Sailing to Sicily

Goodbye Gozo   

We made a reasonably prompt start out of Gozo on Monday 29 May. The forecast was for relatively light, but just about sailable, winds from the east and we anticipated crossing to Licata, about 60nm from Gozo. The forecast was for light winds but it was by far the best forecast for a week. We weren’t hopeful of a fast sailing passage but if we had left later in the week we would definitely have been motoring all the way! With a fast passage not on the cards, we might have left earlier on the Monday morning but we wanted to buy some fresh bread and milk (the shops in Mgarr were closed when we had arrived the previous afternoon) and we needed to return the marina’s security key and get our €25 deposit back. Jobs complete, we switched the engine on at 0745 and were clear of the harbour with lines and fenders stowed in time for the daily 0800CET MedNet check-in.

MedNet complete (HF comms are much better when clear of a harbour), and with the wind building slightly from the glassy calm we had started off in, we hoisted the main and continued motoring, hoping for the wind to build further.

The wind teased us and built a little, enough to justify unrolling the genoa and staysail and motorsailing properly with the revs knocked back a bit. But it built no more than that and a couple of hours later it was back down to 4 knots and we were motoring properly once more.

Dead calm   

With sailing out of the question, we considered our destination. We had planned to sail to Licata and then hop along the south coast of Sicily but our next planned cruising area is the Egadi Islands, off the western tip off Sicily, so pressing on west at this point seemed like a good idea. So, we aimed for Sciacca and I settled down to catch up with the mountain of Malta blogs, whilst Nicky settled down to watch-keep with one eye on a good book and the other eye alternately on the AIS and looking out for non-AIS traffic.

Photos of the AIS/Nav display from early in the passage   

The channel between Sicily and Malta is extremely busy with shipping but there is no Traffic Separation Zone so there was no particular issue with our setting course diagonally across it and playing ‘Frogger – Live’ with the big ships. Quite fortuitously, our track threaded us through the shipping with little action needed ……..and the miles ticked by…..

Turtles   

In the early afternoon, we saw a number of turtles swimming at the surface, a first for this year. We passed some quite close but most were a reasonable distance from us. We only saw them because the sea was so glassy calm. Had there been ripples or waves it’s highly unlikely that we would have seen them at all.

With dusk falling we had dinner and slowed down and altered course significantly for a ferry going to Sicily which should have given way to us but which clearly had no intention of doing so.

No ‘Green Flash’ at sunset   

The horizon looked quite sharp but, though the sunset was impressively red, there was no green flash. Unusually, the night hours were the most demanding in terms of avoiding other shipping. By this stage we were clear of the big ships but, being closer to the coast, we were in the realm of the Sicilian fishing vessels. Some of these sported AIS, some didn’t; most had incredibly dim lights which didn’t appear to relate to the International ColRegs in terms of colour and lighting scheme; and, worse still, those fishing boats which had long been on a straight-line course which avoided our path, seemed to take great delight in abruptly and randomly changing direction several times to conflict with us when they got to within about 2 miles of BV. Consequently, our AIS ‘snail trail’ for those last few miles was an ‘interesting’ wiggle with added expletives. [Ed: just as well the good book had been long-since finished!].

Our first night’s anchorage at Sciacca as seen in the morning   

So, after 113nm and 16 hours at sea, we fetched up at Sciacca at just gone midnight. With the weather so calm, we anchored just off the eastern side of the harbour wall beside a small beach for the remainder of the night. The plan for the next morning was to go into the harbour to take a look at the town, restock the fridge and hopefully find a good internet Wi-Fi spot so that I could post all those blogs I had written during the passage!

Sciacca, Sicily, Italy