SICILY TO MALTA - 2 TO 7 OCT

Next stop on our journey south east along the coast was Porto Empodocle – a large commercial port (ferry port for the southern islands and major fishing harbour) which we’d been told was dirty and smelly; which it was a little. But it is only a few kilometres from the Valley of Temples at Agrigento – more superb Greek temples (6th century bc). But we found the port very friendly and it had great non touristy restaurants, cafes and bars. Once again we were amazed by how kind people can be – we asked the marina manager how we could get to the Temples and he arranged for the pontoon marinero to drive us there in his own car and then come back and pick us up a few hours later! And he would absolutely not accept payment. Then when I tried to buy an allen key to replace a jib block that had broken the chap in the chandlery called the marinero who went off and then brought back a key for me to use rather than have to buy one – again he wouldn’t accept any payment; not even a cup of coffee. All this was conducted in sign language as he did not speak any English and we don’t speak more than 2 or 3 words of Italian (we need to learn some basic phrases before we come back next summer) – I really wished I could have told him how kind he was to help us out. All I could do in return was buy a fishing lure from the chandlery (the chandleries here are for fishing not sailing) – it’s for tuna so not sure if we’ll ever use it! – and we left a bottle of wine on the pontoon for the marinero.

Our next port of call was the new marina at Licata – unfortunately we arrived to find it hadn’t actually been built yet although the break waters were built just no pontoons and absolutely nothing ashore. However it made a very secure anchorage. Next morning we set off early for Ragusa where it was promised there would be another new marina. This has been finished and it is a very high quality marina – hard to see how it will make money as no expense seems to have been spared in building the marina. Its main attraction for us was that it is the closest departure point on the south coast of Sicily for crossing to Malta – approx 52 miles.