20th –24th August Port Empedocle to Siracusa

High Point: Arriving in Siracusa. The early evening sun lights up the facades of the waterfront palazzos and the towers and spires on the skyline. Their faded elegance and the many architectural styles give us an immediate sense of the rich history of this important trading crossroads. At nightfall the city puts on a firework show and we have ringside seats anchored in the harbour – we treat it as our own celebration that we have now arrived in the Ionian sea!

Low Point: We’ve found the last few days without a break a bit of a slog. It’s too much effort at the end of a long day to launch the dinghy to go ashore. It has to be pumped up, then winched up on a halyard before it can be lowered into the water. The same goes for the outboard, and the whole performance takes about half an hour in good conditions – longer if it’s windy or choppy. And then you have to do it all over again in reverse to get the whole lot back onboard. Spending any length of time onboard with no way off apart from into the sea for a swim is tough for us. It works better when we can sail one day and spend the next day parked up so we can go ashore and explore our surroundings. That’s what we did on passage down the Portuguese coast, and we resolve to do it that way again next time.

On 20th August we see the family off on the airport bus to Palermo from Port Empedocle, before returning to a strangely empty and decluttered Makarma. We must make her ready for the next few days journey along the coast southeast, then north to Siracusa. The first day is a 25 mile passage to Licata. We motor for the first hour in flat calm, which gives the engine a chance to top up the batteries and cool the fridge. Then we beam reach in sparkling calm conditions until the breeze falls light and astern, forcing us to motor for the last 8 miles. The coastline here is barren and rocky with scattered settlements and not much farmland. We pass one or two beaches on the way which are packed with holidaymakers.

It is hot and thundery (37 degrees in the cabin) as we come into Licata. It’s a scruffy harbour and its most prominent feature is a huge cemetery that sprawls over the hill above it. The town is described in the guidebook as ‘a blackspot’. We don’t bother to go ashore to find out what they mean. We anchor in the east side of the harbour, which now has a dog-leg entrance between two new inner walls to the south. Someone told us it’s in preparation for a marina they plan to build.
We are all alone in the anchorage – and it is high season! It was the same in Porto Empedocle, apart from one night when two other boats joined us. We’re the only yacht anchoring tomorrow night off Marina di Ragusa as well. You clearly can still get off the beaten track in the Med, and find places that are not visited by hordes of yachts.

From Licata we plan to stop somewhere close to Marina di Ragusa 37 miles away, which the pilot mentions has a new 800 berth marina. There’s just a seawall marked on our charts, but there’s a bay on either side which should offer enough shelter for the night, given the conditions. Like yesterday, we have a sparkling broad reach in the sea breeze for three hours before the wind dies. We motor the rest of the way. We’re only two miles short of Marina di Ragusa when thunder clouds start to build ashore over the hills. Before long, thunder is rumbling closer and we can see lightning. We put all our portable electronic gear in the oven as a precaution. The numerous little speed boats out fishing all run for cover to the marina. The storm breaks over us bringing a fresh breeze and a downpour of rain that washes our decks nicely. We can’t help feeling like sitting ducks to see the lightning flash around us, and a couple of very loud thunderclaps make us jump in fright, but it soon blows over us. Through it all, a fleet of Lasers is still racing round the cans off the beach.

The anchorage is better than we expect. A pleasant holiday resort extends eastward from the new marina along the sandy bay. The sea is reasonably calm, and the storm has freshened the air. We expect to sleep well – until the disco starts up……

We make an early start the next day to do the 30 miles to Porto Palo, just around the southeast corner of Sicily. By 11am, the wind has filled in, and Leighton helms for almost three hours until the wind dies. It then perversely freshens and comes in on the nose, forcing us to donk into it for an hour until we get round the point. We reach Porto Palo harbour by mid afternoon, but before we can go ashore, Leighton wants to repair a leak in the dinghy, and the glue will take 24 hours to cure. Undeterred, C swims ashore to the beach. It’s the first time either of us has been on dry land since leaving Port Empedocle. The water in the bay is surprisingly clear, considering a small fleet of fishing trawlers is berthed here.

We have Siracusa in our sights next morning, motoring in flat calm until midday when the breeze gets up. It is 15 knots bang on the nose, so we decide to crack off and sail to the beach resort of Fontane Bianchi instead, which gives us an hour of fast reaching before we drop the anchor in 5 metres of clear water over sand. Once again, we’re the only boat around, and it’s Sunday! We snorkel towards the shore, keeping a watchful eye out to avoid a number of brown jellyfish with dark beaded tentacles. Back on board, we realise the breeze has gone round southeasterly, giving us a favourable wind to Siracusa. Once we get the sails up, we can’t manage more than 3 knots and we’re impatient to get to Siracusa now, so we take them down again. A big thundercloud looms behind us for a while, but passes harmlessly by. As we motor along at a sedate 4-5 knots, we’re overtaken by an armada of motorboats big and small that are going home at top speed after a day out. The sea is churned up with so much wash that we lurch and roll our way round Capo Murro di Porco before entering the great expanse of sheltered water that is Siracusa harbour where we anchor.