Sailing with the Treleavens

It’s the 16h May and we are crossing with spinnaker up, blue sky a chill in the air and cross to Tunisia. Our plan was to have a stopover at the island of Pantelleria but now that the yellow spinnaker is up and doing a steady 8 knots, we will keep going and go 80 miles today in search of that Mediterranean summer.

In Palermo, and having had the boat sit in stagnant water for 3 days can’t imagine what it smells like in summer, we are all onboard, and Ian can’t wait to get out. We sail west to Castellamare for the birthday dinner, a small fishing village waiting for summer to arrive. We actually wondered at first what we had come into. On the dock were lots of army uniformed men and peasant dressed women, shots ring out and everyone running everywhere. Turns out to be a movie about the Mafia.

It’s a hit and miss restaurant called Mucinera and turns out to be one of the best meals of seafood we have had to date, especially the marinated swordfish, squid antipasto and sun dried tomato prawns.             .

We woke to a brilliant day and motor to Scopello, the most photographed place in Sicily. The water is ice crystal clear and very scenic with its old tuna factory, interesting cactus covered rocks, very deep water and village on the hill surrounded by wildflowers. In summer people flock here to swim and we can see why, but no one is swimming off our boat today.

The wind gets up and we have an uncomfortable sail to S.Vito lo Capo and stay the night. Famous for its cous cous and Moorish town, it is also waiting for summer. We move early the next morning for Trapani, Mike enjoys the helm and Howard recovers from the cous cous. We are seeing very few boats, and they are trying very hard to get more tourism on this side of Sicily, but they have a lot to learn about welcoming you. It・s now pontoons and no facilities for boats at Rivera prices so most of the time we find a space on the harbour wall and it’s free.

Trapani and Marsala are great solid stone cities of palaces, cathedrals, museums and marble roads and foot paths. The three girls take a bus and visit Erice, a 12th century stone village with beautifully laid medieval narrow lanes high in the mountain where the Castle of Venus is. It’s foggy up here and swirling fog makes it very airy. You can’t start to imagine the history that has passed this place that is so inaccessible.

Mike and Di leave us and we sail out to the island of Favignana renowned for its tuna fishing and beautiful bays of turquoise coloured water. Turns out to be too shallow for us to stay so we sail for Marsala passing the ever photografted bay of Cala Rossa. Another month and anchoring would be a must with clear blue water, caves and coves from the days of quarrering.

On the stone wall at Marsala we stay 2 nights and sample a few Marsala sweet wines and some not so sweet. Here one can admire the Phoenician Ship (2 BC) found only in 1970 in a bay near by.

Tunisia
What a fantastic breath of fresh air Tunisia is. Arriving at Kelbia a port of entry, papers were a bit of a drag (2 hours) but very friendly officers and soon we have our visas. Up early to the sound of 100,s of fishermen coming in from the night catch and selling there fish. This place is alive and colourful, nice to get away from the ever ending under renovation of Italy and Sicily. The old stone of Italy is now replaced by all white painted Arabian houses and white sand beaches for miles.  The market is on, you won’t a chicken sir? as the live bird is held up side down. Fresh food in abundance but only what’s in season and local, but we are soon back at the boat without the bird. The people are so friendly even to the point no more haggling about the price, which had become very tiresome in Italy.

Coffee in a cafe is Tunisian style, black and  fantastic and I am the only women in the cafe. A bit scary as they can’t take there eyes off my blonde hair. I think Howard and Ian are taking offers. I must remember to wear my hat tomorrow.

We stop to watch fisherman on the back of their boat eating sardines they are cooking on a make do BBQ, and they ask us to join them. Sitting on fishing nets we are passed by a very black hand, fresh BBQ sardines and they are simply delicious. Leaving a bottle of Australian wine left by Mike and Di we appreciate there generosity.

Once again we are spoilt and under spinnaker once again down the coast 70 miles to El Kantoui on the legendry  Barbary Coast, home of the pirates of old. Thankfully the only pirates are wooden figurines on the tourist pirate ships. We pass beautiful white towns, some new ,some old, with there minuets and sandy beaches.

We are now in El Kantoui in a beautiful marina and summer is here.
 

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2004 at 7:59 pm and is filed under 2004. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.