Bobby Murdoch | bit cloudy.........
Parked up in a wee town called Calasetta as I write this, waiting for some good weather to take me across to Majorca and onto the final leg of my journey for this year, it's a quiet wee fishing/tourist town that has obviously seen better days, so, much like my home town of Girvan, apart from they don't have an Asda! And.....I know that some people that read this will never believe me but......there's way more dog poo on the streets here!! No shit, or actually...lots of shit!

Calasetta.....looks just like Girvan eh??
Looks like I'll get away tomorrow in the late afternoon or Tuesday morning off to sunny Spain, I need to see the local coastguard to check out of the country but they haven't been open over the weekend so hopefully they'll be open tomorrow morning, otherwise I'm offski anyway, nobody really seems that fussed, unless of course you turn up in a dinghy from north Africa, then they get all sorts of excited about it!
Yesterday, Saturday, was exciting for all the wrong reasons, I knew the wind was to get up, so I nipped into town for some supplies beforehand, but the wind turned up while I was in the bakers, ha-ha!, I got smashed coming back out to the boat, kept the bread dry though......spent the rest of the day on anchor watch just in case I started to drag as the 20kt forecast underestimated it a bit and it was howling at 45kts most of the afternoon, glad I was here and not out on the water though.
Ok, so since I last havered on here, I have been to.......
Taormina: this was my second stop after leaving Syracuse, I anchored overnight at Augusta on the way, big industrial port so no photos, I was going to spend a day at Taormina but it was absolutely "pishing doon", came in in the evening in the middle of a thunder storm, got tossed about all night when the wind veered and the swell came into the anchorage and when I got up and it was still hammering with rain, I thought, "bollocks to that!" and carried on North.

Taormina, never looked like this when I was there, it was pishing doon!

Next round of thunderstorms coming in, gin palaces getting hammered too!
Played dodge the ferries transiting the straits of Messina which is is wee bit of water between the Italian mainland and Sicily and anchored off the beach in Scilla just North of the Straits, with the sun turning up again, everything back as it should be...nice!

Scilla and sunshine...

Scilla from the boat
Next was the Ile de Vulcano...which is, funnily enough, a Volcano, busiest place for boats I have been to so far but for obvious reasons, you can walk up to the crater which is fantastic, and the local Pizza is tremendous.

Popular place the old Vulcano.....

Anchorage from the top of the Volcano
Stayed in Vulcano for a couple of days then headed for Cefalu, back on the North coast of Sicily, another tourist hot spot, not so many boats though, there is an old fort on top of a big old hill you can go up to and an old town with wee cobbled streets, 10 million tourists and a lot of Ice Cream places....loved it.

Cefalu, I'm the anchored boat nearest the top otf the photo

The old town......and a big church!

Inside of said big church..
Had a few days at sea to get to Sardinia, first stop was a beach just North of Cape Carbonara, water was so clear, no fishing allowed, so heaps of fish under the boat, I could hear then laughing at me as if they knew I was a shite fisherman!

Cape Carbonara, only boat there!
Had an overnight stop at Perda Longa the next day, another beach, I have to say, the Italians are a good looking people, I was getting worried I was going to get thrown off the beach for not being good looking enough, and for being the only guy on the beach that wasn't wearing speedo's! got away with it though....

Perda Longa...
And so to Calasetta, waiting for the weather and looking forward to getting to Spain.
"Oh this year I'm off to sunny Spain,
Y Viva Espana"
Remember that song? Haha, I cant get it out of my head!!

Sunrise....

Sunset....
See you in Spain........