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Our first stop in Sicily was in a place called Milazzo which, depending on which direction you look in, is either very pretty (up towards the old town) or very ugly (across the bay to the enormous oil refinery). We turned our backs on the refinery and took a walk up to the citadel. We were greeted by a super friendly Sicilian guy who was inexplicably delighted that I was English and gave us an impromptu free tour - inclusive of handpicked flowers, some very amusing photos, and a list of things to check off during our time in Sicily (cannoli, Taormina, mafia - we got 2 out of 3).
We intended to head straight to Taormina from there but that journey required a trip through the Messina Strait, a narrow but busy shipping channel with strong tides running through it. Armed with our dayskipper training, we calculated the best time to enter the Strait and realised it would have meant a night departure from Milazzo so instead decided to spend a night in Scilla, Calabria. This still meant crossing the mouth of the Strait and dodging the various container ships coming in and out so we were slowly approaching to time our crossing well (and get our courage up!) when... Guardia di Finanza strikes again! They moored up against us in open sea so I took on fender duty (doing my best to prevent their boat from getting too intimate with ours) while Gerard tried to establish what they needed from the mix of Italian and English. Half an hour later we were on our way again having apparently cleared customs - why this was necessary between Sicily and Italy, we're still not sure.
Anyhow, we were very glad we made a stop in Scilla because it was a real highlight. Just after we moored, the swordfish boats started to come in and we joined the locals who'd gathered in the harbour to watch them. They're huge! The helmsman sits the top of the mast spotting the fish and steering towards them so the crew can try to spear them with a massive trident. Having been at the top of the mast for about 15 minutes, inside a marina (i.e. no waves), I'm not sure i could do that job. The next morning as we were getting ready to set off, a friendly fisherman came over to give us an enormous tuna which we thoroughly enjoyed for the next 2 days!
Our tide calculations seemed to be about right and our trip through the Strait was uneventful - which is the best we could have hoped for. We dropped the anchor in a bay in Taormina and spent a couple of days enjoying the quaint little town but not so much the hoards of people - clearly we're out of practice with busy streets.
From there we moved into Riposto marina to hide out from some strong winds that were forecast and took the opportunity to hire a car and explore inland. First we went to Savoca where parts of The Godfather were filmed (Bar Vitelli and the church where Michael got married) - this made up somewhat for our disappointment the evening before when we'd discovered that, despite having 2 Godfather boxsets on board, we were missing the same disc from both! Then we had a lovely drive through the mountains and inadvertently ended up at what is possibly the least interesting and most overpriced tourist attraction in Sicily: the Alcantara gorge. Not recommended. Next day we went up to Mount Etna where we realised we've fallen right out of the habit of walking up and down mountains. We were rewarded with some amazing views though so it was worth the huffing and puffing.
Sicily - check!
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