sicily
28th July 2022
We left Lipari in the morning and cruised past the last island in the chain, Isola Vulcano which as the name suggests was a volcano and onto Sicily.
We had picked an anchorage on the coast for its proximity to the Messina Straight. We are still on a time line to get out of the Schengen Zone by the 12 August so unfortunately we don't have the luxury of time to do much or any exploring so Sicily will have to wait for another year.
The anchorage was set on a large bay with a sand spit dividing the bay and the town of Tindari was on the other side of the spit. Surprisingly there were no "Battery Beaches" on the large bay. It was unexpected to me to see how hilly/mountainous Sicily is and I would love to come back and explore more. We did end up having the bay all to ourselves that night after the day boats went home. There was a church high on the headland above the bay and we could hear music coming from there.
We put the dinghy in the next morning and did some shopping before heading further towards the straight and anchoring for the night. We spotted an Australian flag on a cat after we had anchored that night so before we set off in the morning we went and said hello. They had recognized the name Phantomas and turned out they had also had their boat in the yard at Port Saint Louis and had seen our boat there but probably before she was our boat. Their boat was named Redgum and they ended up following us through the straights.
We left Lipari in the morning and cruised past the last island in the chain, Isola Vulcano which as the name suggests was a volcano and onto Sicily.
We had picked an anchorage on the coast for its proximity to the Messina Straight. We are still on a time line to get out of the Schengen Zone by the 12 August so unfortunately we don't have the luxury of time to do much or any exploring so Sicily will have to wait for another year.
The anchorage was set on a large bay with a sand spit dividing the bay and the town of Tindari was on the other side of the spit. Surprisingly there were no "Battery Beaches" on the large bay. It was unexpected to me to see how hilly/mountainous Sicily is and I would love to come back and explore more. We did end up having the bay all to ourselves that night after the day boats went home. There was a church high on the headland above the bay and we could hear music coming from there.
We put the dinghy in the next morning and did some shopping before heading further towards the straight and anchoring for the night. We spotted an Australian flag on a cat after we had anchored that night so before we set off in the morning we went and said hello. They had recognized the name Phantomas and turned out they had also had their boat in the yard at Port Saint Louis and had seen our boat there but probably before she was our boat. Their boat was named Redgum and they ended up following us through the straights.