Exploring party
THE REASON
We spent four nights on Favignana, and this was our last day before crossing to mainland Sicily. Wonderful town, amazing history. In 1874 Ignazio Florio bought the whole island chain for two million lire. He made the tuna works the biggest thing on the island and quarried the island’s soft stone to ship across to Tunisia and Libya. We went to the Florio factory because I like tuna. Don’t we all. Here it’s red tuna, bluefin, the best of the best. I expected a museum about fish. What I found was a factory that ran full stop for over a hundred years and then didn’t. The tuna stopped showing up. So they closed the doors and walked away, and the place still feels like they meant to come back.
The cooking yard. Every one of those copper pots held a morning’s catch. Nobody has lit a fire under them since 1977.
The boats are still here, parked in the stone sheds like somebody plans to need them in May.
The sheds open straight onto the water. In a good season they’d roll a boat down to the sea at first light.
The arches are this tall for a reason. The boats came in fully rigged, masts and all, and nobody had to take anything down.
Wood that sits dry for fifty years opens up along the seams. Anyone who owns an aluminum boat has a short speech about wood. I gave it here. Sarah kept walking.
Every size of tin Florio ever made, and every one of them empty. The closest I got to tasting the old stuff.
The slipway still runs into the sea, and somebody left a line on it. The gate has been locked for almost fifty years. The anchors are on the wrong side of it. In 2019 the nets went back in the water. The factory stayed shut.
When the fishing stopped, nobody needed a few hundred anchors at once. So here they lie, under the fort of Santa Caterina. The Arabs built it, and the Normans fortified it in 1081.
The ugly one, as promised. The yard tractor has sat on a flat tire since the doors closed. Sarah smiled at it anyway and wanted to bring it home.
Buzzonaglia, the dark meat from along the backbone, cured and kept in olive oil. The fillet went into Florio tins. This is the part the island kept.
THE MANIFEST
- Buzzonaglia, the island’s specialty, under €3 ($3)
- Entry for two, €10 ($11)
- One factory that ran 118 years, walked end to end
- The last thing we did before leaving the island
Some of these photos are Sarah’s.
Fair Winds – S/V Spindrift
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