to the grocery store to buy food and they could not take our credit card….. Evidently, all the internet was down in the area because there was some construction going on involving digging a hole in the street and some local enterprising “businessmen” took the opportunity to steal the copper cable normally buried in the ground which carried all of the internet for the area! Finally, the office manager, who did not live in the area, was kind enough to do our billing from her home! Off we went…

Carol loves to read the various guides and books about our destination, so she does a VERY thorough study of everything to do with our destination.  This is a good thing because I just hate reading the stuff myself.  I get through about two pages and then I am bored. Don’t get me wrong…. I love our destinations….I just dislike reading about them before we get there.

Anyway, as you might guess, I knew little about Malta.  I do recall as a child cheering for this guy pictured below.  He was known as “Baron Mikel Sicluna From The Island Of Malta” who was a “Professional” wrestler on TV along the likes of Haystack Calhoun, George “the animal” Steele and Mr. Fuji.

Baron Mikel Scicluna from the Island of Malta (RIP)

Here is our route from Sicily to Malta: 60 miles

Back to our Journey. We did our normal 6 ways from Sunday weather checks.  We used Passageweather.com, Ocens Weather, seaweather.net and a few more.  Sometimes it is hard to believe that you will be encountering 10 knot winds on your voyage when it is blowing 30 knots at the dock. None of the reports  really conflicted and it looked like 10 kts on the beam with 2-3 foot swells.  Fortunately, this time,  they were right on target. It was a beautiful ride with no mechanical issues.  Actually, my biggest worry was that the desalination system (watermaker), would not work properly.  We were intentionally low on water when we left with the idea that we would be able to make a few hundred gallons during the trip.  I had just de-winterized the system and you never know how it will run for the first time in the season. It worked flawlessly, which was a good omen for the trip itself.

We plugged on at about 8.5 kts and in about 7 hours we pulled into Gozo, the smaller island on Malta’s west side.

Look how tiny Seabird appears after the ferry starts moving.

Mgarr marina is a small boat basin within the harbor at Gozo.  upon entering, you are supposed to dock at the end of one of the T’s and check in with customs and immigration.  It was one of the more pleasant check ins that we have had, because of the side tie docking and the very pleasant authorities.  Check in took about 15 minutes.   In the Med, a side tie floating dock is EXTREMELY rare and a pleasure for us.  With only two of us on each boat, med mooring, while doable, is a bit of work, especially if there is little help at the dock.  Anyway, we were on a side tie at the end of a T, with good electricity.

The first order of business was……you guessed it…….finding 3G internet SIM cards!  Unfortunately, it was late when we arrived and the next day everything was closed by the time we got to town. Since we were only going to be there a few days, we decided to go the ancient route and use free wifi signals around the restaurant on our iPads.

We had done most of our touring in Malta last season so we didn’t do much touring other than our normal daily morning walks along the cliffs, which we loved. The views of the Blue lagoon across the channel and the spectacular crystal clear water was worth the trip.

 We did this walk nearly every day along the coast of Gozo

The chief purpose of our visit was to fill up with cheap(er) fuel. As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, the original plan was to head from Malta to Tunisia and fill up with cheap fuel. I think the latest price there was around $1.50 per gallon and we needed about 1500 gallons. Because of the recent problems with security there, we decided to skip the place and fuel up in Malta.

It is more expensive there (about $4.65/gal) but cheaper than the rest of Europe and as a bonus we add another 30 years or so to our lives.

I hate adding fuel to the boat. Number one, it is expensive and time consuming as well as boring. The second thing is, while I love most things about our boat, the tank venting system is a bit undersized.  If you add much more than 25 gallons per minute, it overwhelms the tiny vents and you end up with a geyser made of diesel fuel blowing 3 or 4 feet into the air, landing on me, the deck and, if I don’t move quickly, into the water, creating a potentially nasty situation with the authorities. To minimize the risk, I listen very closely to the gurgling in the tank as I fill it. When the noise changes, I stop.

Here was the problem in Malta:  they really don’t have a fuel dock. You need to bring the boat to the side of a concrete pier and a truck pulls up with a tankful of diesel fuel and a very LOUD pump, making it difficult to hear the tank on board gurgling.

Actually, I did fine on the first three tanks. My problem happened on the fourth tank. Since I KNEW that tank was empty and it held 200 gallons, I told the fuel truck operator to stop at 190 gallons. Shortly after adding 100 gallons, that nasty diesel just burst out of the tank fill, all over me and all over the deck rapidly heading for the (gulp) overboard drain!  Crap!  I shut the hose off immediately and covered the drain with a small piece of absorbent cloth that I had nearby. Carol quickly ran to the engine room and got a bunch more and I was able to sop most of it up. The problem is that I actually had 100 gallons already in the tank when I started  and had not verified it before refueling. The other thing was, with the loud pump on the truck running, I could not hear the gurgling sound when it was filling up.

I would probably write that up as one of my most miserable experiences on Seabird but I need to remind myself of the time the same sort of thing happened to me years ago in San Diego, but that time it was my sewage holding tank that blew up all over me and the deck……  Don’t ask……

I guess that is not a perfect segue into the subject of food, but anyway….we actually found a REAL Thai restaurant in Gozo.  We had read that they served Thai food at this place up on the hill above the marina, but the big surprise came when we discovered that the chef was from Thailand.  The food was so good that we asked to meet him and he came out to say hello.  We had a nice conversation with him and he was very excited that we had spent two years in Thailand on the boat.

We stayed in Malta for a few more days and then headed back to Sicily for our next two stops which were Siracusa and Taormina.

A few more pictures of Malta……

This is an anchorage close to the Blue Lagoon and one of our favorites

This is from last season in Malta. It was a beautiful
small anchorage surrounded by rock formations.

The two images above are from the harbor that we
spent fourth of July last season.

A view from up top in Gozo

And….Last but not least….

This was a photo  from one of our road trips in Italy.  I wonder 
what they named the roll…..?

After launching the boat, we waited a few days to get things straightened out and it was time to move on to our next destination, Malta, which is a small island nation about 60 miles due south of Sicily.

Our exit from Marina di Ragusa got complicated when we went to get money from an ATM in town.  It was closed.  All of them… We then went to recharge our phones and found that they could not do it.  We then went to pay our bill at the marina by credit card and found that they could not do it either. We then went to the grocery store to buy food and they could not take our credit card….. Evidently, all the internet was down in the area because there was some construction going on involving digging a hole in the street and some local enterprising “businessmen” took the opportunity to steal the copper cable normally buried in the ground which carried all of the internet for the area! Finally, the office manager, who did not live in the area, was kind enough to do our billing from her home! Off we went…

Carol loves to read the various guides and books about our destination, so she does a VERY thorough study of everything to do with our destination.  This is a good thing because I just hate reading the stuff myself.  I get through about two pages and then I am bored. Don’t get me wrong…. I love our destinations….I just dislike reading about them before we get there.

Anyway, as you might guess, I knew little about Malta.  I do recall as a child cheering for this guy pictured below.  He was known as “Baron Mikel Sicluna From The Island Of Malta” who was a “Professional” wrestler on TV along the likes of Haystack Calhoun, George “the animal” Steele and Mr. Fuji.

Baron Mikel Scicluna from the Island of Malta (RIP)

Here is our route from Sicily to Malta: 60 miles

Back to our Journey. We did our normal 6 ways from Sunday weather checks.  We used Passageweather.com, Ocens Weather, seaweather.net and a few more.  Sometimes it is hard to believe that you will be encountering 10 knot winds on your voyage when it is blowing 30 knots at the dock. None of the reports  really conflicted and it looked like 10 kts on the beam with 2-3 foot swells.  Fortunately, this time,  they were right on target. It was a beautiful ride with no mechanical issues.  Actually, my biggest worry was that the desalination system (watermaker), would not work properly.  We were intentionally low on water when we left with the idea that we would be able to make a few hundred gallons during the trip.  I had just de-winterized the system and you never know how it will run for the first time in the season. It worked flawlessly, which was a good omen for the trip itself.

We plugged on at about 8.5 kts and in about 7 hours we pulled into Gozo, the smaller island on Malta’s west side.

Look how tiny Seabird appears after the ferry starts moving.

Mgarr marina is a small boat basin within the harbor at Gozo.  upon entering, you are supposed to dock at the end of one of the T’s and check in with customs and immigration.  It was one of the more pleasant check ins that we have had, because of the side tie docking and the very pleasant authorities.  Check in took about 15 minutes.   In the Med, a side tie floating dock is EXTREMELY rare and a pleasure for us.  With only two of us on each boat, med mooring, while doable, is a bit of work, especially if there is little help at the dock.  Anyway, we were on a side tie at the end of a T, with good electricity.

The first order of business was……you guessed it…….finding 3G internet SIM cards!  Unfortunately, it was late when we arrived and the next day everything was closed by the time we got to town. Since we were only going to be there a few days, we decided to go the ancient route and use free wifi signals around the restaurant on our iPads.

We had done most of our touring in Malta last season so we didn’t do much touring other than our normal daily morning walks along the cliffs, which we loved. The views of the Blue lagoon across the channel and the spectacular crystal clear water was worth the trip.

 We did this walk nearly every day along the coast of Gozo

The chief purpose of our visit was to fill up with cheap(er) fuel. As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, the original plan was to head from Malta to Tunisia and fill up with cheap fuel. I think the latest price there was around $1.50 per gallon and we needed about 1500 gallons. Because of the recent problems with security there, we decided to skip the place and fuel up in Malta.

It is more expensive there (about $4.65/gal) but cheaper than the rest of Europe and as a bonus we add another 30 years or so to our lives.

I hate adding fuel to the boat. Number one, it is expensive and time consuming as well as boring. The second thing is, while I love most things about our boat, the tank venting system is a bit undersized.  If you add much more than 25 gallons per minute, it overwhelms the tiny vents and you end up with a geyser made of diesel fuel blowing 3 or 4 feet into the air, landing on me, the deck and, if I don’t move quickly, into the water, creating a potentially nasty situation with the authorities. To minimize the risk, I listen very closely to the gurgling in the tank as I fill it. When the noise changes, I stop.

Here was the problem in Malta:  they really don’t have a fuel dock. You need to bring the boat to the side of a concrete pier and a truck pulls up with a tankful of diesel fuel and a very LOUD pump, making it difficult to hear the tank on board gurgling.

Actually, I did fine on the first three tanks. My problem happened on the fourth tank. Since I KNEW that tank was empty and it held 200 gallons, I told the fuel truck operator to stop at 190 gallons. Shortly after adding 100 gallons, that nasty diesel just burst out of the tank fill, all over me and all over the deck rapidly heading for the (gulp) overboard drain!  Crap!  I shut the hose off immediately and covered the drain with a small piece of absorbent cloth that I had nearby. Carol quickly ran to the engine room and got a bunch more and I was able to sop most of it up. The problem is that I actually had 100 gallons already in the tank when I started  and had not verified it before refueling. The other thing was, with the loud pump on the truck running, I could not hear the gurgling sound when it was filling up.

I would probably write that up as one of my most miserable experiences on Seabird but I need to remind myself of the time the same sort of thing happened to me years ago in San Diego, but that time it was my sewage holding tank that blew up all over me and the deck……  Don’t ask……

I guess that is not a perfect segue into the subject of food, but anyway….we actually found a REAL Thai restaurant in Gozo.  We had read that they served Thai food at this place up on the hill above the marina, but the big surprise came when we discovered that the chef was from Thailand.  The food was so good that we asked to meet him and he came out to say hello.  We had a nice conversation with him and he was very excited that we had spent two years in Thailand on the boat.

We stayed in Malta for a few more days and then headed back to Sicily for our next two stops which were Siracusa and Taormina.

A few more pictures of Malta……

This is an anchorage close to the Blue Lagoon and one of our favorites

This is from last season in Malta. It was a beautiful
small anchorage surrounded by rock formations.

The two images above are from the harbor that we
spent fourth of July last season.

A view from up top in Gozo

And….Last but not least….

This was a photo  from one of our road trips in Italy.  I wonder 
what they named the roll…..?