We have been here a few weeks now and are getting more familiar with our surroundings. Quite a few boat jobs are done and we are realising that we have really lucked out this time and are in a fab place for the winter.
The marina is two years old and with around 200 boats here there are a surprising number of catamarans, around 50/50 to monohulls. This is the first year so many boats have wintered over in what is normally an empty marina at this time of year.
Not unlike sportsman of the year in NZ, Porto Turistica Marina di Ragusa appears to have trumped both Turkey and Greece as one of the top marinas of choice for this year. The cruiser's network via word of mouth and email over the summer season has been very effective in spreading the news.
We are enjoying meeting a really interesting bunch of people, a cross section of American, Dutch, German and of course Brits, Welsh and Irish but no Scottish at this stage. There are four NZ boats, two of us staying over. The level of expertise and knowledge in the group is impressive and we have a 'Skipper's Debrief' every Friday at 5pm, (followed by Happy Hour, followed by dinner) where information and expertise is shared.
The marina cafe is a great spot with a room off to the side which we tend to take over for regular learning and info swap sessions.
This is not to mention watching the Rugby.... YES!!! Here we are defeating Australia...
and then.... gasp.. gasp... will we, won't we? YES!!! Defeating France... just!!
The cafe staff are friendly, no .... absolutely fabulous and lovely. Rita, Lucia, Riccardo and others. We love them and they extend an incredibly warm welcome to us, putting on cut price dinners for us to follow on from 3 x happy hour evenings each week. One particular night we are served up with a full sized ricotta, warm, for our main course. As you can see tho its not such a good photo, Steve and Richard are right into it!
Pippy goes to the yoga group outside on the main pontoon as the sun comes up three mornings a week.
We both take part in self taught Italian lessons, have joined a photography group, and until recently have been walking a lot each day.
The generous loan of two bikes from a fellow cruising boat until March next year has revolutionised our lives so we now cycle everywhere. What we had trimmed to a 6 minute walk to the nearest shower/toilet block and to the office not to mention the daily trip to the shops for bread ice cream etc, is now much faster!
It is morning as Pippy checks on our email. We have a 'Wind' USB dongle which provides us with a 3G connection on board for Euro 15 per month/10Gig. Richard is doing the breakfast dishes, Pippy has just done a big load in the marina washing machine and it is hanging around the boat despite the 25 knot wind. Every so often we check that it is still there!
Pippy has to clean off the red dust before hanging out the laundry to dry.
Mornings on the marina are very busy, kicking off at 7am with either yoga, laundry, or other early tasks, followed by the radio net at 9am which in many ways is the focal point of the day. It is an information and cruiser networking net, giving details of weather, marina issues, social activities, items for sale or giveaway, new arrivals and departures etc. Pippy is the net controller on Saturdays and here she is giving the weather forecast.
Following on from the net, Richard has just had 'man time' on the pontoon. This is when he and several other men stand with their arms crossed and their faces very serious, and talk about all sorts of man stuff. It usually takes at least half an hour at a time and sometimes extends into more than an hour. The group morphs as new arrivals join and others leave, usually because of a feminine request from a nearby companionway to 'give me a hand' with something or other! Richard starts the 'man time' group this morning because we give away our old car radio (ex boat) on the net and several hopefuls turn up at our boat. First in gets the radio but this involves Richard in quite a bit of serious discussion with arms folded!
After all these activities, we often take a 15 minute walk along the seafront promenade to the nearby town of Marina di Ragusa to stock up on bread, visit the chandlery or hardware shop, buy meat and veg etc.
This is always a lovely experience with the sea in its many different moods, sometimes totally flat calm, sometimes a raging surf beach. Richard is always ready with his camera for that special shot.
On sunny Sundays (we have quite a few), the local population come out in large numbers and promenade from town to marina, dressed up in their best clothes. The vibe is very cool, with beautifully dressed children riding bikes and scooters or throwing balls and the fragrance of expensive perfume wafting to the sound of many buona serras as we pass by.
Unfortunately our local gelato shop closed for the winter. (We later discover that the cafe right here in the marina has a gelato bar...fatal!). However there is always time for a coffee stop and a snack on one of the local delicacies usually containing a mix of tomatoes, ricotta cheese and egg plant wrapped in pastry, or closeted inside a deep fried ball of rice (Arancini). We have not yet discovered Canoli, but it won't be long. These are delicious pastry wraps (either piccolo or grosso, depending on one's appetite) filled with a sweet ricotta mixture which melts in the mouth).
Needless to say we are both looking a little 'porky' around the middle and will have to watch that! Today is a holiday here, otherwise being Tuesday, it would have been market day. The Tuesday open air market provides us with plenty of fresh local fruit and veg, fish, cheese and meat and is a lovely routine to do each week.
Pippy washes all the fruit and veg on the pontoon before it comes on board to prevent cockroach infestations.
The rotisserie chickens from here are delicious Euro 4.50 each or 3 for Euro 10. One chicken makes two meals on board.
We are very cosy on board, eat well and enjoy listening to music on spare evenings alone of which there aren't many. This is our winter home now and we are going to be very happy here we think. The weather was pretty awful for most of November but we seem to be having an Indian summer here although the nights are pretty cool.
The town of Marina di Ragusa is a 15 minute walk from the marina along the lovely waterfront promenade and most of our needs can be met with local suppliers who are very hospitable towards us. Twenty minutes on the bus from the town square takes us to a shopping mall (which Pippy soon discovers has a Zara shop) and it is a 30 minute bus ride to the large 'new' town of Ragusa and Ragusa Ibla (old town).
Built after the 1693 earthquake, in the late baroque style, Ragusa Ibla, Modica and Scicli, all nearby, have recently been declared along with a number of smaller towns in the region as UNESCO world heritage towns. We are very much looking forward to exploring the whole of Sicily and indeed, going further afield into mainland Italy for some excursions while we are here, until the end of April next year.
The marina staff are very good to us, especially Viviana who fields all of our enquiries, complaints (none) and requests for various assistance (plenty). She is an absolute wizzard and having someone like Viviana as our first contact has made our experience here so much more special. She is the darling of the liveaboard fleet and commands huge respect.
Richard slips on a metal strip inside the main gate one cold wet and windy night and falls heavily on his back, hurting himself quite a bit. Some days later, he has symptoms of a kidney infection. The marina office sends a car to pick Richard up from the pontoon, delivering us to the medical centre in town. Viviana accompanies us and translates Richard's symptoms to the doctor who does not speak English. He is back on the boat within an hour with a script for antibiotics and with instructions to report to the hospital in Ragusa for more tests if there is no improvement. He is soon back to good health again. The marina have now installed some strips to stop the slip.
Back to boat jobs, the sails are all packed away and the engine wintered. The only outstanding jobs for the new year are the installation of a watermaker - currently on its way to us, and the modification of the mast track, which has been an ongoing problem on the boat, with gaps opening up and ball bearings spilling on to the deck on several occasions when we have been sailing in heavy weather.
On arrival here we discover (as a ball bearing bounces off the deck) that we again have a gap in the track. This has as usual, opened up on a boisterous sail, this time out of Syracusa when we turned back because of the weather. It is just not acceptable to have this happening every time we get into heavy weather and we look for a solution.
(Fortunately we motored all the way to Marina di Ragusa, because we would have had problems getting the main down if we had tried to sail.)
This time the gap is high up the mast almost out of sight.
We notice that a catamaran on our pontoon has the same Z-Spars mast and track system as us, so we are able to have a close look at it. Quickly it is obvious that the track has been bolted into place at 2 m intervals all the way up the mast and there is a fitting at the top which also prevents the track from moving. We know there are minimal bolts on our mast, top and bottom only, with no fitting at the top to prevent movement, although on close inspection, there now appears to have been one there at some time in the past, but not since we have owned the boat.
A very helpful contact at Z-Spars UK has now supplied us with the bolts, screws and fittings necessary to modify our mast, plus detailed instructions (quite complicated) about how to fit everything. Richard is determined that he will go up the mast and do this job in the New Year. Pippy is reminding him that he is 72 years young and "Couldn't we just get a rigger to do it?" The jury is currently out on where we are going with this!
We cannot believe where each day flies by to, but suddenly it is the end of November and we are celebrating Thanksgiving with the American contingent here. The size of the Turkey is gobsmacking. One breast feeds ten people easily. We all take home the leftovers for another Turkey meal on board.
The remarkable thing about the lady in the orange dress (centre) and her husband immediately in front of her is that they have come from Thailand this year straight through the pirate infested waters of the Indian Ocean and the entrance to the Red Sea. They now admit they realise it was a bit lucky that they made it! They have a 39 ft Island Packet sloop and are in their mid sixties!
