Sicily

Thursday night in Capo lo Vito, 10 days ago, was not very calm. Anchorage was rolly, especially when wind died in the middle of the night. For some reason, without wind boat always turns sideways to the waves and so the waves can do be most annoying. We sailed off already at 8 in the morning. Sicily is very rocky with lots of hills.

There was some wind during the day, so we sailed or motor-sailed and managed to get to Termini Imerese. This is one of the rare relatively protected anchorages on North side of Sicily. They built a very long wave breaker to the North of the town and the port is only taking up a small space in NW behind it, so the rest is available for anchoring. It is only open to East. We were the only boat there. This is how the town looked in the evening...

...and on next morning. The night was calm and we slept very well. The evening before we talked about going to town with the dinghy, but it was already so hot in the morning, so we didn't.

Instead we sailed on to Cefalu, one of our favourite Sicilian towns. We arrived early in the afternoon and anchored on the West side of old town in front of town beach.

But it was rather rolly, so after a while we decided to move to the East side of town, behind a wave breaker. It is not as long as that in Termini, but offers some protection. Town looked a bit different in evening light.

We rounded the breaker...

...and anchored right in front of the entrance to the small port under some beautiful rocks.

There was enough space for us, luckily breaker stopped all the swell from NW and the surroundings were really pretty. It was a bit longer walk to town, but we needed some exercise anyway.

We waited almost until 8 in the evening, only then the heath was bearable. We rowed our dinghy into the port. I'm usually doing most of the rowing and all Italians find this so amusing, they always laugh and wave and greet us.

Cefalu was a bit more touristy than I remembered from 9 years ago, but still very charming. We ate great canolli...

...on a perfect little balcony above the sea in old part of town.

After a stroll we found a grocery, fruit&veggies shop and even the butcher with home made salsiccias (sausages) and involtinis (veal rolls). We returned to our boat loaded with goodies.
We had a good night and sailed of in the morning. This was our anchorage.

We had the idea to sail to Eolian islands, but they are quite far. Since there was almost no wind during the day, we decided to stop in Sant Agatha di Militello. We read that they also have a huge wave breaker, behind which one can anchor and thought we would have another calm night. When we got there, we found they built another breaker, that was closing the first one in some kind of square port. It was huge and empty, so we sailed in and wanted to anchor here. It was calm like a lake.

But before we even chose the spot to drop the anchor, Guardia Costiera (Coastguard) boat with flashing blue lights rushed to us to inform us we can not anchor here, but outside in front of the beach. So we sailed there and since it was quite calm, were not so very disappointed. 

We ate delicious involtini from Cefalu, filled with pistachios and pancetta, with couscous and salad in the evening.

                                      

Later we rowed our dinghy to the beach and went shopping and for a walk around the town. There are some old buildings there,...

...swallows,...

...palaces,...

...some a bit run down.

And the most important thing - gelato.

Unfortunately night was again quite rolly and we didn't sleep well. And the big calm lagoon lay there just a stone throw away, empty. Town and the beach looked nice in the morning...

...but even prettier looked the town up on one of neighbouring hills. One day we'll visit it.

There was again almost no wind, so we motored almost all the way to Volcano, Eolian island that is the closest to Sicily. We saw the islands already from Sicily and each had it's own cloud above it.

This is how much wind there was.

In the afternoon we sailed by on a lighthouse on the South point of the island...

...and anchored in small anchorage there. Anchorage was quite full, it was Sunday and obviously Italians also thought, that with NW swell this would be one of the best places in all of the islands.

In the evening most of the motor boats left and only couple of sailboats stayed for the night.
Next day we decided to stay, I was hoping for the "summer holiday" day with nothing to do, a nice gin&tonic in the afternoon and a dinner in a local restaurant. Well, Captain didn't think so. Since we weren't sailing, he decided it was ideal time to clean the bilge and defrost our freezer. I wasn't very pleased. But I did get a dinner out, a delicious meal in a small family run restaurant.
Next day we sailed towards strait of Messina, on Wednesday it looked to be a good day to sail through it. There is lots of traffic between town of Milazzo and Eolian island and one has to watch carefully, things like this speed over the sea with some 35 knots and you don't want to be in their way.

While we had little wind during the day, as soon as we were near our anchorage, it started to blow, of course exactly on the nose. It got colder and we didn't even go for a swim, although the water looked really pretty.

Couple of miles to the East there was Messina strait, which we wanted to cross on Wednesday.

We went to bed early and hoped for a calm night. We wanted to start off early in the morning to sail as far as possible.

P.S. There are some more photos of Cefalu and Eolian islands in my post from August 2011, and of Eolian island in post from July last year.