Egadi Islands (Part 1)

Saturday morning, 3 June was a busy one. Our food shopping attempts the previous day had been thwarted by a public holiday (Republic Day) and so we trotted into Marsala early to restock. It was a successful trip and, after we had carried our booty back to BV, we had a fridge full of barbeque food and a wine cellar stocked with Sicilian wine, including some rich Marsala wine which we were looking forward to trying.

Marsala archaeological site   

The final chore before leaving was to fill up our water tanks and then we headed west from the harbour which took us past Marsala town and the archaeological site at the end of the peninsula (which had not been open for us to visit the previous day, perhaps because of the public holiday).

Leaving Marsala and the west coast of Sicily   

We continued on west with, behind us, a great view of the western tip of Sicily and the high peaks around Trapani.

Approaching Favignana and the anchorage behind Isolotto Preveto   

The 4^th of June was also a special day because we actually sailed! Motoring has been the theme for most of our travels around south Sicily and so it was very nice to be able to sail from Marsala to the Egadi Islands. It was only a short, 10-mile passage but it put us in the Marine Reserve which surrounds the islands. We aimed for some anchorages on the south coast of Favignana, the largest of the islands, in the vicinity of Cala Longa. There was a surprising amount of swell working its way around the coast and so we decided to try a shallow anchorage in the protection of Isolotto Preveto. As we got closer we realised that we were not alone in that thought; it was very busy [Ed: but then it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in June and the Saturday following a public holiday to boot].

The eastern entrance to the anchorage behind Isolotto Preveto   

We worked our way in from the east, routing between anchored motorboats but the depth dropped away quite dramatically. Our chart showed that we should have been able to squeeze through with about 10 cm under our keel but we had no manoeuvring room and so Nicky turned us on the spot and we went around the outside of the rocky island to come in from the west. That was much more successful approach with a comfortable depth [Ed: As opposed to 2 metres on the depth gauge as we turned around, which is what we draw!]. We had wanted to anchor but there was no space to do so without blocking what appeared to be a frequently used channel between the laid mooring buoys and Isolotto Preveto, so we picked up one of the mooring buoys instead.

View of the Montagna Grande on Favignana from the anchorage behind Isolotto Preveto      

Just up from us on one of the other buoys was a 53’ Oyster called Moy Toad. This is owned by David and Jocelyn Fawcett who used to own a Ruster 42. David came over to say hello and we discovered that he had some of his children and grandchildren on board. Due to a bit of seasickness they would be moving around to the main harbour for the night but we agreed to keep an eye out for them and to try to meet up again properly if we could. David also told us about a useful anchorage they had used a little further east which turned out later to be very opportune information.

The regulations and requirement for permits stay around the Egadi Islands were not clear to us, primarily because all the online info is in Italian. However, shortly after Moy Toad had left we were put right by the Park Rangers who came visiting in their RIB. Having picked up one of the mooring buoys we were expecting to have pay for the night and find out from the rangers the regulations for anchoring. However, we were told that the newly laid buoys were available for use yet (later we found out that they become available from 15 June) and that we therefore needed a permit to anchor which was only available through an online application. This we managed to sort out using a rather slow internet connection and then we dropped off the buoy to find an anchorage for the night because the swell was working its way into the parts of the bay that were deep enough for us to use.

‘David’s bay’   

A little further east we found the bay that David had told us about and the large sandy spot to drop the anchor in. It turned out subsequently that this is not a ‘sensitive area’ and that we didn’t actually need a permit to be there. However, with our shiny new permit, which was valid for 7 days, we decided that we’d spend a little longer exploring the Egadi Islands and visiting several of the ‘sensitive’ anchorages in the process. With beautiful turquoise seas, lots of fish to watch when snorkelling and attractive scenery, making the most of our 7-day permit was unlikely to be a major hardship!

Egadi Islands, Sicily, Italy