The last leg (hopefully)

riverrangere
Jan 25, 2022
2 min read

Tuesday Jan 25, 2022

Porto dell’ Etna

Riposto, Sicily

Funny story:

We sailed all day yesterday.

The weather was horrible (strong winds, hail, big waves)…

I had first shift on watch, and afterwards broke a glass and had to clean up the mess in the galley.

In the crashing sea, the cleaning of all the tiny shards made me sea sick 🤢

So immediately afterwards I went down to my berth, took a dramamine and slept.

When I woke back up we were docking the boat (again in hail & winds so strong and we nearly crashed into other boats!).

We had been at sea for 10 hours so I thought we were far along the coast the coast of mainland Italy on our way to Greece. I didn’t have Wi-Fi service and couldn’t check our position. We had dinner on the boat and played cards after, then I headed to bed.

I woke up this morning and saw a big snowy mountain above town. Wow! That’s huge I say.

The captain says “that’s Mt Etna”.

I say we were under Mt Etna yesterday!? He said yes we sailed into the bad weather and turned back…

I laughed hard, believing we were well along our way - but really went just to the next port along in Sicily!!!

The day was supposed to be even worse weather, so we stayed in port. It was a lazy morning, and finally by the afternoon we rallied for an excursion. The next town east of us was supposed to be very interesting (lots of famous authors lived there at one time or another - like Oscar Wilde!) An easy train ride, and a quick cab up the hillside, brought us to the main gate to Taormina. An ancient town perched on cliffs above the sea, with a commanding view of the Mt Etna volcano and its actively steaming peak. Home to a well preserved Greek theater and a Roman coliseum! (I missed both cause they were closed by the time we finished our long Italian lunch🥺). If you make it to Sicily: you’ll have to make a stop here, as well as the city of Syracuse.

Tomorrow morning we try again to make the crossing to Greece… wish us luck, but if the weather disagrees - I’ll be going to visit Syracuse!