Sicily. Beautiful Med sailing! Fantastic Islands and People. Enjoy!

Closed Captions (CC):
this is the second part

of our italian adventure sicily

grab your popcorn and sit back and enjoy

so after much to do around volcanoes

it was time for us to head south

to sicily and boy did we get a reception

[Applause]

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look at the color of that water

now that's blue

what a welcome to sicily the water is

absolutely

gorgeous you see it's clear blue you can

see the bottom

which is six seven meters down dived the

anchor

that's dug in like a tick that

manson supreme anchor is just every type

of ground

that we've put it in it's held and it's

held well

i'm really impressed manson if you're

watching this

this is an endorsement and i don't

really make a lot of endorsements

but a brilliant anchor really pleased

with it

so a little fishing port over there

and last night we wandered up to that

white building with the green

tops if you can see that

behind david and had a couple of beers

took the dogs as it was nice and cool in

the evening

it's a little fishing village a little

marina

a bar that closes at 7 30 in the evening

on the

on the key side couldn't believe it we

turned up eight of us

to have a few beers at quarter past

seven

and the woman said no we're closing in

15 minutes and probably shut the door

so he went and spent our money elsewhere

strange there's a lighthouse up there

a rather loud french boat right next to

us

on charter

a lovely french trolley up there

fantastic lines it's got can't really

see it from here but

very classic looking shape

and then we headed for palermo

palermo is one of the biggest commercial

ports in sicily

as we entered the port a little chap

came up to us in his rib

and asked us if we'd got a book in

obviously he was trying to

well flog his uh marina births

they franchised the births out in a lot

of marinas we'd already booked so

we didn't need his surfaces so he

scooted off

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oh

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once we've got clearance for our marina

birth

and had been assigned to us we lined

ourselves up

into the wind if you watch this piece of

footage you'll see that we're doing

something different

there's a reason behind it but while you

watch it think what that reason could be

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having little or no tides there's no

major current running in this harbour

but let's explain why we did it like

this

so here's the reason we didn't go in

like this reversing in

downwind of the slip coming across the

other bones

and then backwards into our birth for

this reason

we'd have got to this point and the wind

would have been forced us

onto the downwind boats if anything had

gone wrong would have crashed straight

into them

so what we did was we reversed downwind

brought the back of the boat in close

and allowed the wind to catch the bell

and bring us round as we then straighten

up towards the birth

the wind is round now pushing us on the

nose

and the boat always pivots better with

the wind pushing the nose around

it makes for a much more controlled

entrance into the berth the other reason

is reversing into the wind will just

slow down progress through the water and

it's water over the rudder that gives

you steerage

doing it the other way gives you more

steerage so the main town of palermo

city of palermo is over there and we'll

show you some clips of our

excursions in a bit the city was founded

in 734 bc by the phoenicians

as the city of ziz palermo then became a

possession of carthage

two greek colonies were established

known collectively as panoramas

or all port the carthaginians used this

name on their coins after the fifth

century bc

as panelists the town became part of the

roman republic and empire for over a

thousand years from 831 to 1072 the city

was under arab rule

during the emirate of sicily when the

city first became a capital

the arab shifted the greek name into

balaam which is arabic

the route for palermo's present-day name

following the norman reconquest palermo

became the capital of a new kingdom

from 11 30 to 1816

the kingdom of sicily and the capital of

the holy roman empire

under emperor frederick ii and king

conrad iv

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do

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our next anchorage we found by chance

and it was just

beautiful

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foreign

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hmm

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um

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we left that beautiful anchorage we

showed you last time and continued

anti-clockwise

around sicily to port drapani

busy fishing port

there's a fish market in there there's

another market up here i'll show you in

a minute

fruit market as well as a fish market

here

look at the size of them melons now

those melons

those melons there amazing fresh fruit

look at tomatoes

a few jellyfish in the harbour this

morning

big ones the rhizostoma plumo goes by

many names barrel jellyfish dustbin lid

jellyfish

and even frilly mouth jellyfish to name

a few it's known not just by the blue

ring

of the umbrella but the sheer size of up

to two feet

wide the barrel jellyfish is so large in

fact that young fish and small crabs

seek shelter under its mildly stinging

tentacles

now here we are at tropini i'll put a

long

lap down here anchored in the main

harbour

marina's in there

rather expensive for what it is

very commercial

that's the harbour entrance over there

big barge

teasing eternity hank it over by the

fort

after a couple of days we continued

roughly due

southwest to favignana there was some

strong winds coming in from the north

and we wanted to be somewhere that was

really sheltered

the landing spot walked into town

horrible selfie

we found a tap and wet the dogs down

they've had a paddle as well but

for many years the population relied on

the tuna industry

stringing great nets across the bays

with these anchors

unfortunately they overfished and now

all that remains is a sea of used and

broken anchors

an empty cannery and process implant

and a few tranquil bays and of course no

tuna with the tuna gone the locals now

rely heavily on tourism

high-speed ferries now bring people

across from sicily or the mainland

and unfortunately tourism brings its own

problems for the island

one of these issues is the income is

very seasonal

many of the shops cafes bars

bric-a-break shops and

novelty goods all closed down over the

winter the place becomes a ghost town

given the island's historical

significance

we could really make some money out of

it if enough people just knew

about the history this is the

passenger ship lampedusa

[Applause]

no it's not on fire that's the pollution

it's putting out

and you can see right across

the mainland of sicily thick

acrid black smoke

he's also on a collision course for us

with a cpa of

just 150 meters so um we're going to

keep an eye on him

that is unbelievable

how many thousand miles did we have to

do to put that amount of co2 and

noxious gases and soot into the

atmosphere

a few circumnavigations i bet

from the island we travel further south

heading east

to mazara we only stayed one night

briefly taking the dogs ashore

before heading on again

to le carter or licotta depending on how

you pronounce it i guess

having sailed most of the day we decided

to pull in behind a headland

and set out some winds that were coming

very strongly from the west

we all held okay and this was part of

the footage we put in our anchoring

video if you remember

le cata moreno has good protection from

winds from all direction

and those notorious mediterranean storms

that happened during the winter

we had a real good look around and we

met some of the people liverpool there

all year round

in fact we enjoyed it so much we stayed

a few days

the marina has some really good

facilities well kept clean

tidy and the marine arrows are very

helpful

in the town which is only a couple of

hundred meters away

all the shops that you could need even a

little

the liverpool community there had

organised a barbecue for the sunday

evening

and so they invited us along via their

facebook page

and we took part in a traditional finish

game it's a

bit like piton you have to knock over

sticks and then they put them up in a

different place

you couldn't really get the rules but he

seemed to have fun david enjoyed himself

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after leaving liquor we went on to

marina ragouza

it was a kind of soulless place and

absolutely vast

we decided we wouldn't want to stay

there for the winter

and then our chief navigator linda found

this place

it was a stunning hidden little

anchorage

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two days later we moved on the island of

capo perezo

it's as far south and as far east as you

can go

in sicily as a fantastic four

the statue of the holy madola and the

tuna factory

went out of business 20 years ago

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rounding the island we were now

technically in the aegean

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it's got a bunch of girls around

yes

[Laughter]

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we anchored behind the island for one

night and then needing some ac

and desperately needing some water we

called into a marina for one night

before moving on to sarah coos

there we are sarah coos norwegian spirit

out there

we are

out there by that cat

norwegian dawn there

just tied up the uh just hold up the

dingus

time for a coffee and a croissant

syracuse or

syracusa is located on the southeast

corner of sicily

an island off the coast of italy there's

a large bay or lagoon

and in the northeast corner a small

island

covered in historic monuments

coffee and a croissant on the front

little bar here and now we're off to

look at some

architecture and some history

let's see here

in 1693 an earthquake struck parts of

southern italy

near sicily calabrea and malta on

january the 11th

around 2100 local time the earthquake

was preceded by a damaging foreshock

on the 9th of january the main quake had

an estimated magnitude of 7.4

the most powerful in italian recorded

history

and causing the death of sixty thousand

people syracuse was flattened

and so everything you see here was built

after that date

i guess the eu grant must have run out

it's never been finished

tempo of apollo is dated to the

beginning of the 6th century bc

and was therefore the most ancient doric

temple in sicily

more or less it was once a byzantine

church

from which period the front steps and

traces of the central door

are still preserved it was then an

islamic mosque during the

emirate of sicily

beyond the temple there's a huge market

sending fresh fruit

vegetables fish and meat from the local

area

at one end of the market there are a

series of spice stalls

selling spices from well just about

everywhere

from cinnamon to nutmeg peppers to

capers

the fountain of diana is a monumental

fountain from 1907

by ghoulia machete with the

collaboration of his sculptor's son

mario located in the piazza archimedes

in saracludes

the fountain faces south and highlights

the figure of diana

with a bow and a dog the attributes of

the goddess hunting

protector of autogena in greek times

the fountain is unusual in that it's

constructed from concrete and not

carved stone

uh

the temple of athena is a doric temple

built

in sarah cruz in the 5th century bc by

the tyrant

galileo after his victory over the

carthaginians

in the battle of himera the temple was

preceded by a cult site which dated back

to the 8th century bc with an altar

discovered in a later excavation

the temple was converted to a christian

place of worship

and parts of it are still found

incorporated into the walls

on the left side of the demono some

columns of local limestone

and the local style bone on which they

stood

but still remain visible

sunset in another 20 minutes

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so

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do

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yeah actually i think you got it

so

the city gateway built by dionysus the

great which remains visible

is the base of the two quadrangular

towers over eight meters on each side

which probably allowed access to the

road that fought and connected the

temple of apollo

and that of athena the gate was

discovered in 1977

and it assumes a certain importance due

to the fact

that the islet is the only remnant of

the ancient dionysian foundations

i managed to find these artists

impressions of what the gateway looked

like

online as you can see the porter or

gateway

leads up to the tempo of apollo

just 10 minutes away from the city

center there's an ancient greek

amphitheatre which is

remarkably well preserved apparently

it's one of the best in the area

we weren't able to visit it due to the

constraints of time

and of course kovid kovid19 there's also

the ancient caves

the ear of dionysus is one of these if

you get the chance

to visit saracus or saracusa we'd highly

recommend it

after two weeks of being anchored in

sarah coos

we're headed back down to masami then

puerto paulo

and back to liquita or la carta

depending on how you say it

a few days before we be due to leave

masami the girls and i decided to have a

day out in the nearest town

the marina very kindly enters their car

so we set off bright and early one

morning

and went into the ancient city of notto

we climbed up the steps to go and have a

look inside the cathedral

inside the cathedral was this scale

model made out of wood the original

cathedral had been destroyed in an

earthquake in 1636

so this was obviously rebuilt the

painted ceilings were absolutely amazing

the stained glass windows seem to

reflect the light

completely around the cathedral defined

as the capital of baroque in 2002 its

historic centre

was declared a world heritage site by

unesco

you can see why this ceiling is inside

the church of san demonico

look at the richness there we thought

these were painted steps but on closer

inspection

they've actually got material laid on

the risers

the architecture throughout the city was

absolutely amazing

we had a lovely day

it's our last night in mars and mimi so

we decided we're going to go out for a

beer

practicing in the car park is one of

these silent dance troops

really quite funny to watch

when we get to the old town there's

another wedding going on

the groom is pretending to polish the

hubcaps of this alfa romeo with the

wedding dress

well with the end of the season fast

approaching and the weather becoming

less predictable

it's time to head back to our winter

shame birthing leave mars and maybe it's

a lovely place

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you can see our dinghy is tied on the

front once we get into some open water

we'll bring it round the back and put it

back up on the davits

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okay

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so

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do

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with very light winds at 12 to 14

degrees apparent

we weren't going to be able to sail on

this part of the trip

we decided to go round to this place

we've been there before

the unfinished marina of porto paolo

there were strong westerlies forecast

and quite a big southwest swell

so we tucked ourselves into the corner

for the night

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[Music]

hi there hi folks hope you enjoyed the

video

that was the last of this year's videos

it was because it's new year's eve and

uh we're just about to finish putting

this one together

and then upload it um thank you so much

to our patrons who've been

a tremendous support this year we're

we're very grateful we mean that

most sincerely um thank you to the

subscribers

all your comments good and bad

um it's been a funny all year and we'd

like to have gone a lot further but

hey ho it's one of the things well in

some ways not being able to go further

has made us stop more frequently so

we've been able to see more things

yeah we have and we've had some great

sailing we've had the shoot up a lot

this year so um

anyway it's uh it's not so much sunny le

carter

as cold and rainy lakota

um oscar's just about to go out for his

walk aren't ya

good afternoon walk yeah good boy reigns

just ease up a bit so

yeah he can get out so just leaves us to

say

happy new year happy new year yeah and

hope that next year

is much better for all of you yeah

exactly yeah

so from us to on boarding paved us

happy 2021 yeah

see you later sell safe bye

you