Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Thursday 29 September 2016

Sicilian diary extracts.....

Porto Emperdocle. The place where the ferries leave for islands South of sicily such as Lampedusa. We drove through the port area to get to Scala del Turchi. On the landward wharf, an enormous, and I mean enormous as in combine a few of the Heathrow airplane hangers together kind of enormous, energy from waste plant is to be found. Two 90m high or so red and white stripped chimneys allow smoke to vent into the atmosphere. Across the road, port wall and local road is a hillside. On the lower slopes of this hillside are blocks of tenement style flats. Lots of them. Since the winds blow onshore most mornings here, I wonder how the authorities allowed an incinerator plant to be built 60m from residential areas because any chimney toxins must be blowing directly onto those flats for some parts of each day! Or maybe I am missing something?


Italians love their elevated roads. They snake sinuously up the sides of steep hillsides on massive beams or high pillars. Covered with rockfall road warning signs, they do seem to be a contradiction in a country that suffers earthquakes. 

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