At least the service was great. The marina we stayed in wasn’t in the best location, but the guy showed us a map of the best places for each individual meal, places to visit, bars, and was even specific enough to show the best gelateria and what flavours to get (these things are important)!

Well, we were close to the wall and had great wifi, so naturally I decided to do something that will probably get me a bunch of negative comments. But I re-downloaded Pokemon Go, because I figured we’d be doing a lot of walking around a highly populated city, and although I had ulterior motives relating to other Pokémon games, I just felt like doing it for fun.

And it’s as a result, that I conveniently had my phone to take photos with, because there were no shortage of things to photo.

In Palermo, we arrived quite in the afternoon and didn’t really do munch, the next day, however, we met in the morning with a friend from Singapore, called Orhan. With him, we visited a butterfly museum (even though it was closed), wanted through the vast city, and had lunch.

Because we are slowly accepting Italian customs, we spent most of the day doing blissfully nothing.

The next day, (today), we opted to go on a long walk throughout the city, passing numerous cathedrals, ape and horse taxis (the ape is a three wheeled car and the horse is a real horse), and Pokestops…

Whilst exploring the markets (a bunch of illegal migrants with Gucci fakes and stuff) we came across a marching band, and we watched them a bit

We also visited a cathedral with roof access that enabled view of most of the city, and after more exploring, we headed back to the boat.

Funnily enough, we figured it was barely midday, and with nothing better to do, left Palermo for a bay around the corner, with some remarkably fast sailing, in to this windy bay (thank goodness we have such a good anchor🙄), and anchored.

From there here, we’ve had a great view of incoming boats, one sailing boat came in so fast it was at a 45 degree angle and saved only by its keel. Another rib, that came in shortly after us was blasting ridiculously loud music, and let me tell you, we weren’t assisting it when it crashed in to another boat, due to the fact that they only put down three metres of anchor, without realising it was 8 metres deep.

Tomorrow, we’ll be doing the passage, up the coast, to a city called Trapani.

After coming from Alicudi, a peaceful marina (with wifi), was certainly welcome, not that Alicudi was unpleasant, but we’ve learnt not to place a huge amount of trust in the anchor. So we went on shore, typically just wandering around, looking at the scenery, and eating and drinking lots. That evening we had to say goodbye to Liem, who was taking the train somewhere, and then, wandering around some more.

After another day there, and a day at anchor, we arrived, in probably Sicilys’ biggest town, Palermo.

(Which, I am pleased to announce, I took pictures of)

After Salina, we spent the next few days in a pair of islands, the last two of the Aeolian islands, called Filicudi and Alicudi.

During those days, me and Kian devoted ourselves to teaching our Irish apprentice how to properly swing and jump off the boom without your back ending up stinging and red.

Since early Sicily we’ve come upon a practice of rigging the boom so it hangs off the side so you can jump or swing off it:

At the very least, he only landed painfully once…

On those two islands, which had a combined population of about 300, we climbed up the main mountains, (supposedly a shortcut back to the boat, although it had a great restaurant on top), ate food, and wandered around the, (rather small), main town.

Here, we met with our Irish cousin, Liem, who we saw earlier in Ireland, he arrived on a ferry, and joined us after a day of wandering around and eating gelato (gluten free cones!)

We didn’t do much in Lipari, aside from a pretty typical anchoring (the anchor went in first try though, so I suppose that should be mentioned), and the left for the next, very large, island of Salina

What was rough in the middle of the day, drastically dissipated, leaving us with dead calm water to comfortably anchor, and have dinner.

The next day, we climbed the volcano (all of these islands have at least one volcano, and two are still active)

It was nearly 1km tall, and ten or 15 times that to walk.

The ascent was in particularly good condition, despite the top not having the best view, because we were in the clouds, we did find a very well kept little hut with thankfully cold walls and ate biscuits.

The descent was more how we expected the entire track to be, thin and covered in loose, small rocks. It was a pain, literally because a lot of people (not me) fell over.

But the swim and lemonade at the end made it worth it.

The place smelled like sulphur.

That’s going to be my main memory of the place.

But in compensation, it had warm underwater geysers that you could float by and be warm, sure you had to hold your breath, but it was nearly worth it.

I remembered a lot of the scenery from last time, two years ago; the volcano itself, a restaurant where Kian got this huge pizza (he got it again, he couldn’t finish it), and the highly sulphuric pass between the halves of the town, with sulphur so thick in the air you could see the yellow tint.

Anyway, we rented a mini moke, this car that outdated seatbelts and doors, and decided to drive around the island.

We ventures down a very steep hill that we weren’t confident the car would be able to get back up, and found a restaurant, where I had meat on papaya (it was the only gluten free thing), and my parents had this slightly oversized pie.

We struggled back up the hill, in the end, and then drove back, with several stops for lookout, and returned, to leave the next day, to the next island of Lipari.

We received quite a warm welcome in to the Sicilian capital of Catania, which is to say, everything was on fire…

I’ll tell you, if this is what happens every time a poorly thrown cigarette is combined with a warm wind, it’s a wonder this place is still populated.

The marina didn’t seem all that concerned, despite the helicopters regularly getting water nearby, and we uneventfully moored there. It wasn’t the most picturesque of capitals, even with Mt Etna in the background, so we didn’t stay long, only to supply in the morning.

We continued up the coast of Sicily until you could see the mainland, to a place called Messina. This place wasn’t too interesting, but for one attraction, supposedly the oldest working clock in the world:

After visiting a few other cathedrals, we went to the boat and, the next day, left for a series of islands; the Aeolian islands.

In this post, I plan to recount all the events from Syracuse, Valletta, Gozo, and then Valletta again, so naturally I used the title to highlight the important bit.

In Syracuse we did nothing important, so I’ll just skip to our passage from Syracuse to Valletta, which was 20 hours even though we could have anchored at the bottom of Sicily.

Valletta was quite busy, for the entirety of Malta, we (read: I ) had to row the tender everywhere while we dropped the engine at the marina to fix it.

We spent a few days in the capital, wandering around, eating food, and visiting many chapel places.

We visited the fort of saint Elmo.

(Nothing to to with the tv character)

There was a lot of information to absorb as it played key roles in the Second World War and a siege creatively named the siege of st Elmo.

I’d never really heard much about Malta, especially in WW2 references, but it turns out it was a key asset to victory.

Later on, we went to see a 5D cinema movie that had free drinks.

Oh yes, it had a movie too, I suppose that was pretty good. When a scene showed a snake striking, something under the chairs sprayed and bumped out legs.

Another day, we rented another car and drove to the former capital city of Mdina, it was quite hot, more of an excuse to have tasty drinks and look at Maseratis.

The churches bishop even has one, like, seriously?

I had some very good beef ribs with an acceptable amount of vegetables which was my highlight and going on my food page that I’m going to release at the end.

Afterwards we drove to the other side of the island (it wasn’t very far, it’s quite small), and had a much needed swim in a place called the blue grotto (I know, another one), then wandered around some more, attempting to avoid the numerous horse and carts.

We gave up waiting for the engine the next day, however, and left for a town called Marsaxlokk (don’t try and pronounce it, I didn’t).

One night we stayed in a nearby bay where the water was clear and good for snorkeling. It was here that we had our first encounter of the very incarnation of Maltese genius; a Mr Whippys Ice cream boat.

I got coconut…

We went in to town the next day, anchoring after about ten attempts by sending the driver in to the slightly polluted water.

The next day was typical, several tries anchoring in your average pristine bay and then cruising further on to another town with a complex name called Gnejna…

For the next two nights we anchored at a place called fungus rock.

There was a Superyacht parked there, and following its idea, sent lines to the rocks to hold us in place. We played with the go-pro for a while and had dinner.

We had a very still night that night and the next day climbed up to the top of the mountain to look at the view.

Leading up the cliff was a steep slope of small rocks similar to a grey sand dune about 20 meters high, I gave my Dad and Kian a halfway head start, but, by the time I had nimbly crawled up they’d moved about 2 metres. It was quite amusing. Later on, we walked to the other side of the peninsula where we found a watchtower with a guy making chain mail in it. It was 30 kilograms, but I think I could still play tennis in it…

The next day was actually my Dads birthday, so we went and had some tasty lunch at a restaurant full of kittens.

The next day (I feel like this is getting repetitive), the 4th of July, we headed to Valletta again (I forgot to tell you, fungus rock is on the other main island of Malta- Gozo). We were going to stay at the other side of Malta but we discovered an oil leak and wanted to deal with it (seriously, will this boats problems never cease?). But back in Valletta my Dad left for Africa (Tunisia to be precise).

He came back a few days later leaving us for chores…

Personally, I don’t think he enjoyed Tunisia too much, despite being in a very well air conditioned hotel, but the remaining three of us had a very peaceful time, cleaning and watching Wimbledon (you can guess which one I did).

Yesterday, we left Valletta for Sicily again, although we don’t intend to stop back in Syracuse for obvious reasons.

We arrived and anchored at the bottom, swinging and jumping off the mast for a while. Today we have left for…

Yeah, I have no idea, but we’re under way and I’m caught up!