Breaking in the New Season

Thanks to Conor for the clever post title. 😉

I may have jinxed us with my previous post “Let Season 3 Begin!” by claiming how our first couple of days out were fabulous. We have seen our fair share of challenges in the week since then, but at least we’re working them out before we take any guests onboard! 

Challenge #1: Bad weather. I last wrote that we had arrived at Favignana, the largest of the Egadi Islands. We were anchored there for two nights, but unfortunately, we were never able to go ashore. We had stormy weather then the winds and swell completely shifted making our spot quite uncomfortable and not conducive to further exploration. So, we left with the aim of using the new westerly winds to reach the cape at the far northwest tip of Sicily. Maybe we can see the Egadi islands another time. 😦

Challenge #2: Our inverter shut off.  As we set off from Favignana and I tried to charge up our headsets (affectionately called ‘marriage savers’), I discovered that none of our AC electrical outlets were working. Our inverter (that converts our DC power to AC) would not switch back on, nor could it be restarted. We ignored it for the time being as our devices were fairly well-charged and the USB ports still worked, but it was quite concerning. We eventually concluded that the problem stemmed from a “Low Battery” shutdown that was likely spurred by the addition of our awesome new Starlink (satellite internet). Specifically, we had been leaving Starlink plugged in 24/7 drawing a fair amount of power. The rainy weather wasn’t allowing our solar panels to generate the normal amount of electricity, so in the mornings our batteries were more depleted than we were used to. We were accustomed to running our electric kettle (for the ever-important coffee and tea) and toaster at the same time, but the full combination now likely was just too much for the batteries. 

Challenge #3: Our outhaul snapped.  On the same day we discovered our inverter wasn’t working, we were sailing and adjusting the main sail when the outhaul line snapped in half after we tightened it. (The outhaul is the rope that pulls the main sail down towards the back of the boom and flattens out the sail. We were trying to lower the sail as it was too high.) This was very not good. 

Given our two calamities, we abandoned our plans and instead turned into the west coast town of Trapani, docking at a small marina there. On a stable boat, Conor did some research and tried several things to reboot our inverter. He had thought that connecting to shore power would help. No joy. We needed the help of an electrician. As luck would have it, it was May 1st – the national Labor Day holiday in Italy. We figured nothing could happen until the following day. The staff at our marina were amazing, though. Without English, they understood what we needed and kept making calls until they found a very nice electrician who could talk Conor through ideas over the phone. We got power! One new adjustment we’ve now made is to only run one appliance at a time – kettle or toaster – in the early mornings if the battery level is too low. We also now unplug Starlink at night once we go to sleep so as not to drain the batteries unnecessarily. There is so much to monitor and control on a floating apartment!

As a bonus, we got to explore a bit of Trapani for one evening. While there were many tourists here (we heard a fair bit of English) likely using Trapani as a base from which to go explore the Egadi islands, Trapani is worth a look as well. It has a nice, long beach and a really nice old town with tons of old lovely palazzos and supposedly many great restaurants. We happened upon a beautiful church (surprise) called Our Lady of the Help. It was built back in 1461 atop an ancient Greek temple. The marble flooring and decor were amazing. We also happened upon the current city council building housed in the old Senatorial Palace, which was originally built in the 15th century. It has interesting clock towers, including one that displays the day of the month. Apparently, an even more impressive astronomical clock sits to the side of the palace over the oldest gate to the city that we unfortunately missed in the dark.

While our little marina proved to be so helpful, we awoke to some engines roaring at 3am and then again at 4am. Fishing boats. Conor got up at 3:45am and by the time I finally surfaced at 8am, he had already replaced the outhaul, shortened one of our reefing lines that was too long, affixed the boom so it was better suited for all the downwind sailing we were doing, and had tested the inverter. When Sabática’s not happy, Skippy’s not happy! With everything fixed and ready, we set sail again.

Challenge #4: Our topping lift shredded.  Back on track to the cape with sails underway, Conor noticed that our topping lift was badly frayed. (Imagine the triangle made by a main sail. The topping lift is the rope tied to the end of the boom that reaches to the very top of the mast – so the longest side of the triangle. Very important for adjusting how high the boom is being held.) Frayed working lines are never a good thing. Fortunately, Conor has all kinds of backups in place. He attached one such backup line to the boom to take some of the load, we slowly lowered the main sail, then out came some extra line and the little sewing kit. Conor handily sewed the two lines together so he could simply pull the new line through and up without having to climb a thing. This was fixed while we were underway.

We made it to the small seaside resort town of San Vito Lo Capo and anchored for one night. This has been one of my favorite anchorages so far. Beautiful bay, beach, turquoise waters, mountains, lighthouse, not crowded. 🙂

Challenge #5: Higher than predicted winds.  The next day we took off for Palermo, or more specifically, Mondello Bay. Given the forecasts were all reasonable, we hoisted a full main sail. Shortly after we left our bay, though, we started seeing gusts up to 30 knots. What in the world? As we started to cross a much bigger bay we turned in to try and find a calmer area so we could double reef the main sail (make it much smaller). “Calm” is completely relative here. We eventually managed to reef, but imagine 2 meter (6 foot) swell and blasting cold wind (I was wearing four layers of clothing). Since we had been doing so much downwind sailing, Conor had devised two safety lines (he liked to call them “preventers”) to keep the main sail and jib each more secured to an opposite side of the boat. We were trying to avoid jibing and booms and/or sails slamming. Reconfigured, we headed back towards Palermo and managed to purely sail almost the entire way for at least five hours. Mind you, it’s not what I would call fun or comfortable sailing, but we made it. We did witness a half dozen porpoises synchronized swimming toward us then playing around our boat for quite a while. That definitely brightened the day. 

Mondello Bay is yet another gorgeous spot with the most lively recreation we’ve seen yet. Literally, we’re talking fleets of people on SUPs, in dinghies, rowing, wind surfing and swimming. Conor even saw horseback riders on the beach. All quite entertaining to see!

Our next stop was the lovely tourist town of Cefalú. We enjoyed three wonderful calm days in this beautiful spot utilizing two different anchorages. If you’d like a holiday in Sicily, consider staying in Cefalú! The setting of the town on the sea with mountains as the backdrop is just stunning. The sandy beach is long, shallow and clear, perfect for young kids. The lovely pedestrian streets are lined with nice shops, restaurants, gelaterias and the odd bit of history mixed in. The 12th century Norman Cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it has a wonderful prominence in views of the town. And, we stumbled upon the unique medieval wash-house where women of old would literally wash clothes. Would you believe we also got to meet up with Irish friends who happened to be there on holiday?! If you visit Cefalú, make sure to get out on a boat as the absolute best view is from the sea!

Challenge #6: A lazyjack line snapped.  Once again we set off with extremely benign winds and weather in the forecast, and yes, we check multiple forecasts every day. We had a long enough day ahead of us (50 nautical miles) as we were finally aiming to head out to the Aeolian Islands just north of Sicily. Wouldn’t you know that the maximum 11 knot winds forecasted turned into gusts up to 33 knots with rain. With such an expected benign day, I was working inside with my walkie talkie ready should Skippy need anything. Well, we needed to quickly reef the main sail again. Before we could even finish reefing, one of our lazyjack lines completely snapped and allowed the sail to spill out all over. (These are the lines on either side of the sail bag that hold it in place. The main sail is stored inside the bag when it’s down.) This was tricky. Conor found some handy extra line and had to rescue the sail, roughly tying it up. Sail saved, we resorted to motoring the rest of the way. The swell had turned beamy (hitting us on the side, which is not the good kind). And did I mentioned our BBQ grill cover blew away? Fortunately for Amazon in Italy, I could send a replacement to Rory in Rome as he’ll be visiting us soon. 😉

And again, to cheer us up, we had at least a dozen porpoises come say hello. We have seen more dolphins and porpoises in the waters of Sicily than anywhere else! Sadly, it’s been nearly impossible to catch any in photo or video from the helm station. This is all I’ve got!

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Overall, it’s been quite the week of boating challenges, but we’re so glad we made the effort to come this way around Sicily. We’ve concluded that the west and northern coasts are just gorgeous. We love the sandy beaches with turquoise waters and the dramatic mountains, which we haven’t seen as much of in the rest of the Sicilian coastline. For the record, here’s where we traveled:

When a boat sits idle for seven months, there are bound to be worn lines and things that break once she gets going again. We’d like to think we handled everything calmly and successfully. If we were “beginners” in Season 1 and “advanced beginners” last summer for Season 2, then this season we feel we’ve reached an “intermediate” stage. And just to point out… while it sounds like Conor does everything, on the technical side he definitely does. As First Mate, I do handle the helm a good bit as he’s bouncing around the boat adjusting and fixing everything. And, our sailing skills have certainly improved as a team sport.

Well, we made it to the island of Vulcano where we’re planning to ride out yet some more storms for a couple of days. Hopefully next time I can report about all of our adventures around the Aeolian Islands!