April 28, 2016
Yesterday we sailed out of Licata, and Serafina was on the move for the first time since October 8 of last year, when Sarah helped us tie to the dock at Marina Cala del Sole. A weird feeling, leaving a place that became a kind of home. The community of cruisers there is breaking up quickly as people head out for destinations all over the Mediterranean.
Just to forestall any homesickness for Licata, we rented an apartment there for 2017. It will serve as our base for further cruising in the Mediterranean next year. It should keep us moving forward on our Italian (and Sicilian) too!
We planned a short trip for our re-immersion in the sea, and just went 35 nautical miles east to Marina di Ragusa – also something of a wintering center for cruising sailors, but without a town as old and complex as Licata next to the marina. We had wind on the nose, of course, and some nasty chop on the beam, but both we and the boat performed just fine. 35 miles, 7 hours, one sail up for stability, but, yes, motoring the whole way. But nice to have the engine warm and dry…
We’ll hang out here to let another bad patch of weather blow through, then on to Marzamemi and Siracusa, both in Eastern Sicily. Siracusa (aka Syracuse) was one of the earliest and biggest colonies of “Magna Graecia” (Greater Greece, which included most of southern Italy), fought over by Romans, Greeks and Carthaginians for centuries. We’ll do some updates from there.
Leaving Licata in the wake, for now, wearing a new Sicilian “coppola”
Happy at the helm, once again
