Well, we’re now well on our way this season. After getting things sorted in Malta, we pushed off to make our way up to Sardinia. Our goal was to get to Palermo (the capital of Sicily for the 4th May where Marek was going to join us to sail to Sardinia.
We had a few days as we waited for a weather window and got to sail around some of our old haunts. On our last night we anchored up of Comino as its a good jumping off point to sail north. That evening our good friends Murray and Lieve anchored up next to us. As we’d both decided on the same weather window to cross, a race was declared. We’d head off at 07:30 the next morning to sail to Capo Passero on the bottom right corner of the island. We got up early and claimed a cheeky 5 min head start, pulling the anchor before the other boat, but we were soon heading to Sicily together.
That said, there was no wind, so it’s was motoring to start with. I hate burning diesel and decided to run on one engine and not push too hard, Murray subsequently pulled out at 5 mile lead, but it was a wonderfully flat morning. Fortunately the wind started filling in and we started sailing. With our bigger gennaker, we began closing the gap. By the time we got to Sicily, it was blowing over 20 knots and we blasted into the anchorage; beating Murray and Lieve by 5 mins!
Day 2 was declared a rematch as we both wanted to be up in Siracusa that evening. Again favourable winds so it looked to be good sailing. It was neck and neck as we headed out of the bay, when I realised I’d made a balls up on the navigation and we were heading directly for a fish farm with a “no navigation” exclusion. We put in a quick jibe to go around the perimeter, but Murray took a cheeky shortcut to cut through. Anyway, that was us back 3 miles behind again.. Fortunately we managed to find the wind to close up the gap and as the wind eased up again, got the G1 Gennaker flying to take the lead… 2-0 to Nautilus!!
Soon after the wind died away completely and we motored into the Sircusa to spend a couple of night of the two quay with boat tied up together.
Murray and Lieve left the next day to head up to Catania to get the generator repaired and we spent the next day sorting out our paperwork with the coastguard and then hiring a car to finally drive up Etna and also explore Taormina (which is beautiful).
We were on a bit of a timetable, so it was time to head north again. After exploring Taormina from the land, we decided to sail there on our way to the Messina Straits. What would you know, Murray and Lieve were also there, using it as their final jumping off point to get to Greece.. They decided that was a win for them, arriving 6 hours before us, so 2-1 on the race count. We had a lovely dinner on their boat before saying goodbye (again) the next morning.
The next day the plan was to go through the Straits of Messina (one of the busiest shipping lanes in the area). As seems to be normal at the moment, the day started with no wind and a steady motor north (burning more diesel – ARRGGG). However, the wind gods were smiling and by lunchtime there was a gentle breeze and we were slowly sailing again. We stayed close to shore to stay out of the traffic separation scheme and the wind continued to build.
Planning wise, it wasn’t the perfect time to transit as the tide was against us, so it caused the sea to be a bit rough at times. However, we weren’t in a rush, so we have a lovely time watching the shoreline and the ships going past. By the time we got to the end of the strait, it was really blowing, so it was down with the gennaker and we needed put in a couple of reefs to keep things managable.
The end to a lovely day was spend anchored up, under the hills to get a bit of shelter. We went ashore to explore the beach followed by a BBQ and an early night.
The next day I finally got around to a job i’ve been wanting to do for a while and installed our new radar. As with most things, it took longer than planned, but i’m really happy with the results. Whilst there isn’t much fog around these here part, there are two big reasons for having it:
So as you might expect, later that day we decided to keep sailing through the night to get closer to Palermo. We didn’t do it all in one hit and anchored up in a small town nearby called “Portceillo”. We stayed a night here before sailing to Palermo to wait for Marek to arrive a couple of days later.
Watching the weather, it was a bit of a trade off – there were supposed to be stronger winds later in the week, but it was also changeable. Given Marek had a flight to catch on the Tuesday, we decided to play it safe and push off immediately. It would mean some ligher winds in the middle of the trip, but we’d get to Cagliari in Sardina with some time to spare.
We pushed off, tacked up to the north and then turned West to Sardina. It was light winds and we did a mix of slow sailing and motor-sailing through the night until we were in striking away from the coast.
Day 2 and not a breath of wind – it was absolutely flat and we were pretty much by ourselves out there. It then became apparent the sea was absolutely covered in “blue bottle” jellyfish – it was like somebody had dumped container loads of of clear plastic balls onto the sea; the little buggers were everywhere.
We then saw a MolaMola (Sun Fish), just swimming along the surface. We moved up to it slowly, but they’re very timid and it disappeared pretty quickly.
After than we spotted a turtle sleeping on the surface, then another and another. All-in-all, we saw about 30 tutles that day, all just sleeping and lazing around. you could motor right up to them and they’d wake with a start and swim away. We can only think they had gorged themselves on jellyfish and were sleeping it off. The final spot of the day way a glimpse of a MantaRay as it broke the surface briefly. We watched the shadow glide underwater before it also disappeared.
The 2nd night at sea was quiet too, with very little wind and quiet watches… The new Radar work brilliantly tho… (if you count brilliantly as it stayed on and didn’t spot anything to be worried about).
Day 3 was a different affair. The wind got up to a lovely 16 knots on a broad reach. We put up the sails with our favourite gennaker and blasted in a 7 to 8 knots. It meant we got to Sardina 8 hours sooner than we we originally planned and anchored up on the bottom of the island, having made it to Sardina.
The next couple of days we hopped up the coast to Cagliari where we tied up in a Marina to spend a last evening with Marek before he flew back to the UK.
It was then a case of doing a few jobs on the boat and getting ready for the arrival of Zach a few days later.
