St Guiseppe Festival Celebrates the End of Winter

The beautifully decorated horses we have seen in parades for the past two weekends are a part of Sicily we knew nothing of before visiting here. These parades are celebrating the feast of St Guiseppe, more than adequately described in the blog you can read by following the link below.

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The surrounding towns of Donalucata, Santa Croce and last night, Scicli, all had their celebrations, all different in their own ways.



Last night we travelled by 28 seater bus to the nearby town of Scicli especially to see the parade of horses which were the star attraction for us. Such massive, proud and spirited animals.



They pranced their way through the parade, many of them with solid legs and huge hooves, powerfully built and standing very tall, while we speculated on their probable heritage as war horses for knights in armour, or Roman soldiers. One beautiful gray built almost like a draft horse demonstrated a slow dressage trot with dignified aplomb and arched neck. Children often rode with an adult, some of them solo and obviously very at home in the saddle. The decorations made mostly of flowers signify the end of winter and celebrate the bountiful summer to come.

One of the slightly bizarre things we noticed was the several caravans selling hamburgers made with 'cavallo' meat, and seeing some of our fellow cruisers happily munching on horse hamburgers for dinner!

Spring has Sprung and we are ... gasp... busy busy!

Richard is out of bed at 1 am lashing things down but we are mostly okay... fortunately.




With one last vicious storm, winter appears to have departed. We are lashed from Friday night 9 March until late on Sunday with unprecedented wind and rain. Gusts of wind lay the boat over and items fly around inside as though we are at sea.

Our only casualties are the zips and fasteners on the bimini which is getting a bit sad anyway. The marina keeps the spotlight on overnight and the marinaras are on patrol. Some of the cleats on the pontoons are loosened and one even pulls right out on our pontoon so people are out of bed tying down the boat concerned in any way they can. Its not really possible to walk along the pontoon in some of the gusts which are recorded over 60 knots.

The watermaker installation is STILL using up a lot of Richard's time and the list of jobs just keeps getting longer.



Fantastic progress is being made on a really demanding job...

Items needing some TLC are discovered daily as we start the process of 'getting ready to go'. A chain-plate under the galley looks a bit sad, a cockpit speaker needs rewiring, one of the connectors to the autohelm are rusting and needs urgent attention, the condenser to the fridge needs dedusting once the fan is removed from the front. We shop on line for spare parts to be sent from the UK for our on board fresh water system which has sprung a leak...so we are down to a foot pump. The dinghy develops air and water leaks and the anchor chain is rusting in places. All in the joys of boating!! We are taking on new skills and knowledge daily.

Pippy dumps the anchor chain over the side as despite being cleaned thoroughly at the end of last season it still appears to be coated in sulphurous mud from Siracusa Harbour, which is slowly eating into the galvanising. The smell says it all and the spots of rust are a concern. The rode goes over as well for a soaking before being slowly brought back on board and all given a thorough fresh water washing. But suddenly it stops coming ... tugging and winching do nothing. It appears to be all caught fast on the bottom.



Richard arrives back from a trip to the shops to find Pippy in the water in a borrowed wet suit, calling up the free diving skills to get down there to see what is happening.



Visibility is about zero, but just a quick glimpse shows the anchor rode wound about under a pile of chain.



Lateral thinking wins the day and causes a bit of entertainment as the free end of the rode is swum across to the next pontoon and pulled on by several strong men until it comes free and the whole sorry mess can be pulled back on to the boat.

Market day is its usual busy morning.... its amazing how much you can carry on a bike.


The festival of St Guiseppe is a big event here and the decorations are out for the weekend. Today Saturday 24 March we are going to see the special decorated horses in the town of Scicli nearby. It will be a special event and subject of another blog...







The town takes on a new appearance. What was previously a storm lashed shack becomes a tidy looking bar area on the beach complete with dressing sheds.