Once we were on the East coast of Sardinia, we were officially in the Tyrrhenian Sea so this was what we crossed on our way from Sardinia to Sicily. The crossing was a good one with more sailing than motoring and nice weather. There were a few other sail boats crossing back and forth and the usual shipping traffic. The only unusual boat we saw during the night was a large fishing (?) vessel which did not show up on AIS and had a very small radar signature for its size.
At day break the next morning we had a school of small dolphin escort us for an hour while they played in the bow waves. There was also a large thunder-cloud in the distance but it never got close enough to bother us.
The Egadi Islands are a small group off the South Western end of Sicily, and we were heading for Marettimo which was the most Western. It became visible about 20 nautical miles out, with a tell-tale cloud “hat”. The north wind had filled in so it was a breezy 25 knots when we arrived. The anchorage behind the mooring field was very deep so we were happy to collect a buoy. Sandy and Doug arrived about an hour later, and like us were happy to get out of the swell. The island itself was remote, craggy and wind-swept.
There was a fort/castle above the anchorage, and we could see a small town midway down the coast. It continued to blow hard for the rest of that day, although it was calm enough in the morning to launch the dinghy for a hike up to the castle and to do some snorkeling around the rocks. This was designated a marine reserve and we did see more fish species (and even an eel), than we had previously. The wind had picked up again by the afternoon and we decided to try the southern anchorage which looked like it might have more protection from the North wind. It was only a half hour away but when we rounded the southern tip there was a South-West wind honking at 30 knots and the anchorage had no protection whatsoever. Still, it was a nice chance to sail by the small town which was composed of square white buildings with blue shutters, a marina, and boat launch.
We returned to our old mooring buoy, topped up our water tank with some pristine water from Sah Sen, (our water maker was still refusing to produce drinking quality water), and planned Sunday dinner together.
