Call off the search! Send back the troops! We have officially found paradise. It’s in Sardinia, FYI, and I really would recommend booking a trip immediately, if not sooner. White sand, blue water, rugged cliffs: Caribbean levels of perfection. The only slight hitch is that it was absolutely fucking freezing when we were there in mid September. Like, I even put on socks.

But I’m jumping ahead of myself! We have also, it’s fair to say, experienced quite a lot of sunshine these past months too. Prior to Sardinia, we were in Sicily - and it most certainly was not cold there. Granted, it was August. But still. You may recall from my last post that we arrived in Taormina - a chichi hilltop town (and the setting for Season 2 of White Lotus, no less) - carrying several bags of rubbish. 

Well, after locating a bin, we strolled up the street and found two strays sitting outside a bar: my mates Loz and JLE (like JLO but with an E) (real name Alicia) (it’s a long story that doesn’t even make sense to me) (and I’m the one who coined the nickname), who’d arrived earlier that day. Eager to get stuck into aperitif hour, Chazzle secured a table in an exceptionally odd restaurant with plastic chandeliers and golden chairs shaped like thrones. But it being August in Sicily, we considered ourselves grateful to get a chair anywhere and ordered a round of celebratory spritzes. Despite Loz’s stern warnings, I went for a limoncello one, which I will put my hands up and say was a mistake (very medicinal tasting), so I ordered an Aperol. And some wine. And some beer. Just to, you know, eradicate the taste. 

Shocker: I woke up the next morning with a sore head. But there was no time for sleeping in: it was changeover day on the Turtle (which has become a sort of water-based B&B for all our mates) (who obviously we are delighted to host) (apart from Hannah James who is frankly nothing but trouble). So, I stripped the beds and scrubbed the deck before zooming over to collect the Loz and JLE in the tender (them having stayed in a hotel the previous night on account of us still having had the previous influx of mates on board).

After a day of swimming, strolling about and popping a not insignificant amount of paracetamol, we were all in need of a carby meal and an early night. So, after the (spectacular!) sunset, I boiled up a pot of pasta and we set up the home cinema - settling on the eerie thriller The Gift (us three gals wanting to watch A Quiet Place III but Charlie being too scared). 

Relieved to wake up without a hangover, the following morning we set sail for Syracuse. The city, around an eight hour sail south from Taormina, is imo a much better proposition from a boating perspective. It sits beside a sheltered bay where you can easily anchor up, zooming onto shore in the tender within a couple of minutes, no buses or cable cars necessary. We had a highly enjoyable five days wandering about, quaffing negroni sbagliatos, watching videos of North Sea storms (Loz’s latest obsession), playing paddle wars and such forth. We also ate quite a lot of crisps, which were practically the culinary highlight. 

“You can’t go wrong with Sicilian food,” people said: “Even the cheap little trattorias will knock your socks off.” My socks, I am deeply saddened to say, remained firmly (though obviously, at this stage, metaphorically - it being 33C) on. I was brimming with excitement to sample an authentic Sicilian arancini ball - fully expecting a flavour bomb to go off in my mouth. But the ones we sampled were just big globules of  rice which didn’t taste of anything at all. And don’t get me started on prickly pears - like kiwis but bitter and with massive pips.  

Obviously, it wasn’t all bad. One night at dinner, Chaz had his first taste of Syracusian spaghetti (anchovies, garlic, olive oil, bread crumbs) and practically had an orgasm. Also, we went to a very nice deli on the beautiful Baroque island of Ortigia (connected to Syracuse by bridge), where I ate a truly exceptional caponata and pecorino sandwich. Also, obviously, vvvvg ice cream.

Anyway, after a few glorious days with my gal pals (and, in JLE’s case, more than a few mosquito bites - one of which had become really quite nasty looking), they were off home and Chaz and I were back to business.

Having not washed our clothing or bedding for quite some time, we hauled several bags of it through the streets of Syracuse and into the nearest laundrette. Here, we were delighted to discover that the owner - a man of few teeth and many words - had a special machine that converted Euro notes into change. This is a HUGE coup, as it means that you can pay for the washing machine without having to make repeated visits to the nearby mini-market, buying things you don’t want or need (a punnet of prickly pears, for example) in order to make enough change to do your laundry. 

Still, we had little time to celebrate this victory, as it was now a race against the clock to reach the island of Sardinia - over 300 nautical miles (or several days of non-stop sailing) away - before a big storm blew in.

Sicily is triangular, so to reach the western tip, you can either travel north via the Straits of Messina and buzzy town of Palermo - or take the less-travelled route south, stopping at the hard-to-reach Egadi Islands before the final 24-hour sail across to Sardinia. We plumped for the latter, instructing my parents (who - god help them - were joining us for this feat) to meet us at a beach off the town of Licata, which we had pinpointed on Google maps as an appropriate pick-up point.

Slight stickler was that the beach turned out to be private, so they had to scale a fence to access it. But this was child’s play in comparison to the events that lay ahead: an epic 250NM journey, featuring an overnight crossing, some pretty sizeable waves and an extreme bout of seasickness. Quite the ask for two people who - until this point - had never stepped foot on a sailing boat. But that’s a story for next time.