Heading Back to Sicily

We made quick work of putting the Italian Adriatic Coast in our rear view mirror. After the stunning beauty of Croatia and Montenegro just across the water, we found this side disappointing. The Italian Adriatic Coast is truly uninspiring and uninteresting with no natural wonders to be wowed by and as far as we were concerned, very few ports worth visiting. We definitely got the feeling that the boats we passed coming and going felt the same – we were all just trying to get from Point A to Point B and as quickly as possible. For us Point B was Siracusa on the east coast of Sicily. We pushed hard and managed to cover 335nm in just 2 days. We sailed into Siracusa’s Grand Harbor at 1215 on 10 July and took a slip for one night at the marina. We used the convenience of the marina to easily provision the boat and then quickly headed out to the Grand Harbor where we anchored for another two nights. (150 Euros/night for a slip was all the encouragement we needed to get our provisioning done quickly. Welcome back to Italian prices!)

Siracusa is a beautiful blend of old and older. The old town Ortiga was originally settled in 734BC by folks from Corinth and grew to be the largest walled city of ancient Greece. Today it is filled with palazzos, narrow alleyways, a Temple of Apollo and of course a domo. From the harbor the view is stunning. Built in the 5th century BC, Siracusa also contains one of the most significant examples of ancient theatres in the world. Siracusa has one of the best markets we’ve seen in the Med. We had a great time wandering thru the stalls of fresh fruit, vegetables and cheeses and listening to the fish mongers shout back and forth to one another and to potential customers. We couldn’t resist the fresh tuna and had to take some back to the boat. (Once again – our kind of fishing!) That evening dinner was fresh sesame seed crusted seared tuna over wasabi mash potatoes – dining at its finest and all prepared by Chef Craig.

In addition to the sights of Siracusa we were entertained with two attractions while at anchor in the harbor. First was the treat of seeing the Rising Sun, the 6th largest yacht in the world. Rising Sun was originally built for Larry Ellison founder of Oracle and is now owned by David Geffen, one of the founders of DreamWorks and a music industry mogul. We looked up the stats on the yacht and she’s 454 ft and accommodates 16 with a crew of 45. If you’re one of the lucky guests on board you can watch movies in the cinema, relax in the gymnasium/spa/sauna or play basketball on a court which also doubles a landing pad for the yacht’s helicopter. Life is just rough for those on board!

We also had front row seats as two Italian fire fighting airplanes put on a show. These planes are used all over the Italian coast to aide in fighting wildfires which are common in the summer – sounds like Texas. For over an hour we watched these planes swoop down into the harbor, quickly open their tanks which are located in the planes’ pontoons and fill with water while still moving. The planes then flew off to drop the water on an out of site fire and were back in 10 minutes for another round. What really impressed us was the pilots’ amazing ability to do all this while maneuvering between over 30 boats anchored in the harbor without mishap. Truly impressive.