We woke in the wide town skirted bay at Siracusa.
We’re in a hot mess - hot, because it’s well into the 30s before 9am, and mess because we still haven’t been able to check in to Italy.
One highlight to a glum morning was a passing tugboat captain waving at Chez and shouting ‘Ciao Bella!’ Which she greeted with blushes and a coy ‘I’ve still got it’ smirk.
As I scrubbed the deck (it’s filthy with Saharan dust) the towns church bells pealed - they’re a lot more tuneful than their Greek neighbours, who’s repertoire is restricted to a simple ‘ding dong’ with few, if any, variations on that theme.
Once the deck was done, I again tried the harbour master on the VHF radio. Still no joy, and more of the frustrating ‘standbys’ - I asked if we could just visit their office to sort things out to which I got a ‘yes’ - well that’s progress.
Took the tender ashore, located the Harbour Masters office and was directed to ring the doorbell by someone in a bright white naval uniform hanging out of a first floor window having a cigarette. Having pressed the intercom on the imposing iron doors multiple times and stood around in the blazing hot Sunday sun for half an hour we realised this was not going to work either.
With our phones held out before us, we walked the hot streets in search of free wifi. Eventually finding the elusive wifi at the plush Ortea Palace Hotel we plonked down in an accompanying slither of shade outside the hotel and started pulling down the emails, news and messages that we’d missed over the last few days.
Not much good news I’m afraid: Tunisia, as well as having a recent coup, have now instigated further quarantine restrictions - it seems everywhere we turn there are increasing numbers of hoops to jump through in order to visit. One of the lodgers in Sydney has lost his job (they’re in lockdown again) and is moving out.
On a happier note - I did receive a lovely photo from Lou of 4 generations (in chronological order: Lyle’s baby, Lyle, Isobel and mum) all together on Mum’s birthday - a joyous picture you’d think, but it had us both tearing up. It’s been a long hot tiring last few days and our families seem a long way off in many respects at the moment.
Headed back to the boat, having got nowhere with the harbour master - and as such realised that while on shore we were in fact illegal aliens!
Back at the boat our new Swedish friends popped by in their tender to see if we’d had any luck. They’re heading off tomorrow to Lakarta (a town we’ve had good reports of on the other side of Sicily) - it’s not our original plan, but we may head that way too. As the oft quoted saying goes: ‘sailing plans are written in wet sand at low tide’.
Having written all that, and performed many more VHF radio ‘standbys’ today (Monday) as instructed by the Siracusa Harbour Master, at 5pm, three long hot days after our arrival we received an email confirming our ‘free practique’ status. Having googled it, I now know that means that:
‘The local port health authority certify that your vessel is without infectious disease or plague on board and your boat is permitted to enter port and allow people to board or disembark’. Yay!!
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