By 0200, radio was quiet. The Monkey Boy must be out of range now.

We arrived at around 1000 local time. From the distance, we could see the walls of the fort in the water. We had emailed the marina a few days ago to try to get a reservation, and they never responded. We pulled inside the marina, where a worker signaled us to go around back to the outside floating docks. We went where directed, and saw he was standing in front of an open spot. The slip wasn’t much wider than Kosmos. Eric backed Kosmos in slowly, as Christi stood in back pushing us off the boats on either side to help keep centered. The worker tied up the back lines for us and handed us two mooring lines. Eric walked the first line to the front attached the first line with no problem. The second line was too short to tie off. The guy on the boat next to us saw Eric was struggling and jumped from his boat onto ours. The two of them tied one of our ropes to the mooring line to make it long enough to tie off.

Oh, and to clarify how the mooring lines work. The boats always back in. The mooring(s) is/are where the nose of the boat is. There are lines that go from the sea wall/floating dock to the mooring. You take the rope from the sea wall and walk it to the front of your boat, then pull on the line to get it as tight as you can, then tie it to a cleat (metal bar installed around the boat and on docks specifically meant for tying lines on to) at the front of your boat. Since the lines spend most of their time underwater, they are disgusting, full of algae and barnacles. The lines get your hands and clothes all dirty. They are nicknamed “slime lines”. We found out that most of the marinas in the Med use this system (though D-Marin in Turkey has old fashioned moorings where you have to use your boat hook to grab the mooring line or have someone in a dinghy hand it up to you).

Once we were securely berthed, we gave the marina worker a crew list and our vessel documentation. Since we are checked into the EU that is apparently all the paperwork we need to do. We didn’t seem to need to go and visit any authorities. Hmmm. It seems too good to be true that the paperwork is virtually non-existent.

It was weird to stand in the cockpit (back deck) and stare out at buildings that are hundreds of years old. Many are run down, but considering how old they are, they really don’t look that bad. A lot of them have fancy facades and appointments, and in their day were probably glorious. We haven’t actually been docked so close to a historic area before, and we found it to be sort of awe inspiring.

We were starving, so went in search of food. The old part of Siracusa is called Ortygia, and is literally a small island just off the mainland. The marina is located on the northwest corner of Ortygia, at the edge of the canal that separates the mainland and island. Immediately out of the marina entrance, we could turn right and follow the sea wall south, where it looked like there was a line of pizza and gelato stands and a few vendors selling tourist paraphernalia from folding tables. We walked forward (east) a block. There were three restaurants straight ahead, a bridge to go over the canal to the mainland on the left and a large, formal gate to enter into historic Ortygia to the right. We couldn’t resist going through the historic gate.

We got lunch at the first restaurant we found, down a small side street near the gate entrance. We fell in love with the restaurant the moment we walked in. The interior had stone walls and huge vaulted ceilings. The waiter told us it had originally been a barn and pointed out rings mounted in the ceiling that they tethered the animals to. Some of the walls and doorways date back to 1100 AD. It was so charming. As we waited for our food, we wondered how they were able to run electricity and plumbing behind the thick stones.

Christi ordered gnocchi (potato dumplings) in a decadent cheese sauce that was phenomenal. Eric ordered pasta with fish, which was also good. For dessert, we got a Sicilian specialty that we forget the name of. It is sponge cake with ricotta cheese filling and some sort of sauce that was to die for.

After lunch, we walked over to the sea wall, where it is free to park. The sea wall is literally only a few hundred feet from the marina, and from what we could tell, there seemed to be no real benefit of the marina versus the sea wall. There was plenty of space on the wall, though no spots anywhere close to the water and power hook-ups. We checked out the system they use to tie up the boats, which is something we have never seen before. Instead of cleats on the dock, half of the sea wall has a chain running perpendicular across the top of the wall and the boats tie to the chain. The other half of the wall has rings embedded in the concrete and you tie to the rings. Tying up may be tricky, but we knew we could get it done.

Christi took a long nap. Eric washed the boat. In the evening we went to one of the pizza stands along the sea wall for dinner. The pizza was everything Eric had hoped for: thin crust with a light dusting of zesty sauce, high quality cheese and other toppings. And, it was really cheap! As in less that $5.00 USD for each pizza (serves 1). Christi has decided that she likes American style pizza better. She likes a heavier crust and more sauce and toppings. Of course, we had gelato for dessert. Eric is in heaven. We think we clarified this when we were in Cairns, but gelato is ice cream. It is softer in texture than regular ice cream, but not as soft as soft serve ice cream.

We walked over to the piazza (town square) on the other side of the canal, where some sort of event was taking place. A marching band in medieval costumes was performing in the center of the square. They also had a flag team that did a performance, as well. The show ended and we wandered around the dozen or so booths lining the edges of the square. Most of the stalls were selling art, food, or books. The event seemed to be over so we left. Eric had not gotten a nap and was tired, so we headed back for the boat instead of exploring more.

As soon as we got back, we could hear another performance starting up in the piazza again, but we decided not to go back out.