Sat 22 Sep to Mon 24 Sep

Rome to Ponza to the Sicilian Islands.

We left Rome at 05:00 on Saturday morning and arrived on Ponza just as the sun was setting and dropped anchor in a huge (and very busy) bay a short dinghy ride to the town.

After a good nights sleep we got up early on Sunday morning and went for a swim, the water is definitely getting colder! On checking the forecast again it looked like the winds were to set in a few hours earlier, so we opted to leave at 15:00 to give ourselves a bigger buffer. Late morning we dinghy’d into town for a wander around and for some breakfast. I know I write this about every place we visit, but this one really was lovely! Multicoloured houses surrounded the bustling fishing marina and its main street was set one level up from the small (yet rather busy) road; a slightly weird but very effective layout. After eating two enormous doughnuts we walked long to the fuel pontoon to see whether it’d be deep enough for us to come alongside, thankfully it was.

Back on the boat I took a quick trip up the mast to give the wind instrument a wiggle (it’d got stuck somehow, probably a bird pecking at it) then we went to pick up some fuel. The guy at the pontoon was rather upset that we’d turned up later than we’d said, but soon cheered up as Tom chatted to him. It turned out he wanted to start dismantling the dock ahead of the 3m waves they were expecting along with the winds. When we told him we were off to Sicily he looked at his watch and told us to get a move on. Bit concerning!

By 15:00 we were on our way. We motored until 20:00 when the wind picked up so we hoisted the sails and over night we had our best sail of the season so far under the bright light of the full moon. 15 knot winds off the beam and a totally flat sea had us zooming along at almost 7 knots! Towards the end of my 03:00 to 06:00 watch the wind started to build, it was time to put in a reef. I felt a bit bad waking Tom up early but the boat was becoming difficult to handle. Turned out he was awake anyway wondering why I was helming like a mad woman. Once reefed we were in much better shape so I went down for a sleep

After a few hours I woke up and went on deck to see how Tom was getting on, and was surprised to see the sea so choppy! Whipped up by the wind we were carving through a big swell topped off with loads of white horses. We considered another reef but although steering required a lot of concentration, the boat was handling well and we were making awesome time towards Sicily.  We continued like this until 16:00 when the wind came around aft and dropped. We tried easing the sails and sailing downwind but the sea state meant the sails were flogging badly each time we dropped off a crest, and we’d noticed a small tear in the main so we dropped and motored the remaining five hours.

We decided to anchor on Panarea where our friends were due to arrive later that evening, and according to the chart it looked as though we’d be protected from the NE winds. Other boats seemed to agree as when we arrived we saw a sea of anchor lights twinkling in the dark anchorage, it looked packed full. The chart claimed it was at least 7 meters up to the rocks, so we ventured all the way in and anchored in a big empty spot tucked up a safe distance from the cliff edge. There wasn’t any wind so we’d be fine here for the evening. Exhausted but very happy we’d made such good time – we were about 9 hours earlier than we’d anticipated – we had dinner and an early night.