We posted position reports for our first stops in Sicily (Oct 14-19) - namely, Riposto where we were in the shadow of Mt. Etna after crossing over from the 'toe' of mainland Italy and made friends with Tom Real from the UK on a powerboat cruiser, Siracusa where we found a wonderful produce market, and Pozallo where we anchored before heading south to Malta.

Sun Oct 26 We headed from Malta back to Sicily. We had a reservation at Marina di Ragusa a popular spot to "winter" your boat. As we were mooring, Caroline and Duncan from Maggie Drum came over - they had arrived only a few hours earlier and on their walk in town saw us approaching the harbor. They are from Australia. We had met them in Phuket and had hoped our cruising paths might cross this season in Turkey but that didn't happen as their boat was transported a month later than ours and delivered to Istanbul in northern Turkey while ours arrived at Marmaris on the south coast of Turkey. It was amazing that we caught up to each other at all. Shortly thereafter Bill and Judy from Bebe came by. We had been conversing with them for several years over email. We hooked up with them on an Amel Yahoo group and since they are from Houston, Texas, they had travelled our same approximate route, just a few years ahead of us; we had thus asked them many a question over the last few years. They were moving at a more leisurely pace and we caught up with them by chance in an anchorage in Croatia for a short visit. It would be nice to spend some time with them again. Both of these boats were 'wintering' in Marina di Ragusa - meaning leaving their boat there from October-May at a very discounted rate. (Note: Boats that are crewed by individuals not belonging to the Schengen Treaty - essentially the European Union - must be "abandoned" by their crew who must leave the EU countries for at least 90 days before they can renew travel visas. It's a treaty that doesn't make much sense and will probably be revised in the future)

Mon-Thu Oct 27-30 Happy Birthday to Virginia's brother Chuck (and her father celebrating in heaven) on the 27th! Dennis assembled our bicycles and we cruised the town for pieces and parts needed for boat projects. The marina had a self-serve laundry and Virginia got caught up on that chore. One day we rode our bicycles to the open air produce market, Dennis towing our bicycle trailer to allow us to really stock up. Another we rode to the large supermarket (a bit of an uphill trek). Rain was threatening (we seemed to get rain there every afternoon) but we decided to give it a go anyway. It rained quite a bit while we were in the store and we waited outside for it to calm down. We took off in light sprinkles for the downhill ride back to the boat. Just as we got to the waterfront it started to pour - we quickly ducked onto a covered patio of a hotel. They were happy to let us sit there for about the next hour watching the storm. We made the last few blocks to the boat in sprinkles.

We were having trouble getting our American propane canister filled - not because it was an American fitting, but because it was too rusty! Our two canisters sit in a locker in the stern of the boat along with the stern anchor chain. Seawater gets in there and although there are drain holes, things do get wet. We tried to get it filled in Malta but the gas service there refused with the explanation that it was too rusted. This happened once before but we were in American Samoa and we were able to buy two new ones with the correct fittings. Dennis assumed that he would get the same reception here if he tried to get them filled. Faced with no chance of getting 'American' replacement tanks in Sicily, a solution did not immediately present itself. There is a VHF radio net at this marina and during the "services needed" section of the net Dennis asked for ideas on where we could get European canisters. Several of the cruisers had ideas of where we might pursue such a purchase - unfortunately the most frequent suggestion was to go to Malta as there was a good source there -darn if only we had known! Dennis spent a lot of time on the internet researching options -none of which were very promising. Finally, upon the urging of a fellow cruiser, he decided to sand the rust off our empty American canister to see if it had lost any integrity; we had done this on our older set a few years back and they were fine for a few more years. It felt solid enough, in fact the rustiest part was the bottom stand - not a part of the actual tank. He took the angle grinder to it that we acquired in Australia and had all the rust off it in about 30 minutes. Spray painted it and it looked brand new! We decided to rent a car and go to Ragusa to see if we could get it filled. Caroline and Duncan were interested in going as well as they had errands they wanted to run there and we all hoped there would be a bit of time for sight-seeing.

Fri Oct 31 Marina di Ragusa
We left around 8am for our road trip with Caroline and Duncan to Ragusa. Our first stop was at the "Gaz" shop. We had no problems getting our shiny, "new" US tank filled and Caroline and Duncan's Australian tanks presented no problem either. The first stop was a win and so we really didn't care how the rest of the day would play out. We found a stainless steel shop where Duncan arranged for a quote on one of his boat projects. The Lidl grocery store seemed to be a reason that some of the other cruisers had visited Ragusa so we made a point to stop there; we did locate some hard-to-find items and we bought a few 'ingredients' for Halloween costumes. It wasn't even noon at this point - we had been quite productive and still had plenty of daylight left for sightseeing.

Ragusa is 20 km from the waterfront town of Marina di Ragusa. Caroline had some tourist maps from one of the other cruisers which we followed to old town, Ragusa Ibla. We drove to the top of the hill and parked (not a small feat) before touring the area on foot past some beautiful gardens (Giardino Ibleo), four beautiful churches, a fountain, Palazzo la Rocca, and lovely old buildings on cobblestone streets. We drove through Ragusa Superior (new town) on our way out of town. We stopped and had a very pleasant lunch before proceeding to Noto. Again we parked and wandered afoot through the gorgeous stone city gate. We saw Town Hall, Chiesa of the Immaculate Virgin, and St. Nicholas Cathedral. We had to get a move on if we wanted to be back in time for the Halloween party. The maps proved to be less helpful than we had hoped (got lost and turned around several times) but Caroline and Duncan had a smart phone with a GPS navigation app which allowed us to get back to the marina with time to spare -just before the phone battery died. Some of the cruisers had organized a potluck costume dinner. They had done a great job of decorating the meeting room and a number of the cruisers even had a Halloween theme to their potluck dish - spiders on deviled eggs, hot dog fingers...quite cute and clever. At Lidl we had bought a plastic pitchfork, a plastic sickle, and face paints. Dennis wore black pants, red jacket, red hat, and painted his face red with black highlights; carrying the pitchfork, he was the devil. Virginia wore all black, including a hooded sweatshirt. With white face paint, highlighted with black, and carrying the sickle, she was the grim reaper. There were a few young children trick or treating. The majority of the partiers were non-North American and had little notion of what Halloween was all about. But cruisers don't need much of an excuse to party.

Sat Nov 1 - Mon Nov 3 We left Marina di Ragusa and headed up the west coast of Sicily. As we reported in our position reports we anchored at Licata and Mazara del Vallo before settling into a marina at Trapani to wait out some stormy days and find a good weather window for our crossing to Sardinia.

Tues Nov 4 - Thu Nov 6 Weather forecasts told us that we would not be able to leave until at least Friday so we decided to take a day trip to Palermo on Wednesday. Dennis rode his bicycle around Trapani to check out car rental agencies he had found on the Internet. Enroute he saw a big hardware store with an electronics section and he popped in and bought us a TomTom GPS road navigation device. We had used one that was provided with a rental car in Bari and found it indispensable and after our experience in Ragusa, we were convinced it was time to get one. We walked into town for dinner that night and stopped into Avis to reserve a car. It was about 7pm and we had a hard time finding a restaurant that was open - yet - it was too early for an Italian dinner.

Wednesday morning we walked up to Avis - very close to our marina - and picked up the car. We headed out for Palermo with our first destination programmed into the TomTom. We wanted to see the Temple of Apollo in Segusta. The TomTom is only as good as the information you give it...and the address we had gotten off the internet led us to a residential area in Segusta. We reverted to the old style of navigation and asked several locals for directions. They kept pointing us back to the main highway. We stopped, pulled out our laptop and wifi connection, and looked at pictures of the area around the site. This gave Dennis a good enough clue to find it. He is amazing that way. Many of the columns of the temple are intact, some with obvious restoration. It was quite a site to see from a distance among the rolling green hills. This is actually quite an extensive, spread-out, site with other points of interest such as an amphitheater. But we focused on the temple then got back on the road to Palermo.

Our first stop in Palermo was the Tourist Information Center where we got a map of the city and a recommendation to see the palace ("our most important monument"). We had lunch at a deli and were revived for our tour. We had some of the standard types of sites on our list including several beautiful churches, the Cathedral, fountains, the opera house, the street market, and of course the Palace. The only disappointments were the street market, where the vendors were packing up their wares for the day, and the palace, which was closed for restoration (guess the word hadn't spread to the tourist center yet).

But we also picked out a couple more unusual stops. Sicily is known for its puppets. In fact the International Festival of Puppets would be held just a few days later in Palermo. We wanted to visit the Museum of International Marionettes. It took us quite a bit of wandering to find the museum entrance, but we are glad that we persevered. They have quite an extensive collection of working marionettes from around the world. We saw a craftsman in their workshop doing some repairs. It would have been wonderful to see a show, but we still enjoyed the visit despite missing the festival. This museum was close to the marina so we wandered the waterfront a bit and then returned to the car to program the TomTom for our next site. We had scheduled a tour of the Stanze al Genio - Tile Museum. We had called ahead, as the internet instructed, for an appointment and were told that the English tour was at 6pm. Looking at the TomTom's driving route - we could see it had to be very circuitous given the many one-way streets. We decided to walk. We found the museum at about 5:30pm so we walked around the corner to a pub and had a beer to pass the time. Many years ago Dennis worked at a company where he was involved with importing tiles from Italy so that may be why this museum attracted our attention. Tours had to be scheduled in advance because the museum is a private collection in the home of the collector. He started collecting when he was about 11 years old. He lived in Palermo and his grandmother lived in Naples. She gave him his first tile as a present and it became a passion. The framed 6" x 6" tiles were hung on just about every inch of every wall. Most were single tiles of some specific repeating pattern but the favorites were ones that had to be placed in specific positions to make a scene, usually a floral scene. The collection was not very difficult to accumulate as the destruction from WWII resulted in a lot of demolition of old buildings from which he picked up discarded tiles. The floors and table tops were tiled. It was very tastefully done. The tiles were from Naples and Palermo, two of the most famous tile making centers of Italy. The owner had other, much smaller, collections in these same rooms. For instance, in the living room, all the lamps were very modern/unusual styles. They were in the process of expanding the museum as the owner has run out of room for his collection. The guide was quite knowledgeable about the history of tile making processes and the tiles in the collection. He was also quite passionate about the collection and getting the word out to the public. It was a very unusual site and quite an enjoyable end to our day. We were exhausted from the whirlwind trip so we didn't stop for dinner out, but returned to the boat and fixed leftovers.

Fri Nov 7 Weather forecasts looked good for making an overnight trip to Sardinia on Fri/Sat, but when we got up at 0600 Fri to prepare to leave, we made a final weather check and found that conditions had changed significantly. We went back to bed and slept until noon - must have been depression! We did manage to get underway the next morning and bid Sicily adieu.