Let Season 3 Begin!

And we’re off!  We left Licata yesterday with a weather window to head west around Sicily. If we didn’t leave now, we wouldn’t have time to go west where we haven’t gone before. If you read my recent post, “Plans for Summer 2024,” you know where we’re headed this season. It’s always bittersweet to leave a winter berth and community, and we were touched by those who came around to say good-bye the day before and those friends on our pontoon who were up to see us off at 7:30am! 

Much like you would say “Break a leg!” to an actor heading on stage so as not to jinx them, sailors will say “Fair winds and following seas” or simply “Bon voyage.” We were grateful for both all the well wishes we received upon our departure as well as our literal fair winds (solid, steady easterly wind behind us) and following seas (large swells behind us so we rolled with them). The winds were so good that we actually had our best pure sailing day ever. We enjoyed at least six hours of peaceful sailing without any engines. Woohoo!

We had to ‘dust off the cobwebs’ on the boat as well as our brains and muscles a bit, and update our US flag to start the season afresh. We had such a great first day out. In addition to the exciting sailing, we had our best dolphin sighting ever. A pair of them came and were playing around the boat for ages, which was so special to see.

Our 50 nautical mile sail saw us to the town of Sciacca on the south coast of Sicily in about nine hours. We landed Sabática in a marina remembering how to do a side tie – yay. We climbed a thousand steps to reach the nice town center that had plenty of life in it. We enjoyed a great dinner at Osteria Il Commensale, and would definitely recommend it! 

For our second day, we had our trickiest marina departure ever. Our first challenge was that we had 20 knots of wind blowing us onto the dock. Secondly, we were side tied, but two boats were stern tied on either side of us. We had to figure out how to spin Sabática in place into a stern tie position so we could exit without hitting the other boats or their bow lines. Skippy tried two different methods, the second of which successfully got us cleanly off the dock. Great job, Skippy! We then set off to what was expected to be a challenging day with forecasted gusts up to 30 knots and 1.5 meter (about 5 feet) swells. Thankfully, the day was more benign than predicted.

We traveled another 50 nautical miles with good winds that dropped later in the day. However, we made it all the way to the largest of the Egadi islands, Favignana, which is on the west coast of Sicily. Along the way, we passed the town of Marsala, where Marsala wine comes from. 🙂 We’ve now successfully anchored for the first time this season, and all of that worked too. Insert sigh of relief. We are in the bay of Cala Rosso, named the best beach in Italy back in 2015! It’s a rocky shore with beautiful turquoise waters. We should be here for a couple of nights to wait out some undesirable winds and rain, so I’ll let you know what we discover here next time.

So, only two days in and we’ve already had several “bests!” Here’s hoping the season continues that way. 🙂