Solanto - 12 October 2021

It felt like a big day ahead, as we were leaving Palermo. There is window in the weather systems that would allow us to travel along the coast and spend one night on the anchor. There was no rush to leave, because we weren’t going far, (only 11 miles), which was just as well because the water flow from the pontoon tap was a trickle, so filling the water tanks took ages.

The next task was to head over the fuel dock, on our way out of the harbour, to replenish the fuel supplies. This is the first refuelling we have done in two years and only needing 130 litres, we were pleased with how little we have used.

The sailing conditions were lovely, with a moderate clean breeze, but the sea was still churned up from the recent storms, so we just had to be careful steering though the swell that came across the back quarter: always a little tricky. It was great to have some blue sky again.

Whilst rounding the headland, we noticed a big vessel way in the distance behind us, but we couldn’t understand what it could be. It was surprising that such a large thing to not be on AIS. It was slowly catching us up and so it felt to me, that we being stalked. When we turned through 180 degrees, head to wind, to get the sails down, we were almost directly facing it. It was a large tug. We were concerned that it might be laying cables, or something similar, so we ran parallel with it, rather than pass close behind, but as it passed, we were confident enough that there was nothing coming out of the stern, so we turned behind it, to head for our anchorage bay. Briefly they turned their AIS on and I suspect it was to check who we were. All very strange; a tug in stealth mode.


We were happy that we had a well sheltered spot to stay over night in the bay off Solanto and were nicely entertained, as dusk fell, watching the many fishing boats of all sorts of shapes and sizes, going up and down, further out to sea. One of the traditional open wooden boats was laying out a net, very close to us. It finished up with a large float a each end, but no sign of the net in between. He then laid another net between us and the land. We were surrounded by nets. We knew he would probably be back at sunrise tomorrow to lift them, so we were not too concerned. We weren’t planning to leave during the night, especially as the wind was due to completely die, giving very little risk of a problem with the anchor holding.

The scenery of the whole coast is majestic

Tricia (and Steve)

Distance today              11 miles

Total distance 2021:   425 miles

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