We decided to head off to Siracusa, Sicily approximately 45nm away.
Our first big sail! We wanted to test all the sails and anything else along the way.
A very nice sail- it did get a bit slow but that’s all good when it’s a first go!

The main sail is huge! Beautiful sail!

We arrived in Siracusa, and it was dark .. according to our cruisers guide we were going to go in a certain area of the bay.
Penny was on the lookout and noticed some strange looking things in the water, and a lot of them!
So, we decided to go to another anchorage area.

We had thunder and lightning that night but woke up to a very nice day! Partly cloudy which is great for sight seeing. We loaded in to the dinghy and headed to shore to hopefully find an area to put the dinghy ( a bit of talk about dinghies being stolen) . Eventually we found a spot and headed off to tour around the town.

First stop was Castello Maniace, an ancient castle- 1240 ish give or take a few years ! It was hard to believe it could possibly be still be there!
Walking through I was imagining the hustle and bustle of the time.

Then we headed for a cold beer! It was really hot ( they seem to know Canadians like beer and play hockey! Hmmm?). A nice little place !
The view of course was stunning and we could even see the boat :-).

Penny and I managed to find a lovely dress shop packed with gorgeous dresses! We controlled ourselves.. the guys were a bit impatient lol.

The main square was just amazing, I’ve been to other places in Italy but this place was so impressive.
We continued on to walk through the charming streets full of quaint cafes and shops. We stumbled across a grocery store and stocked up on um “ Birra” oh and... veggies too.

Back to the boat for dinner .
Suddenly,.. Cam said “ we’ve dragged!
It happens, but this time is was a bit more complicated! Cam went to raise the anchor and nothing happened? He kept trying while Fred kept the boat steady.
After many attempts Cam realized he would need to crawl into the anchor locker to check the connections ( now my verbiage on these terms are not quite accurate, but you’ll get my drift right!)
This is a terribly awkward space for a guy his height,nevertheless he ventured in. After a lot of tools going down there Cam found out that whim ever installed the batteries didn’t tighten the connections therefore the windless anchor was not working.
All good! He fixed it ( of course ).
Then we were able to bring up the anchor and soon found out why we dragged! There was a huge chunk of carpet which the anchor had pierced so it didn’t get a good grip! Wow!

Although it was kind of intense ( for me anyway.. chicken ) it was a good thing it happened because we discovered that the connections weren’t done properly.

Whew! That night we relaxed and woke up the next day to head off to Porto Palo ( same place we started from where the boat was on the hard)

We had a nice sail from Siracusa to Porto Palo - we didn’t have a lot of wind but it’s good for learning. ( my opinion lol).

Well looks like tomorrow we are fine balky going to go to Malta . It seems that the weather will be fine. We will hang around there for a week or so.
Pretty exciting for me of course! Really looking forward to seeing my relatives that live in Gozo and Malta. Also excited to share where my Dad lived with Cam and Fred and Penny.

Boy, I sure never thought I would be on a sail boat sailing to Malta! Crazy! Wish my Dad was alive, he would have been so excited to know this.

It was raining but seems to have stopped. The sun is shining and we are having a lovely visit tonight.

More sooooon!
Cheers from us!