Winter in Licata. Marina di Cala del Sole - Sicily

Just over 5,000 miles of sailing, and we're now in Licata, Sicily.  It's been a great summer of sailing, but even the Mediterranean has a winter - it's raining at the moment, so the time has come to settle down in our winter mooring in Licata.

 There is quite a community of 'live aboard' sailors here, many from the UK, but also from the rest of Europe, and a few from the USA, New Zealand and Australia.  For many their yacht is their only home so there is a real community feel here.  

The fish farm in the entrance to the harbour, the Licata Marina Yachts visible in front of the town

Sunset at the Marina

The harbour is huge, the marina is on the left of the photo below, and there is a commercial port on the right. 

Even the cement factory in the middle of the harbour looks good at sunset.

The marina is a '5 anchor' facility and was initially hoping to attract super yachts - this didn't happen and they're having to make do with us instead but it does mean that the facilities are excellent:  Clean and well maintained, with immaculate showers, excellent washing machines, WiFi and very helpful staff. The town of Licata is definitely not a tourist destination but there are shopping centres, lots of bars - where men sit all day, with lots of pizza and fish restaurants nearby.

There are also some fairly splendid buildings

The Piazza Duomo

The Chapel of the Black Jesus - apparently originally a white statue, it was the only thing to survive a fire that destroyed the original church and turned it black.  There is a vast amount of gold leaf and some very elaborate wood carving.

 The ceiling of the main church - all quite gruesome!

The old library

Bookworms at work

The Clock Tower

Elaborate sculpture is not restricted to the Churches - Licata has a good selection of Gargoyles.

Driving here is a whole new experience - not only is it almost impossible to establish who has a right of way (or even if the concept exists here), the roads themselves are interesting!

The graveyard that overlooks the harbour - beautifully tended graves, very elaborate sculptures and literally tons of flowers.

Sicily is very agricultural, we are surrounded by polytunnels, olive groves, citrus trees and well tended fields, currently mainly growing artichoke.  Needless to say, the fruit and veg here is excellent.

Artichoke plants

Wind turbines on the hills behind Licata - the landscape has been transformed from barren brown to green by the recent rains

Peppers

Grapes, covered with bird netting

Courgettes

And it all provides excellent cycling opportunities!

We've been here a month now, and my sister and nephew spent a week with us - an opportunity to explore some of the other attractions of Sicily.

Mount Etna - Italy's largest volcano, and the one with the longest records of continuous eruption.  You can take a cable car up to the ski resort (there are 3 or 4 other lifts - but you really can ski on an active volcano in winter) and then either walk or take a bus up to the craters.

Standing next to a lava flow - the rocks behind us are hot to the touch, but at over 3,000 metres, the air is cold

Etna Lava flows

We walked round one of the active craters - very strange seeing smoke rising from the ground next to ice!

Rose Anne, Oscar and Ian on the rim of a crater - you can see the track taken by the bus in the distance.

A couple of days later we drove past Etna to see one side covered in snow, and a huge cloud of smoke belching out of a crater!

Our next 'Must See' destination was Agricento - The Valley of the Temples (which was more of a hill of temples) dating back to 5BC

The Temple of Concordia

The Necropolis of Giambertoni - dating from 2nd to 4th Century BC

Icarus?

The Temple of Hercules

Our third Tourist Destination was Piazza Armerina, the Roman Villa of Casale - consisting of 4,100 sq metres of mosaic flooring, made up of 120 million small mosaic tesserae.  Apparently it took 21,000 working days to create - a craftsman allegedly managed 1sq m every 6 days!  Anyway - it was created between the 4th and 5th Centuries BC, survived an earthquake in 346AD and was preserved by a landslide in 1161 that saved it from the 'hazards of time and the carelessness of man'. Quote from our guidebook

Fishing, Roman Style

 Romans in bikinis

 Your average hunting scene

A typical floor!

Apart from the proper Tourist Destinations, there is plenty of charm in Sicily

Your typical Duomo to be found in the centre of most towns (above and below)

Just another bell tower!

Typical family car - with 3 wheels and as much as you can pile on it

We are enjoying life in Licata, being part of this floating community and have no plans to sail for a few months - so - there will be no more blogs until next spring.

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Dubrovnik, trained dolphins, fishing and sailing to Italy

Dubrovnik really is a 'must see' destination, so that's where we headed after Nick and Sally left us.  There really is an end of season feel on the islands now, and interestingly we are having trouble getting water - apparently on Mljet Island many of the restaurants and minor harbours rely on tanks of water and they are now empty.  By the time we arrived in Dubrovnik we had 9 litres of water in the tank.

Dubrovnik Marina really is a 5 Star experience:  It has a swimming pool, tennis court, ancient  ruin, walled garden, chandlery and most importantly a laundrette.  Obviously it also had water!  Apart from all that, it is also in a spectacular setting - a few miles out of the town of Dubrovnik, you pass under a suspension bridge to find the Marina nestled between huge mountains that would not look out of place in the Alps.  

Even when you know there is a 50 metre clearance, it is still very un-nerving sailing under a bridge!  Dubrovnik, entrance to ACI Marina.

There is a regular bus service from the Marina to the Historic Town of Dubrovnik (we expected no less) so it was off to see the Old Town - we did consider cycling, but fortunately decided against it, the bus ride was enough of an adrenaline rush as it was!

The old town lived up to expectations:  Walls up to 6m thick in places enclose the old city, there is a central main street, polished to a high gloss by the traffic of millions of feet over the centuries, lots of incredibly narrow side streets and a plethora of museums, churches and historic buildings.

A view from the walls - the round building is Onofrio, the ancient well, which has been providing water since 1438.

The Town Hall - no expense spared on the stone carving here.

The absolute highlight of Dubrovnik is the wall itself - it is simply spectacular.  Built between the 13th and 16 centuries - 2 km long, up to 25m high and between 1.5m and 6m thick.

Aview through the wall

During the civil war in 1991 - 1992 Dubrovnik was hit by over 2000 shells, striking 70% of the 800 buildings enclosed by the wall.  The roofs obviously needed repairing but the original factory that produced the tiles had long since closed, replacements of the same colour were impossible to find.

Although the new tiles blend poorly with the originals the old tiles are gradually being replaced.

The old tiles - traditionally created by kneading the clay like dough, then shaping it into a curve over a man's thigh before baking it!  (Photo by Geoff Slater)

The next big news was that we were expecting a visitor - Geoff was coming back for another visit.  He met us in Dubrovnik, and we went back for another trip round the old town - so good you had to go twice!

Geoff and Ian  - one of the many look out posts that are along the walls.

Geoff was sailing over to Italy with us, so having cleared customs into Croatia with just two people on the boat (significant paperwork exercise) we were leaving with three - more paperwork required ...  We went to the Official Exit Point where we tied up alongside the Customs Office and Ian went to complete the formalities.  This took some time.  

But - there were trained dolphins in the harbour - Dubrovnik continues to amaze - we were told that  6 dolphins had been airlifted over from the USA to locate unexploded mines.

The location of any mines was then given to the disposal team to deal with.

And once the area was cleared, the dolphins jumped onto the waiting RIB and were taken to the next bay to start work again.  Apparently they wrap them in special fleece and they go to sleep on the RIB.  You couldn't make it up!

Geoff was only with us a few days and had a flight booked back to the UK from Bari, in Italy, so we set off - unfortunately it was not a clear starry night, but we did have some great sailing  - at times enough wind to need a couple of reefs in the sails, and also a few hours when we had to motor.  We arrived in Mola di Bari bright and early the following morning - and the marina was full!  This was a first - there was a fishing competition planned for the weekend and every available space in the harbour was booked.

So - on to Monopoli, a couple of hours further south down the East Italian coast.

Monopoli was delightful.  A very tatty working fishing port with a couple of pontoons for yachts, but fantastically welcoming and not holding a fishing competition.

Routine Maintenance, Monopoli Boatyard was packed with traditional fishing boats

The old town walls - not quite of the Dubrovnik standard, but not too bad!


The historic old town - tiny alleyways, a central square and some impressive architecture.

We found a delightful restaurant in a converted wine cellar - Geoff treated us to a fantastic meal, and we got chatting to the owner.  Having plied us with all sorts of home made liqueurs, he introduced us to Natali, the local fisherman who supplied the restaurant.  They felt so strongly that we should do some fishing ourselves that we ended up going to Natali's boat the next day where he made us up a tuna line.

Natali, our personal Fishing Instructor, demonstrating the art of Tuna Fishing.

Somehow he manages all these hooks, but we were only going to attempt fishing with one!

We waved Geoff off and were planning to leave for Sicily, but despite no mention of it in the forecast, Natali said we should wait as there was a storm coming. 

And it was a mighty storm!!!  

Things calmed down the next day so we set off - and tested the Tuna line.

Not only was he an authority on the weather, but Natali could clearly instruct in the art of fishing!

Our catch was approximately 75cm long - that is a lot of tuna steak!

So we are now in Licata, our winter mooring - we've not been here long enough to really get our bearings, but it seems good so far.