Wonderful holiday among the most beautiful coves of the Egadi Islands. Alessandro is a fantastic skipper, very nice and competent and is able to delight the crew with real chef dishes even in the middle of the sea. Cala Rossa remains in the heart. Highly recommended!"

The Egadi islands are truly a paradise for those who love the sea, characterized by a largely unspoiled nature and a seabed still rich in fish and flora. The long swims we took in the wonderful coves of Favignana and Levanzo, also thanks to an extremely favorable weather and a very warm sea, we will hardly forget them. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the management and comfort on board, which, for the first time in over 10 years of sailing holidays, did not fully meet my and my husband's expectations and indeed risked compromising the success of the entire holiday. The most painful note concerned life on board, on this aspect I am sorry to deviate from the numerous positive reviews I have read and for which we had chosen to have this experience on a boat in the Egadi Islands with this skipper: the atmosphere on board was very rigid (at times even very quarrelsome with another crew member) and therefore heavily conditioned our freedom of movement and expression. The crew was treated only as guests, without any possibility of participating in the maneuvers or in the conduct of the same and without being able to receive convincing explanations on the change in the navigation program. The comfort of the boat was also penalized for some choices that created considerable inconvenience: - The tender, positioned on the bow and never used, effectively prevented the use of the only sunbathing space and blocked the porthole, making the forward cabins very hot due to lack of adequate ventilation. - The foam mattresses, without the stop to keep them together to be able to access the gullies below, separated continuously during the night, making rest extremely difficult. I hope that this feedback can be a useful starting point to improve the comfort and experience of the next crews who wish to visit the paradise of the Egadi Islands, which really deserve to be visited and experienced in total relaxation and harmony.

When they arrived on the spot, skipper Alessandro [hidden] did not answer the phone. At 5 pm in the African heat in Marsala he made us leave our bags semi-unattended in the pier. He then makes us sign a contract with his sole proprietorship [hidden] (it never happened to me when I booked with SS, which is the only contractual counterpart to me) a contract that he does not give us a copy of but of which, even if forbidden, he allows me to take photos at my request. To the payment of the "service pack" (130€) which included 'towels / sheets and diesel (which is not insignificant in theory, but then we will see ..). I tell him that at the moment I only had 125 and that I would give him the other 5 later. He replies 'you take care of your own business and I take care of mine'. You give me 140 and I give you back 10 minutes. And so it was done, as per the first Order of the Commander. It is decided € 100 per person for the common fund / initial galley. It is noted that in addition to the 6 of us SS there was a 7th, Bengali but also British, which we later discover to be Alessandro's companion, who had registered her on SS independently. Even if someone else had turned up their noses from the beginning, no problem at least for me, indeed positive for English practice. However, it should be noted that the galley was included only for the skipper and so, although not without reluctance, he puts his share for her. The 6 of us SS are going to make a galley, after a list prepared in the municipality. Upon returning from the galley Alessandro begins to shout because according to him we would have been late (he had to go to sleep or anyway do something else with his partner at his house because apparently that's how he uses to do on Saturday nights) and because we would have taken only 5 cases of water. I answer him that 5 x 6 x 2lt makes 60 liters and as hot as it is, considering that Tuesday evening at the latest we would have been in port and there were also other drinks (Coca etc) would have been enough and that anyway I would have taken care (even with a tear to the quadriceps), to go and get them (as it turned out) and if they would have run out before there would still have been the tender. There too he starts and says "you have to do what I say!". Forbidden by the ras style tone of the neighborhood, tired of having run throughout the Decò megastore and in the afternoon to carry hand bags even for third parties, I allow myself to sit on the bench with S. who suffers from a pathology that does not allow him to make too much effort and we let him carry the bags on the boat since Decò had delivered them for free on the quay given the 706€ and broken shopping done. He greets us. Someone calls him back, I don't remember why. No answer. Amazing hood. With the help of S., the only other male, I move the upper awning (it was night) and the front one to let air through. We have dinner. The next morning I leave the cabin and Alessandro comes up to me and says: "you don't have to take initiatives you understand????". Don't allow yourself to take initiatives on my boat anymore! Because otherwise I'll let you disembark!" He was referring to the movement of the awnings... At that point, no longer knowing if I could move to the right or left on the boat, I asked him if I could take glasses and what he told me yes and then if I could connect the BT to the stereo, but there he replied "use the flip 4 (Editor's note: 10/15w)! I manage the radio....understood? "After a while I see that he plugs in his phone and plays music almost only to his liking. A few hours pass and, with the music now off, I ask him if I could connect my phone or if he feared he had a virus for his stereo. With difficulty, but concession received, but on Tuesday evening then in port in Marsala he took care to detach the front panel and made the small BT speaker disappear. Who knows, maybe since there are some rules to be respected, he thought we could have done like his friend Fichetto on Wednesday evening when from a chartered Cat51' (so cmq with another type of system and not like Alisea directly owned by Alessandro) I will hear music at full volume in the port of Favignana. I give him a hand when asked for the line at the buoy. I try to put him more at ease by talking to him and making him talk about his boat, management etc., giving him advice within the limits of my knowledge mostly in administrative / accounting matters, but nothing ... At one point I managed to think that maybe he got angry because I also turned to his partner sometimes with the intention of doing English practice. In essence, the following days awning and headlamp always up at all hours of the day and night. Tender always on top with no possibility for S and G to breathe because the porthole was right above and for everyone to lie down (everyone in the cockpit to die of heat and piled up. Sails never up. Only Favignana (the flat-rate diesel was evidently fine as it was, because he was paying for the girl's holiday perhaps). Natural cataclysms that have never occurred so Marettimo off limits (in 2017 I had seen TT and 3 with stops in Zingaro, Scopello, LoCapo...). When I apologize to him on Wednesday, maybe we can pull up the tender with the rope, perhaps vertically, so we can let S and G breathe and we can lie down. Answer: "NO, let's just make sure they can open the porthole! The tender is like this!" Moreover, he was about to pull the sheet to lift it, without realizing that his somewhat obsessive mania for control and safety of his boat, his main if not only asset, had led him to put an additional safety line between the two side bollards and then pulling him up I told him that he would do damage. At that point he allowed me to remove the rope, but in the evening then in the port of Favignana he made me disembark with the intervention of the Carabinieri, perhaps also because, when ordered to wash the dishes, I replied that maybe his partner could do it too, who had been quiet and blissful for 4 days without doing much.

Alessandro has a great competence and passion for sailing but he is also an excellent company on board.