Riposto

As we arrived at Riposto at 1130 am on 23 June, and made our way towards the fuel berth we thought we might have a serious wait until we could get refuelled because a huge superyacht seemed to have got there ahead of us. Fortunately this turned out to be his berth and there was still space on the quay for teeny weenies like us to take on a mere hundred or so litres of diesel. Not too much however because Sicily is expensive for fuel.

To our right was the town and another perspective on Mount Etna. Having stopped off at the fuel berth and topped up the tanks we arranged a mooring for a couple of nights. The €91 per night mooring fee was a little more than we were expecting but we wanted somewhere secure to leave BV whilst we went inland to climb Mount Etna.

Our mooring was close to the town and also had a good view of the volcano as a nice backdrop for sundowners. Our first priority, however, was the laundry. With that done, and the clothes and sheets drying in the sun, we were able to relax a little and plan our other activities in Riposto. It is about as close as we could get to Mount Etna and so we started investigating options for getting up to the volcano. Nicky chatted to an American couple who had their grandchildren staying with them on their yacht close by us. They had just been charged €130 a person to be taken in a jeep up the north side of Etna; the grandchildren had thought it was great but the adults admitted to being a bit disappointed that they didn’t get very far up the volcano. We wanted to get to the top too (well, as near to the top as you are allowed to go) and so went on to talk to a tourist company to see what we could sort out.

Private jeep/minibus rides came in various prices and seemed to be the only way to travel from Riposto. We found one which, for €90, would show us a lava tunnel enroute and then get us up as far as the ski lift and that seemed to be as high as the jeeps went. The ski lift would be another €90 but the top of that was still almost a couple of thousand metres below the summit. It wasn’t really what we wanted after what we had seen at Volcano and Stromboli.

What we really wanted to do was to latch onto the sort of group hiking trip that we had seen at Stromboli with a guide to take us close to the summit but we couldn’t seem to find that sort of excursion. Sadly we concluded that we were likely to have to spend quite a lot of money to not really achieve what we were hoping for and, in comparison with having walked up Volcano and seen the mini eruptions at Stromboli, like the American couple we would be left feeling disappointed. We decided to leave Mount Etna this time and do a lot more detailed research so that we have a better plan next time we visit Sicily; somewhere there will be a port we can leave BV and tie in with a suitable excursion.

Our stay in Riposto therefore turned into a victualing stop. We enjoyed getting our fresh fruit and vegetables from the lively Italian characters in the market hall and were very pleased when we discovered that the supermarket was running a special promotion on cases of the beer we wanted. With the beer cellar and food lockers restocked we decided to leave and head further south.

We slipped out of the harbour just before lunch on 24 June with little in the way of wind to help us on our way. Siracusa is the next town that we really wanted to visit but we thought that we’d have lunch first and then see how far we wanted to motor south. Just as we got the food on deck the wind arrived and we were in danger of lettuce leaves and bread being blown overboard. Lunch was put on hold for a bit whilst we got the sails organised (2 reefs in the main and just the staysail – the wind really did appear with gusto!) and then we took it in turns to steer whilst the other ate with BV bustling along at 7 knots+.

The coastline south of Augusta is full of refineries and oil terminals with little in the way of aesthetically pleasing stopping points. With the wind blowing strongly we calculated that we could get to Siracusa about an hour before sunset. The wind died off a bit towards sunset but we made it to Siracusa comfortably before dark.

Siracusa as we arrived at dusk

Riposto