It’s not quite a circuit of the Mediterranean but it signifies a stage of our journey where we cross our path and are on our way back out to start the trip around the world. 

We have addressed a number of the minor and not so minor problems and Mariadz is in good shape to go. 

We are running a little short of fuel having had to motor a lot more than we wanted from Sardinia and although we have 200 litres (with another 80 in cans), we decide to top up anyway so we have enough to get us to Gibraltar where it will hopefully be cheaper. That said, having paid €2.21 in Italy a few weeks ago, we are pleasantly surprised that it is €1.87 in Torrevieja. We add a little extra fuel – we don’t know how much it would cost in Almerimar but that feels like a good price so we add 350 litres. It takes quite a time – the pump is not fast but the bill is significantly less than the €1,000+ we paid last time!

It is an English bank holiday weekend at the end of August which gives us loads of time to travel the 150 miles south to Almerimar where we berthed for a couple of weeks four years previously.  The weather forecast is benign to say the least – as they say about the Mediterranean, either not enough wind or too much in the wrong direction! Today is little with barely a couple of Knots of wind coming from the East so the sea is calm with an occasional swell, from previous days weather or the wake of big ships maybe. We should arrive in about 24 hours.

Today, Bonnie has decided it is her day and has joined me in the cockpit. Two hours later she is still stuck to my side! That will her watch done as she goes back down below. We are conscious that this will probably be her last trip in the boat with one last road trip home back to England where she will remain on terra firma as we go around the world. It’s mixed emotions for us, on the one hand we will miss her terribly and one thing she has proved over the last four weeks is she can handle it. On the other hand, she is not a young cat and any health scare at sea could be serious. She will be happy with Lisa in England and her happiness is our main priority. 

And then suddenly nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen for some time until Maria decided it was time to start fishing! Fresh sea food for dinner it is then…. 

Having spent some time consulting with her new best friend, Charlie the ChatGPT, she is ready to get the first rod out. The sea is like glass apart from our wake and in the distance I can see some ships traversing the traffic separation system off Cabo de Palos. The only interesting thing to do is to watch Maria working out how to catch fish 🙂 she is so confident she is lashing down the rod with a thick line to ensure we hold on to the rod when the “big one” bites. Hmmm, we’ll see 🙂 while we wait for dolphins or a fish to bite, the only distraction are the brown fried egg jell fish drifting past with lots of little fish under them apparently seeking safety from larger predators. Looking that up was a highlight 🙂

And then the dolphins arrive but they are shy and stay between 50 and 100m away from us going in the opposite direction. At one stage, we thought a couple had peeled off to have a play but they turned back to be with their friends. Maybe later.

We always keep a listen out to channel 16 when on passage and there are regular reports in it as well as ships initiating communications. In this part of the sea, the information is presented as a pan-pan, which is unusual. Unfortunately, when you say it three times with a broad accent, it sounds like the old Perl and Dean cinema adverts- 

“papan, papan, papan, papan, papapan, 

papan, papan, papan, papaaaaan.”

Every time he comes on, we start singing it!

Dinner is straight from the freezer tonight and a lovely lasagne homemade by Maria. Really tasty. As the sun sets, we are starting to think about the night watches. I will probably get some rest at 10pm and come on watch at midnight with a plan to see it through til 4am so Maria gets a good rest. I will then come back on at sunrise. Maria will get to see sunset and sunrise which she loves and get some rest too. It has worked well recently so hopefully tonight will be the same. It promises to be a quiet night with no wind to speak of and the sea still.

A few hours later, as it comes up to midnight, there is a bit of commotion as I hear Maria chasing Bonnie round the deck – there goes her night time privileges – Bonnie not Maria. As Maria brings a caught cat back into the cockpit, she tells me of the interesting few hours she has had. She has seen a bunch of random green lights which seem to be marked buoys not on the charts. She has had to adjust our course to keep these on our starboard side but they have been regular, and really well lit. It has kept her on her toes, as well as Bonnie’s antics.  Maria also describes one that looked like a yacht but seemed to be a marker buoy too. Shortly after I come in watch I see one of these too, except mine genuinely is a yacht running with navigation lights, steaming light and anchor light. Hmmm very confusing but a mile and a half away so not a problem for us. Maybe they look at our navigation lights and steaming light and think we are running with the wrong lights! 

It’s quite a bright night with the moon having been full a few nights ago. It means there aren’t lots of stars but it does help with spotting things in the water and getting an idea of distance. Maria has adjusted course and seems to have us perfectly aligned in the channel between all of these buoys as I continue to see them for a long time into my watch.

At this stage, Bonnie has been down below sulking having been caught on her wander round deck. She thinks a suitable time for contemplation has now elapsed and moans at the closed door. I decide to let her back into the cockpit but she will only be allowed to sit with me and maybe next to the winches. We will see how she does but for the moment she is happy snuggling up to daddy-cat.

I remember from various courses that the Med. Is not particularly tidal but we have noticed quite a current at times impacting our speed by one knot (which at yacht speeds is significant!). We are now running with it, having fought against it for the early evening and our arrival time, which had been drifting into the afternoon is back to being late morning. There’s plenty of time for that to change either way though. As we leave the med, we will need to be conscious of the tide as the flow hardly ever favours us heading west because the med is constantly being “filled”. This is caused by evaporation in the Mediterranean but means that there will almost always be a current against us as we try to leave. Hence why we think of the Mediterranean as a lobster pot, easy to get in and difficult to get out again afterwards.

After about an hour of my watch, Maria’s well lit buoys have stopped but I have a fishing boat and a large sailing yacht to contend with in the next hour. AIS is truly a great thing although it is easy to become reliant on it and miss the fishing boats (deliberately not using AIS to not reveal their position to their competitors) and other small craft that aren’t using it. As I change course to avoid the large yacht, Aurelius, which will get too close, the green lit buoys return to keep me on my toes. Like the big ships, we like to make minor course changes a long way out to avoid other boats and I have made quite big changes to avoid Aurelius. At about a mile away, they make a small change to open the gap a little further. Any further changes from me would have started to get me closer to land so I am grateful for their late adjustment. Maybe they just wanted a good view of Mariadz! Once they are past I can get back on course. 

At just after 4am, it’s time for Maria to wake up for her watch. I take us through a few obstacles – a yacht and phantom east cardinal buoys – someone added to the chart but they aren’t there, before I get my head down for a rest. I’m woken with a start when Maria talks to me about a fishing boat we have come up upon. We are behind and so there is a danger of nets that we need to avoid. We agree to turn to port to get around her. And that’s it for my sleep, Bonnie is not sitting nicely having cuddles but running the mummy gauntlet trying to get onto the deck with stern words being exchanged.

The sun is up and it is going to be another clear, windless day with three knots of wind on the bow, plus the wind we generate doing six knots. Our speed through the water is steady but our speed over ground is dropping again as we fight the current coming into the Mediterranean.

The current is slowing us right down but the wind has shifted and strengthened as we cross the southern coast of Spain. It is now a northerly, so on the beam, at eight knots. Maria is in a rush to get in and I am keen to get the sails out at some point – so they all come out. We add two knots to our speed and knock off some time from the arrival too 🙂 we may be motor sailing but at least we are sailing at 7.5 knots 🙂

It isn’t long til we arrive at Almerimar, tie up t the quay next to the office, scene of a hiccup when leaving four years ago. After checking in we can go to our berth which is easy enough with loads of space and Mariadz has her home for the next two weeks while Bonnie journeys back to England.

The next leg of our journey takes us from Sardinia to Spain, hopefully in time for Maria’s 60th Birthday and catch ups with Justine, Maria’s sister and, our daughter, Kristy with her family.  We now feel we are on our way o join the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, and will be flying our courtesy flag to show we are in it this year. It seems somewhat surreal since we have literally been talking about this for more than a decade.

After a good nights sleep, I’m up quite early to get on with some chores. I had noticed before we got to Sicily that we had some issues with the navigation lights on the bow and actually the starboard light has some broken clips. I can’t fix it so I have to tape it up and I will order a replacement from one of the few chandleries with one in stock and one is in Majorca. We may even stop over and collect it. I uncovered why the log wasn’t working as it appears we have grown a little reef within our paddle system which is jamming it. I clean it out and in the test I have it spinning at ten knots apparently :). Our generator also fails under load with a high exhaust temperature issue. We will need to get that checked out although it shouldn’t be happening since we have literally just had it serviced by Balsamo. It seems ok at lower loads. Of course, the reason this has been key is that the engine alternator has not been charging the domestic batteries. It definitely seems related to the cable that tells the generator that the batteries need power. I find a second plug with a blue line and the electric cables don’t seem particularly well seated in there. I take out the plastic plug and plug them directly into the female socket. “get in”! We have 1.3kw of power going into the batteries. I replace the holder and test again, nothing, little wiggle and we are back to power. It looks like we have the culprit. I have forced them in as far as I can but at least I know the first thing to check if we don’t have power going in.

So a successful morning followed by a lovely swim in fresh water with Maria. We were hoping to meet up with our Lazio supporting friend, but unfortunately it hasn’t worked out this time but definitively next time.

It’s 1pm and time for us to get on our way. A quick look around shows that we anchored really well yesterday, we have a good thirty metres on all sides before another boat and we are almost perfect for the grid of anchored boats that you always get. We did that when it was pitch black and without too much stress. In the morning, an Italian charter boat has come and anchored close to us, they are within a boat length when we all turn, not really a problem in a crowded anchorage I guess but not necessary today! We start the engine and I see charge going into the batteries so that is good although the engine won’t be on long.

The true wind is a southerly blowing 6 knots but we have a three or four day journey ahead of us and half a tank of fuel. We don’t want to do it under power but be like “proper” cruisers and use our sails. Next week I can work from the boat as we drift across the Mediterranean. It’s all sails up and actually we aren’t doing too bad, our cleared up log says we are going about 6 knots although we seem to be fighting a tide (or I have cleaned better than I thought) because we are only getting 5 knots over ground. There are other boats out sailing and as we all head down the coast, we have different approaches. A number of them are tacking regularly but we have established our course and are tight to the wind. Once I adjust our traveller to give our main a better angle on the wind we are going really well and holding off the, admittedly smaller, other yachts. We and Mariadz are not racers but Maria is like Gandalf and “You shall not pass,”. One yacht, in particular, Popys, a French boat, seems to want to race and tacks back and aims straight at Mariadz. There is no need for that and it is a bit frustrating as we have to avoid them! It doesn’t help them as they go behind us and never catch us up.

Maria has decided on a light, healthy lunch today, especially as I had cereal at midday! She chops up a cantaloupe Melon which is really refreshing. However, that just whets the appetite and turns into a starter for a hot dog main, maybe not quite so healthy but generally we eat little and often on passage.

As we get to the corner of Sardinia, we are prepared to steer westerly to head toward Spain. The Southerly wind is now only 3-4 knots so we are sailing quite slowly but making progress. Maria and I have agreed that we will not use the engine unless there is no wind and the sails are flapping. That isn’t the case now as we have limited wind on our beam but are making the same speed forward, that’ll do. We just need to stay on our west south westerly course and wait for the wind to pick us up and deposit it us in Spain in a few days. The forecast looks good for that. We have music playing and just chilling as we wend our way towards Spain,

Typically, a couple of hours later, the wind drops to 1-2 knots and the headsail starts flapping, grrrr. Away she goes, engine on, low revs and set the remaining sails for close hauled for the wind we are creating. The weather forecast says the North Easterly will be coming in over the next twelve hours so it’s now just staying in the game until this happens. If the wind picks up we will drift along again but at the moment we are making way at 5-6 knots and our engine management system says we could drive to Spain with the amount of fuel we have left! and before you ask, yes the alternator is working and charging the batteries! Hurrah!

It’s now evening time and the sun is starting to go down so it is time for Bonnie to come up. She loves a bit of Bonnie time in the evening and then she will go back down to sleep. she does like to have a backrest and today it is the cameras turn!

The wind has gone for a while so it can regroup and come back in a different direction and the sea is like a mill pond. Maria and I are talking and it seems strange that we are soon to be leaving Italy, where Maria has been for most of the last year, and it will be a while until we return. We will miss all of our friends around San Michele although hopefully some of them will be able to come and sea us on our journey. Alternatively, we may need to come back from time to time and we can then catch up but it feels a momentous occasion.

As we leave Sardinia, Maria spots an island on the horizon that I hadn’t even seen on the chart, Isola del Torro. It’s only about 300m round and 112m tall, so easily missed on a chart but would be quite a painful bump when you got there! it looks quite deserted and we can’t imagine many people go there but at least it broke up our journey in the flat calm. We pass as the sun sets and we prepare to start our night watches. Tonight, we are going to go for longer watches so the person off watch can get a good rest. Having had a good nights sleep the previous night we think this should work. The decision is to go with three hours from 9pm, with Maria on watch first. I stay up for a while but get a solid 90 minutes sleep before midnight when I can relieve Maria. The first thing I have to do when I wake is put away the main and staysail. We are still in very calm conditions, although the wind has moved to the East, it is between 2 and 3 knots, so we are going faster than the wind currently under motor. I’m sure it will catch up with us and provide the much anticipated push to Spain but for the moment we remain at reasonably low revs on the engine and going between 5 and 6 knots.

The wind is being a pussycat rather than a beast and, talking of pussy cats, as I said night time is Bonnie time and I start my watch accompanied by a happy little cat who stays with me for a while even after.i make lots of noise putting the sails away. That is before she disappears back down below, content that she has checked what is happening up top, to get some sleep of her own. Both my girls are asleep, there is nothing within ten miles of us, and the sky is looking amazing again.

Maria is next on watch, no surprise when there are two of us. While I sleep she is out on deck watching the stars as much as the sea, she sees loads of shooting stars, sounds like a lot of wishes to me 🙂 we are still under power but the wind is now firmly I. the east even even if it is only blowing six knots or so, useless for us. I’m not sure the pictures do justice to the colour of the sky and the amount of stars but hopefully you can get a feel for it.

The sun rise rivals last nights sunset with the depth of colour across the horizon and it is the start of a brand new day and a work day for me.

By morning the wind has increased to 9 or 10 knots and although we won’t be going as fast as under power, we will still be bobbing along at about 5 knots. That is enough for us to switch off the engine and we sail poled out goosewinged, headsail and main on either side of the boat which you can only do when you are pretty much dead downwind. We have preventers on our pole and the boom and I am happy with the way she is rigged for this sailing. This is how we should be sailing for the next few days, all the way to Spain.

Never, ever, ever say these things! A few hours later the wind is dying and the sails are not liking this at all. I have been on a work call and Maria is not happy with how we are running.

We have the Starlink going , as I am also working, so we can check the real time weather forecasting and it seems that the best winds are to the south of us. Turning south and running with wind on the beam will be fast and hopefully we will find the wind again, whilst heading towards our goal. Immediately our speed shoots up to 8 knots and, as Maria, said, she feels like she is sailing now. I am keeping an eye on the wind and the winds are consistently better as we head south – the temptation is to take advantage of this and turn back to our original course but we don’t want to fall out of the wind envelope so let’s go into the heart of it.

When we eventually decide to make the turn before we get to the shipping lanes, it is a bumpy ride. The rocking of the boat is changing the wind direction in an arc of 60 degrees which means we are beating up our sails as we rock from side to side. we try various combinations of sail and course to see if we can get this down to a minimum but whichever way we try we always seems to fail. This is quite frustrating for both of us, and we may have had a little argument at this stage! It’s clear we are not going to get this working so it’s back to engine. Our attempts have included poling out the headsail on both sides, angling the main to try and deflect wind towards the headsail as well as headsail only. Exasperated I go to bring in the pole for the headsail. As we put the sail away the pole is jammed hard against the sheet where it attaches to the sail.. previously I have had to apply a bit of pressure here using the other lines – the halyard we use to control the height and the preventer. I am using all my guile to try and separate the pole from the sail but no luck. I can see the problem but getting the knot through the eye of the pole is proving difficult.

Then, suddenly a jerk and the pole is free. More precisely the jerk pulled hard and the pole is now in free fall, aiming straight for the jerk’s head. I was disappointed to learn later that there wasn’t a comic clang when the pole hit me straight across the bridge of the nose and the side of my face. It has left a mark though. I am desperately trying not to get blood on the deck, do you know how difficult that is to get out, as Maria goes to the first aid box to sort out some plasters. A couple of plasters on the bridge of my nose and my temple and I am able to continue putting everything away – it will be fun when I am on work calls tomorrow having to explain my new injuries. Maria is convinced that some people will think she has thumped me!

With the deck tidied up, I return to the cockpit to recheck the damage. Maria decides a couple of steri strips will be needed on my nose and the temple is just a scratch. She sets about resolving these after I have had a refreshing shower, whilst trying not to bleed anywhere

We are probably both a bit grouchy because we haven’t eaten and Maria gets her pre-made chilli con carne ready. That helps but we are not a happy ship as we start our night watches. Initially, Maria tries to get some rest but she can’t get comfortable with the pitching and rolling and after a couple of hours gives up getting some rest. I fair a little better and over the next couple of hours, ttil about midnight, get a little rest and feel a bit better when I take over from Maria.

I am still puzzled by the conundrum of the sailing – we have a following sea and a wind between 9 and 13 knots but the rolling is still occasionally giving us a huge range of wind direction. I am micro adjusting our course to see if there is a way I can get the range of wind direction down and also for the wind not to cross the stern of the boat (when it causes a problem for our sails) whilst still going in the right direction. As I continue to work the problem, I glance up at the wind instrument that I have adjusted to show the wind across the boat to see something completely different. A glance at the navigation shows a 90 degree wind shift to northerly., perhaps with a little East in it. This is right across our beam and perfect for Mariadz. Maria still hasn’t gone to sleep and I am contemplating getting sail out to take advantage of this change of fortune when the wind starts to shift again. The wind is reducing but is still usable if we motor sail, it would just be very slow if we only sailed. Previously, we had discussed this and thought that as long as the sails weren’t flapping, we were happy but now Maria is keen to arrive in Torreevieja and we both just want a comfortable journey. I think Maria is awake and go to gently speak to her to explain the plan, she must just have drifted off because she wakes with a start. Oops. I explain that I am getting out full main and the staysail which should be fine but I will have our system set to reef the main at the slightest hint of a pick up in breeze. As the wind starts to settle in the north east, our wind indicators are steady. Sail is up quickly, but it is now a little after 1am so I am not going to be silly as we continue to motor sail with the intention to change sail plan again once it is light. We are still going at a reasonable pace but I am hopeful we will be back to pure sailing in the morning when we will be about half way through the journey. Maria goes back to sleep and I resolve to let her have a few more hours because I have disturbed her. (oh in so many ways!). We have kissed and made up and hopefully in the morning everything will feel brighter although I will wake up with a couple of shiners… honestly, Maria didn’t smack me!

Short handed sailing as a couple is quite hard anyway. If you assume that you both get your sleep of 6-8 hours a day, with the other on watch, then you only get 8-12 hours together when you are both awake. Factor in that I am working during the day, even if I am not full time these days, then we get very little quality time together and I can imagine it feels a bit lonely for Maria and not what she signed up for at all. Especially as she has been on her own, albeit surrounded by our Italian family, for the last year while I have worked in the UK. I think the start of the journey was meant to feel a bit different to this but it will get better.

Between us we are now sporting a variety of injuries. I smashed my little toe a couple of weeks ago which is still very painful and hopefully just muscular but I have it taped up anyway.. that is on the back of being on a collapsing ladder at the house last month and smashing my elbow on paving after a ten foot fall. Back to the boat, I missed the cushion of one of the chairs with the rolling of the boat and landed with my coccyx squarely on the stainless steel tube, that was very painful for a few days and now a selection of head wounds! Maria seems to have glass in one of her fingers that we are trying to get out and twisted her ankle this morning again on a rolling boat! She also nearly badly caught her hand between one of the sheets and a winch, you hear the horror stories of that and people losing fingers so I am pleased we extricated her from that position quickly and safely but she has a bruised hand now. So we are a right pair.

The wind is now 16 knot’s on our starboard quarter and I am sure we will be able to work our magic with that in the morning if it stays with us. all this focusing on the wind and you would worry that we were missing all of the other boats but literally, and not dissimilar to the last time we were in this area, we have not seen a single other boat within ten miles of us!

We have been reviewing over the last few years how fair is our choice of taking the cats with us on this journey. Bonnie is now 16, and Clyde didn’t quite make it that far, and as an older cat, we had concerns over her ability to handle long passages. To the extent that we have reluctantly decided to spare her the stress and let her spend the next couple of years in comfort. Of course, with our cats, they love to prove you wrong! So Bonnie has been completely happy on this trip. She is eating , drinking and defecating normally, her fur is in tip-top condition, and you can see she is an incredibly happy cat, affectionate, loving and demanding. She has found her spots on the boat. She loves the air conditioning vent in the saloon and has always been partial to the shelf by the side of our bed – especially with the new scirocco fan blowing lots of air onto her. She lies there for ages sleeping with a smile on her face, noticing you as you pass and demanding a few strokes. As the day cools, it becomes Bonnie time when she comes up to the cockpit to make sure her staff are doing ok and she has handled multi-day voyages, even in bad weather whilst rolling around, like a champ. It has been a tough decision to leave her in England but she will be staying with one of her best friends while we travel and I know her and Lisa will be great company for each other. However, I also know we will miss her so much.

So when we get to Spain, we have a couple of weeks around Maria’s birthday which will be family time, and then take the boat to Almerimar Marina before a Bonnie road trip to England, a funny experience for her because she starts by moaning and then remembers how much she enjoys it! I suspect she knows I am writing about her since she has just popped up for some attention.

Maria’s watch has been uneventful too but the wind has built further and is in the low 20s and pretty much behind us. We have adjusted the main and Maria reports that we have been consistently over 8 knots and sometimes near to 10. Everything is controlled right now and we agree that we should stay as we are with the main out to the starboard side as far as it goes and a preventer on it to avoid any unnecessary banging. The ironic thing is that the wind and the sea state look the same as yesterday when we were struggling although it is a lot stronger.

It’s another work day for me with a few meetings that will mean that I am down below for some of the day but we will see how quickly I can get through those and spend some time with Maria.

At about 10am, the wind starts to die, the sea had been veering northwards for a while and for a comfortable trip we had been adjusting our course to ensure we didn’t get too much roll. With this latest change, we decide to change course, get the wind on our beam and cut across the waves back towards our original course. The wind is dropping further so we will have to see if this works with the roll we will get off the waves. having had a few good hours of sailing, we have a little more confidence today, at one stage yesterday it seemed we were incompetent crew level. Then just as we work out how we can do well with the wind, it’s gone – 2 knots! Very disappointing. Still a big following sea so we are surfing though.

So we are under power for a while but by 2pm the wind is back in our favour and we are cruising along and looking like arrival at torrevieja a day earlier than originally planned, back to Maria’s new plan, on Wednesday afternoon. I have finished work for the day by mid afternoon and so :Maria tries to get ahead on her sleep prior to the night passage.

The lunch of champions today? Fish finger sandwiches followed by melon with chicken salad for dinner 🙂 you don’t starve on Mariadz. A late change of menu deletes salad and adds chips and peas. You can be too healthy!

During dinner, a little bird flies in to say hi. We are a long way off shore so this tired little bird that probably just needs a rest.

So we have seen no signs of life all day. Not a single ship even on AIS with a range of tens of miles. Now we have our little feathery friend visiting us at dinner time. He is flying around and investigating, checks out Bonnie through the glass of the windscreen like she is a big cat at a zoo. Bonnie is keen to say hi but the bird just wants to explore. We think he is very tired, he is at least seventy miles from shore. So he can hitch a ride with us for a while and finds a safe dark spot in the rib. Maria has some water and a few crumbs out on deck – she loves animals and would always help one in trouble.

It’s getting to sunset, maria and I have had a nice chat like we both thought we would when we embarked on the trip – just circumstances and stress have probably put paid to that. But it is a welcome chat with Bonnie in the cockpit doing her own thing as we prepare for the overnight watches. We have decided to do the same as yesterday although Maria is keen that I get more rest and I don’t leave her sleeping for too long. We will see how I feel. So it’s night mode for instruments, cuddle time for Bonnie, sleep time for our little guest in the rib and rest for Maria while I scan the sea bereft of any interest!

Bonnie is back below but I’m sure will pop up during the night to say hi. Maria is catching a little sleep before my first watch starts at 10pm, which I guess means my first watch has started.

Over the next few hours we continue to plough on through the night towards Spain. Wind is very light and veering to the North which means at the next change of watch we will change the sail plan around a little to take advantage of that – at the moment we have no sail up but I am not disturbing Maria’s rest for a small improvement. In addition to our bird, I also found a dragonfly down below that I was able to get out of the boat but these remain the only external life we have seen, no dolphins, tuna or other boats. Fuel and power remain fine, we have about 400 left of our 1,000 nautical mile range and my alternator fix seems to have worked with the batteries constantly being full, which says more about how much we have used the engine to be honest. Mariadz is back to being its normal happy ship.

The list of issues to be resolved at the end of our voyages seems to be reducing, I hope that isn’t the kiss of death. When your list has “replace the locking mechanism on a cupboard door”, you know things can’t be too bad. Although I am disappointed that the recent service on the generator that I paid for appears to have introduced a problem, although we will get that checked and resolved even though the generator works fine for topping up batteries and heating water when required.

I can tell Maria has been scarred by her experience in Biscay four years ago when the mechanical autopilot failed. In the interim, the electronic part had failed also, after ten years.. maria now wants to have complete redundancy in this area so there is no recurrence of the continued hand steering we had to endure last time. To that end, I had the mother board replaced on the electronic component of the autopilot even though I had bought and fitted a new one. I am now speaking to Cliff Mogridge, who helped us so much four years ago about understanding what to do. I personally think spending £3,500 on a spare is overkill but spending a tenth of that on the key gearbox elements doesn’t seem unreasonable. We are currently in negotiation – that is Maria and I, not Cliff and I!

We also have the preparation for the Atlantic Rally for cruisers to finalise. Since Mariadz did this in a former life, you would hope that the requirements of this wouldn’t be too onerous for her especially when you think we have upgraded everything on her since then. I am keen to get these requirements reviewed and addressed prior to arriving in the canaries when I imagine the cost of everything will double. So that will a job for Spain.

Still nothing on AIS, nothing to report and no change in the wind as we progress through the night watch giving me the time to write this. I am pleased that Maria has been able to get some sleep and rest though. Giving her four hours seems to be the answer although she will not sleep down below on passage despite that bed being her favourite thing in the whole world – grandkids excepted! it does make it a little more difficult when you are on watch with someone sleeping in the same area but it means we are together and she can check on things quickly if she wakes with a start – they are always alright but you know how difficult it can be to get back to sleep if the potential issue is not answered straight away. I remember the number of clinical questions I had to answer in the middle of the night when maria worked as a mid-wife. She would wake from a nightmare and I would have to reassure her that the woman in room 4 has had her drugs/water etc!

As my night watch draws to an end, I am reminded of those times we crossed the English Channel, the Messina straights or even negotiating the “motorway” in biscay at the north west tip of Spain. In these situations we have had to be vigilant for safety but also not to inconvenience or put in danger other ships, we have literally had nothing within ten miles of us for more than a day. We can’t get complacent or lose our focus, since we did see a yacht that wasn’t on AIS a few days ago, so you can’t just rely on the instrumentation. Anyway it will get busier as we approach Spain so we had better make sure we get our rest! And then, suddenly-ish, we have an AIS track that will pass close to us, within a few hundred metres, that is too close in open seas but they are currently 20 miles away and we won’t be close to them for more than an hour. A lot will change in that time, I’m sure. Well very little changed from the cargo ships perspective, they kept coming on at us, I made adjustments really early on to open the gap but it is like they didn’t see us until the last minute, three miles away when they had to make a bigger adjustment than if they had done it at the beginning, they passed within one mile which is unusual but wasn’t dangerous.

The rest of the night is quiet and uneventful with the morning heralding a slight increase in wind and the opportunity to get more sail out. This will be our last day before we arrive in Torrevieja. The wind is still not playing nicely and we are therefore motor-sailing or motoring. We have a following sea, mostly, but occasionally there is a rogue wave which rocks us from side to side. We are making good time and will arrive at about the same time as the partial eclipse.

As we arrive, there are crowds of people on the sea wall, now I know we have some people following us through the website but I had no idea how popular we were….. as we approach the Marina we are told we will be in berth N5 (November 5), well that should be easy to remember! It is located on the outside and will be stern to with lazy lines. Maria has read the reviews of the Marina and they are all very positive suggesting that they give you wide berths and today proves that. We will be quite close to a funky bar and Jamie, the anglicised version of his name, is really helpful as we get Mariadz into her new berth for the next couple of weeks. We look over towards the sun which appears to have been blocked by clouds for the vital moment ☹️, however as it dips below the clouds we get to see the partial eclipse. Ah that’s what all the people were there for….

It’s been a reasonable trip and Mariadz has done well, more motoring than we intended and we need to stop trying to work to a timetable and start enjoying a leisurely journey more.

There aren’t too many new breakages to report and they are easily fixed. Maria wasn’t happy that the engine room fan was on for a long time after the engine finished. A quick inspection showed why… the thermostat had been set to 40 degrees. In the UK that might not be too bad but when it is 35 outside, it’s seems a little unfair to demand that the fan gets that room down to such a temperature. A slight adjustment and hopefully that will get sorted. I am getting replacement wheels, or sheaves, that are part of the rigging although I work out, in the short I can use some spares on our staysail.

It’s been a good trip and we are now in Spain, leaving Italy has been a big thing – we now need to look forward!

The next leg of our journey takes us from Sicily to Sardinia as we head west across the Mediterranean.  I have been back in England, for the last time for a while as the two contracts I have both end in the coming weeks and are ramping down.

Before we can go, there is a still a list of things that need to be fixed! In the few days, I have in Sicily before returning to England we made good progress.  I moved the fishing rod holders so that they are easier to use under way for Maria – I need some tuna so this is important.  I can loosen off the solar panels and put in new cable ties to tidy up the electrical cables for the solar.  This takes longer than I’d like and I curse the people who cut these for no reason 😊.  On my deck inspection I notice that the swivel shackle for the anchor is coming apart, glad I spotted that, we wouldn’t want to have lost the anchor overboard again.  The shackle just needs redoing but needs an incredibly big tool, it is hand tight now but that won’t be good enough. I also put up the Tensile Awning so that Maria has lots of shade for her week in Sicily. It’s the first time in four years and it was only done once, so I do need a little help from Paul Gray (elite yacht covers) to get it almost right.

I am flying back on Thursday to Sicily night and won’t arrive till the early hours, which means by the time we are ready, it will be some time on Friday when we leave Maria having spent a very pleasant week in Palermo. Maria has made friends, no surprise there, and the marina are sorry to see her go, I don’t think that is just because of the income they are getting from our protracted stay. It’s also a non for profit club so any income from visiting yachties goes back into making improvements. I’m just glad that we had so many people willing to baby sit Maria for me – she can get a bit cranky especially if she hasn’t eaten.

I am also accompanied by the customary bag o’ bits, everything we need from the UK including chocolate, Maria’s 60th birthday presents, far too many bikinis and goodness knows what else, but the bag is full.

We are keeping a watchful eye on the weather and are keen that we now sail like cruisers rather than motor like delivery captains. As we get to the end of the week, it seems like we may be in luck, the beginning of the week has wind pushing from Sardinia over to Spain. It’s not super strong so looks like a reasonably leisurely passage over if it continues. However getting there may be a little challenging as the start of the wind is in our faces as we leave Sicily. At least we won’t have the engine on all of the time, not that we would have enough fuel to “drive” to Spain. I have written that and then recalled that is exactly what we did the other way when we were heading to Italy so perhaps it is possible even if not our preference. Anyway, the flight is leaving pretty much on time, so better than the three hour delay when I left Palermo, at least I should be in bed in the early hours.

After a sleep I am ready to get everything ready for us to leave, recognising that I still have a few work meetings left to do. The blocks need to be changed if we are going to be sailing, put the rib back up on the davits with its cover on, get the awning down and the lazarette repacked. These are my first jobs in the morning and we get these done before my meetings start so it is off we go, thank the marina team for baby-sitting Maria in my absence, lose the lazy lines and stern lines and we are on our way.

There isn’t much wind so we are under motor to start with and when I get a chance I get the main and staysail out since the wind is very tight to the bow. As we turn to head towards Sardinia, the wind comes round a little and we decide to get the headsail out too and give the engine a rest. Before we switch it off, I have checked and the alternator is pumping lots of power into the batteries, because we hadn’t switched off two of the aircon units. We are still at 99% but we haven’t had a problem for a while – although I must find and check that pesky fuse! Unfortunately I didn’t think to check the log, that measures our speed through the water and a week of not moving has allowed things to grow so the pedal isn’t moving and we are not showing speed through the water. We will have to remember that the wind shown on our instruments is across deck and not the real wind direction unless we can get a big wave to clean the underside as happened on the way to Sicily.

We have decided to go to Sardinia to give us a rest after a day or so of sailing before the multi-day voyage to Spain but also to let the gentle easterly winds settle in from Sardinia which look like they will blow us all of the way to Spain – that would be nice. It would also be good for us to get out the twin headsail setup going again, especially as I have come up with different ways to rig it which I think will work better than our first attempt in Biscay. however, the wind is dying and so we are back to motor sailing and cutting through the water at 7 knots under full sail. However, our yachtmaster, Martin Hubbard, (the best) would be telling us off for motor sailing, I’m sure! 😉

One of the things we noticed at Palermo apart from the large number of cruise ships coming in and out was the large number of mega yachts that stayed. We had seen some quite big boats, but Roma at 60m was one of the smaller ones. She is a pretty €30M yacht who leaves a few hours after us but is doing twice our speed so overtakes us leaving a nice gap. This isn’t the case a few hours later when a cargo ship, Penhar, starts to overtake us. We are doing between 6 and 7 knots and she is doing nine, so it isn’t immediately a dangerous situation needing quick reactions- not dissimilar to the scene in Austin Powers where the person is about to be run over by a slow-running steam roller in about 2 minutes. I see her from some distance away on AIS and she is going to get within eleven metres of us. Hmmm. Normally, the big ships like to have a minimum distance of a mile and we recall when we were passing across the top of Africa a few years ago, quite a few ships that adjusted their course slightly when they were ten miles away to make sure they were a long way away from us – we were so bored we wanted them closer! So I adjust course aiming South of Sardinia to open up the gap a little but it isn’t until the very last minute that this cargo ship speeds up and adjusts course slightly. Once he is past I am able to return to our course, close to the wind and heading towards the south of Sardinia. Weirdly, shortly after he changes course radically to head further South which if he had done earlier would have meant he avoided us completely. Maybe he just fancied a closer look at the beautiful Mariadz with all sail up.

What is surprising is what appears to be lobster pots dotted around our path, obviously a familiar site for us but hang on… we are in 2,000 metres of water. Maria’s friend, ChatGPT, thinks they are surface markers for fishing lines for Tuna. As it heads towards twilight and we aim at the setting sun in the West, there is a concern that we may not see these during the night. We are heading away from Sicily, having followed the coast, so hopefully there won’t be too many more of these left.

After Maria’s recent attempts at fishing including losing her lure on the way back from Corfu, she went back to the fishing shop and talked through the problem. He sold her a new rod, a spiky hook for bringing game fish in and a 1,000 meter fishing line with a breaking strain of 70lbs, that’s a big fish! The new rod is setup in the rod holder and her friendly AI advisor has suggested she tie the rod down so it doesn’t go flying when Tina the tuna has a little nibble. There is one nibble on the Sicilian coast but that soon stops 😦 . Then the reel goes mad again, Maria is down below but rushes to the rod to bring in her catch. At this stage, I don’t have a net or anything ready – yeah, ok, I don’t have much faith! Maria’s happy as she reels it in, “there’s definitely something on this’, and there is – some plastic. Oh well, we didn’t have any room in the freezer anyway!

It’s a little fresher this evening with a nice breeze blowing because we are heading into the wind. Despite that it isn’t too bumpy and Bonnie keeps coming up into the cockpit and being very vocal and demanding. The first time I brush her lots of very fine fur comes off and the cockpit tent is filled with little floating clumps of her hair. Her fur is in really good condition which is hopefully a sign that she is well, having fought off the Giardia that claimed her brother, and also not stressed. It is nice to have her company and she does enjoy a little fuss, and then disappears back downstairs to her favourite spot in the corner of the saloon where she feels safe to sleep, having had a bite to eat and a little drink.  At 10pm, we start about our night watches, supposedly two hours each, although we are as bad as each other for trying to let the other get a little extra sleep 🙂

I have been resting a little after our dinner, something Maria struggles to do, so I take  on the first watch.

The sky is amazing, really clear and with no light pollution, you just need to look up for a few minutes and as your eyes acclimatise all you can see is millions of stars. Magical.  I don’t think the picture does it justice.

Our instruments are all turned down to night mode, the raymarine i70 multi-function display scrolling through everything you could possibly need to know. This has become my standard device in a night watch, I get early warning of an AIS contact and excellent information on our direction, the wind and the engine in tonight’s case.

As we leave Sicily, we are making reasonable time. We were a little concerned that we may be fighting the wind before we get the easterly in a couple of days but it really hasn’t been too bad. If I was nitpicking a little extra North in the wind rather than West would have been better but….. I am nitpicking there! If we keep going at this pace, we will arrive in Sardinia in the early evening so a good nights sleep before we embark on our on ward journey to Spain. 

So Maria has taken the second watch and as predicted wants to give me more time as I am asleep. It’s half an hour after my watch is due to start when I am woken by Maria saying “what the hell is that”. It is a yacht running very strange lights – tricolour, it must be a deck light (too bright to be a steaming light) and an aft navigation light. I suspect there may have been a full set of navigation lights but the bow lights showing port and starboard were very very dim or not working. As we slip past the boat around 300 metres away, I see an AIS track on the navigation but it can’t have been there before or the system would have alarmed. Anyway having woken with a start, I am now wide awake so there is a change of watch and hopefully Maria will get some sleep – obviously more than two hours…..  I have changed the warning settings on our AIS to warn us more often and earlier. We hadn’t changed this since we left England, and reversing the River Orwell and Felixstowe, the alarms would trigger all the time. Now the annoyance is when entering a port but at sea a wider berth and more time to react seems sensible.

There has been a wind change and it is now coming from the port side and having gone down to main only, we decide to get the staysail up.  Maria reminds me to set the running back stays up first, it isn’t really windy enough but she wants us to get into good habits – fair point.

We are still motor sailing at 2000 revs which burns about  6 litres an hour. It means that Mariadz can go for about five days solid on engine, although we would never want to run her that low. We cannot afford the fuel, as the last refuel at Maluzzo cost just over €1100. 😳 So as the wind picks up, we have the conundrum of balancing arrival time, comfort and fuel consumption. The information that our engine provides is comprehensive and I will recheck the figures when we reduce revs over the next day.

Bonnie is being hilarious overnight. She keeps popping up to the cockpit and shouting at one of us. She spends time, having headbutted you, for a cuddle and then suddenly worries about the other person and runs around the cockpit to be with them. After a while she will go back down below and then start the whole cycle again. It’s nice to see her with us rather than in her sleepy spot. Clyde used to love being in the cockpit and would often be found cuddling a winch – not very helpful when you are sailing. He did use to scare himself when he triggered the electric winch though 🙂

At about 3:30pm we are, in terms of distance and time…. “Ooh We’re half way there”…. did I get you? 🙂

By 5:30am it is starting to get light, Maria loves watching sunrise and sunset so I will give her a three hour break and then she can wake up for sunrise. The wind has picked up a little and I am hopeful that we will be able to sail switching off the engine – fingers crossed! I will wait for the light before changing our sail plan, we are not huge fans of doing this in the pitch black.

I get down for my rest at 6am. However, by 7am I am woken by the flapping of sails as the wind has died. Maria asks me to get the headsail in and I start but it is incredibly difficult. The line is tangled in the drum of the headsail and has wrapped over itself and done a very nice knot! For five or ten minutes I struggle to try and loosen the lines so that the sail can be furled. Eventually this works and the knot clears itself and the sail can be brought in but I wasn’t looking forward to the alternatives. I wonder if I would have had to have dismantled the furled? Maybe drop the sail first and hope that was enough to ease the tension. One to think about in case it happens again.

Anyway sleep is for wimps, it’s a glorious day, so time for breakfast and the last twelve hour push to Sardinia. Then mid morning the wind has gone as predicted. There is a couple of knots of wind and it is variable. It’s getting hot, down below is 35 degrees and so I have put on an aircon unit to try and cool her room a little. There is hardly a breath of air on deck and it is reminiscent of the last time we passed this way four years previously. All sails are away and we are motoring at 7 knots. That only lasts a few hours before the wind is back and this time in our favour, right on the beam blowing at 11-15 knots and we will normally make just over half of the wind speed. It’s all sails up and engine off 🙂 that’s much nicer as we still cruise along at 7 knots. The wind picks up a bit for a few hours and we are hammering along at seven or eight knots until Maria can see Sardinia on the horizon. We still have forty miles to go to our anchorage for the night and the wind has died a little, and hence our speed. At one stage we were looking to be by 8pm but the reduction in speed has added two hours.

Crossing the bay of Cagliari takes an age, it’s more than twenty miles across so you can see Sardinia and know you have got here but then have another three hours to go to the anchorage on the far side.

Tonight’s food is home made curry, rice, salad and bread and it is lovely. We eat as we cross the bay so that we are comfortable when we stop for the night. we are hoping to catch up with our friend Umbi, who we met travelling through Italy a couple of years ago. He is an avid Lazio fan, and an ultra, but we had a lot to talk bout when we first and he has arrived in Sardinia today as well.

And as it gets dark we approach the anchorage, we are a little reassured to see that the only two AIS targets are ina different anchorage but this is going to be difficult. As we approach it is clear that there are a lot of boats anchored here. We decide to anchor on the outskirts of the area in about ten metres of water. As we get close it is really busy and we are already within 100 metres of other boats. I check which way they all facing before speaking to Maria about where to go. We drop alongside another boat BOUT 50 metres away and start to fall back on the anchor chain. In the end we rest 30-40 metres away from any neighbours with forty metres of chain down – it is meant to be a mild night tonight with the wind not getting out of single digits. Our oversized anchor and chain will be fine and I also have our anchor alarm on in case of any drifting.

As we settle down, I notice we have an issue again with the alternator charging the domestic batteries. We will check tomorrow when it is cooler and see whether this is a temperature issue.

Starting the generator also hasn’t helped since it has shut down with a high exhaust temperature issue, could that be related to the temperature in the engine room too.

It was time to continue the last part of our journey to Palermo, where Maria and Bonnie would remain for a week while I returned to England to work on site at the two NHS Trusts that have contracted me.  This journey should be easy although there is barelky a breath of wind and so we will be using some of the fuel we have just added.  The journey is less than 100 miles so this should be get out of the marina, get going along the coast for twelve hours and then tie up.  Hopefully, in time to join some new friends, Rob and Jo from Anchor Management that we have mat at Milazzo.

There are a few tasks that need to be done before we can get there and I will be working at the chart table for a lot of the day too.  Over the preceding 24 hours, we have worked with a rigging expert who has been able to supply a block for us.  Unfortunately it is a lesser specification than the one we had so we decide to swap the bigger block for our main sheet and use the smaller block on what should be a lesser load.  That said, there is no wind and so no opportunity to get any sail out! The dangling wires of our solar will have to wait and I cant get a new sheave for our traveller that also broke on the way down – again not critical but something I want to fix. The next important thing is fixing the lifting point on the rib.  Fortunately this is above the waterline because fixing it in the water is substantially easier than fixing it on the davits or straps. It takes a little while but I am able to get that fixed the previous evening and the rib is back up, covered and we are ready to go.

Maria needs to get her confidence back and so at 6:30am she takes us off the wall, going sideways and then straightening up once we are past any obstacles.  I’m sure this will be like muscle memory for her and she will remember all the times she has manoeuvred Mariadz in and out of tight spots. We had out avoiding fishing net markers as we get to the North of Sicily for the short hope across the top to Palermo.  Maria has identified a funky little marina, Yacht Club Mediterraneo, which is a little away from the hustle and bustle.  It is also adjacent to the Guardia di Finanza and the carabinieri which, you would have thought, would make it quite secure!

With no wind, it is an uneventful trip over, I am working down below and checking periodically but one of the things I do want to check is the alternator.  After a few hours, I notice that our batteries are full.  It is a sunny day but this is a good sign.  I also notice over the course of the day that there is some power coming into it form the alternators.  Mariadz has two alternators setup on the engine.  The original charges the start battery and then, once this is full, as a mechanism to provide charge to the lithium house batteries. However, the big Balmar alternator is responsible for doing the big batteries.  The problem is of course, that when the batteries are full, you cant really test your alternator.  As part our refit, we changed the aircon units to state-of-the-art inverter units. These do not pull a lot of power on start up but gently ramp up and their maximum drawer is 720W, which is rarely achieved, and coincidentally is equivalent to the capacity of our solar.  For that reason, we have switched our electrical system to allow us to drive the aircon from our inverter.  We would never run all of them and we couldn’t run them for long but it is a way to use excess energy.

I therefore switch on an aircon unit, which will use some of the battery capacity and create the demand for the alternator to do some work, as long as I switch off the solar charging so it doesn’t do it for us!  When I do 1Kw of energy goes into the batteries! That isn’t the small alternator.  My current theory is that there could be a problem with the fuse on the charge circuit which is intermittently breaking the circuit. Unfortunately I haven’t found that fuse yet! But good news is that the charging is working fine for the moment.

It is getting to the end of the day and it is time to tie up.  We are a little later than we would have liked.  As we approach the marina we cant see anyone, and it is nearly 9pm, but soon enough we see a waving figure on the shore, telling us to come in astern. 

We will be picking up lazy lines and there is lots of space in front and a wide area for us to aim at.  Mooring doesn’t take long and we can drop the rib and get ashore for a lovely dinner and a well earned week chilling…. Yeah right!

We have had yet another refit and the proof of the pudding will be whether everything still works. The marina have suggested a test sail but we would prefer a test week with a week afterwards to resolve any resulting issues.

We have a date for leaving but a few days before we  are having issues with Connie, our walker bay 10 foot rib, which is leaking, not just a little bit enough to be twelve inches deep overnight! One failed repair has not filled us with confidence nor has the conversations suggesting we should replace her. A final repair has been done to her lifting connectors so we have to tow her for a while as she can’t be lifted until this is set. That will test the leaks elsewhere!

Unfortunately while we wait for this last repair it is mid  afternoon by the time we can leave which is fine, we will arrive in Corfu after an overnight run early in the morning.

We set off with Connie following behind obediantly. In a reasonable north north westerly wind we have all three sails up in and are making good speed as we head south to Corfu.  After five hours, we decide to stop to load up tender. As I anxiously peer inside expecting some water I am pleasantly surprised thatthere isn’t a single drop of water in there. We have tentative confidence that we have a fix. As the evening  draws in we enjoy a lovely north westerly wind driving us down to Corfu at 7 knots but that dies at 2:30am so it is engine on and motor from here.  Maria and I are on watch and are going through the night and Carlo wakes up early to relieve me and let me get some sleep. 

Carlo and Maria decide to fish for tuna trawling as we go but I am convinced I can see them swimming parallel to us, coming out of the water and flashing the finger at them! They certainly don’t go anywhere near the lures that have been deployed.

It is an uneventful trip down and we arrive at 10am in the morning to check in. Having had lots of work done, I am not inclined to put her up against a concrete wall and so we decide to anchor in the bay adjacent to the port.  This of course means that I have to use the rib to travel the short distance into the port.  Ok let’s get the rib down. Our standard approach is to lower to near the water, put in the bung, which is left out for travelling and then drop the rest of the way. Connie is at this point as I reach into the stern section… Where’s the bung? It’s not there! The sides of the rib are too high for it have gone overboard but it must be under the floorboards, which can’t be moved.  We explore the options and eventually I decide to go with one of the wooden bungs that we have which does the job admirably. As we are talking Carlo and Sabrina mentioned that they saw the boat hook go over the side during the trip too… ah, we will need to do some shopping.

Having been to Corfu before on Mariadz, we are confident that we know the process and Maria has prepared our documentation. However, the new process of check in requires an electronic transit log. Oops, didn’t see that. We get some help filling it in and then do the check in shuffle – Port authority, customs, police and then back to the port authority. The buildings are on opposite ends of the port so this 8ant a quick process and it’s a couple of hours before we are back to the boat, with a dry rib by the way!

We are off to Mathraki, an island to the north of Corfu, but before we go i decide to pop into Corfu with Carlo. The local chandlery has everything we need, including a replacement bung almost identical to the one I have lost.  The last time we were in Corfu, we ate Gyros in Corfu Town but with the the girls and Dario back on the boat it will have to be a Gyros take away. As I say Corfu Town has everything we need!

This does all take time and it isn’t until the afternoon, that it is off to Mathraki. Maria takes Mariadz out of the anchorage, motoring northwards and there is a large catamaran motoring across us. They decide to hit their horn – maybe they think they are in a car! There are standard meanings when you use the horn but I definitely don’t think they are turning to starboard as they plough on with complete confidence that we will get out of their way.  Apparently they have the god given right of way. Clearly our mistake, and we agree to turn behind them but Maria still gives the English flagged catamaran a little piece of her mind…

As we gently motor north, I am reminded of a safari we went on years ago. I can hear a herd of wildebeest snoring as all of the other members of our crew sleep – including Bonnie. I stay awake but the chorus from them all wasn’t quiet! As we arrive at Mathraki, we decide to anchor to the south of the island where Carlo can go diving. So not against the concrete dock in the north of the island – did I mention our pristine topsides….

Carlo goes off fishing and by the time he returns we have a lot of fish and that is dinner sorted.

The weather for the next day is not so good with another north westerly blowing through, and there is no protection from a strong north westerly on Mathraki. We decide to head over to a large bay on Corfu that should be protected from a north westerly wind.

It isn’t ideal, as there is a valley to the north side of the bay that seems to funnel the wind into the bay and makes a few spots that should be protected quite uncomfortable, there is also quite a swell coming in which makes it a little bouncy.

We appear to have run out of fish, so it’s off back to Mathraki for a day trip for Carlo to get some more. Some of these have not quite given up the ghost when Carlo brings them on board which puts a fright on maria as they have a little wriggle, Again we can’t stay late because yet another north westerly is coming through. A return to the bay on Corfu gets us dropping anchor in a good spot, it may have taken us three attempts to find it but this is comfortable.

It’s a short break but we are having a wonderful time with great friends, our Italian family. I even have the paddle board inflated, since Mathraki was the site of the video of Carlo learning how to do this…. But unfortunately no repeat this year. I do try my hand after a few years off, and despite an early swim, get the hang of it and am able to circumnavigate the boat without getting dunked again.

Our standard routing home from Corfu is to stop off at Ereikousa so we decide on hiring a car for a day to drive to Corfu for checkout rather than sailing all the way around to the opposite side. Maria, Dario and I are doing the checkout because Dario wants to buy a souvenir t-shirt, he is 6ft 7in so it has to be a 2XL unless he wants to wear a crop top. Maria and I go to do the checkout which is seamless with the port authority, customs and then returning to the port authority for the last stage. Dario isn’t quite so lucky having walked around Corfu Town for some time and not finding a suitable t shirt in the right size. The drive back is uneventful and we return the car which isn’t even checked, a sort of ultimate honesty bar! Having left the rib at the beach with some crashing waves there is some water within the boat which I will get rid of when we lift her onto the davits. I head back with some shopping, Carlo had asked for 24 jars of Greek olives to take back to one of the largest olive producing areas in Europe! Dario has been successful with his t shirt hunt at the shops in the bay as I pick him up and drop him at Mariadz. Finally back to collect Mariadz and my taxi duties are over. It’s time to get the rib back up on the davits ready for our departure. As we lift the rib, I go to remove the bung from it so I can drain the water inside. there are two there! It had obviously slipped under the floor and only came back when there was quite a bit of water sloshing around. So now I have two proper bungs and a wooden bung but most importantly no water coming into the boat!

During our trip, the World Cup has reached the later stages and we had watched England’s quarter final victory with the semi final against Argentina in the evening we arrive at Ereikoussa. 

It’s a short hop to Ereikoussa from Corfu and the wind is a little all over the place, we tried several different sail plans to get the best out of it but it is only a couple of hours later that we have arrived and are anchored in the bay outside the marina on the south side of the island. We want to celebrate the evening and the last day of our holiday so Carlo and I go on land to see what we can find. Carlo agrees to buy a cooked lobster, which will take about an hour, and we look around the rest of the island, looking for t shirts for Dario (I found one for me 🙂 ) and also some food for Dario, that will be a gyros again!  It’s a lovely evening although the football game had the wrong result for us. The food, drink and conversation all flow well and the evening goes far too quickly.

It’s an early start the next morning with a NW coming and our memories still vivid of the last time we did this and had a very bumpy ride up the last part of the coast to Brindisi. I’m not making that mistake again.  Maria and I set off under motor whilst our guests sleep blissfully in their beds, despite the clatter of the anchor being brought in. As we leave Ereikousa, an island we both like, Maria thinks she sees tuna jumping out of the water – probably flicking a finger at us for escaping our lines again. It doesn’t deter her for setting a trawling line though… 

We are motor sailing to make good progress in a wind that isn’t perfect. Maria’s fishing rod then bends hard over the solar panel but before we can slow the boat down to try and make the catch, he has wriggled free. A little later it happens again but the lure has disappeared when we bring it in – those tuna love a bit of plastic.  It would have been hilarious to have caught something when our highly skilled fisherman was asleep in his bed, but it wasn’t to be.

We are making good progress and are heading to the outside of Brindisi, not getting too close to the coast.  The run is going well and it is comfortable which continues all the way into Brindisi port. That has erased a few bad memories! Balsamo Marina is all the way into port so we take sails down in the outer harbour and motor in respectfully. The team have reserved our spot which is a simple astern manoeuvre and then ferry glide onto the dock and we are back. It’s been a great time and we have found a few things that need fixing but overall Mariadz has done really well and has really benefitted from her pampering over the winter.

The next example explains all you need to know about doing jobs on a boat. We are about to return from Corfu when Maria tells me that the large pull out drawer under the  sofa will not go in properly and she suspects something has fallen down the back of the drawer and is jamming it. There is no access from the front to get there so I have to remove the back cushions, lift the tv out of the way and check behind the drawer from the back. I check and can see nothing there but I can see something inside the drawer hitting the cross member under the sofa. Ok, easy fix and we are done…. Nope. Maria sorts out the drawer and that is good to go. I then press the remote for the tv to lower it back down and it bounces up and stops an inch above its supposed resting place. How is that fair? Carlo and I have the seats apart and the lifter apart trying to work out how to fix it but after quite some time we have to resign ourselves to not fixing it. As we put everything back together again, it is clear that we need to lower the tv on the lifter but you can’t do that because the mounting bolt for one of the sides at the top of the tv is missing and seems to be rattling around the tv. I try to switch the tv on to make sure all is ok. It isn’t working. Ok, this is now a job for another day.

We now have a list of things to do before we depart in a week. This includes finally resolving the freezer, which is now being used as a fridge, fitting the new Starlink mini to the solar arch and running the wire through the boat, working out why our Balmar alternator was not charging the batteries, refitting the teak deck on the swim platform which has come unglued, fixing two tvs and a tv lifter (!) and various other small jobs. We make it clear to the Marina that we have to leave ina week with no delays, we’ll see how that works.

However, it has been a lovely week with our Italian family. It makes us realise what we are leaving behind when we embark on our grand adventure but also what we have to return to once that is finished.

Three years ago, we travelled from the UK to Italy crossing Biscay after an extensive refit. However, for the last two years, the focus has been unavoidably on finishing the house to give us the ability to fund our grand adventure.  This has meant that whilst Trullo Mariadz has gone from strength to strength, sailing yacht Mariadz has developed a few problems. Towards the end of 2025, we realised that the boat would need some work. Based on our experience with Danese in Brindisi, we didn’t want to take it there – I’m not a fan of someone that looks for a gas leak on a boat with a lighter!  We decided to go into the main port and back to Balsamo who had done a little work for us when we lifted the boat to get cleaned and to change anodes.

However, the list was becoming extensive. During the 2022 refit, we had replaced the built-in fridge with a new unit which lost us a lot of fridge space but gave us a reliable fridge. At the time we discussed what we should do with the freezer and were told that the freezer was fine. Of course two years later and the freezer had failed completely. Our first inclination was to replace the freezer as a complete unit as we had done before but we were assured that a new cold plate within the freezer would be ample – we learned to rue taking that advice. However, the removal of the fridge several times, and if I am honest a lack of care with this, damaged the Lino floor, the wooden trim and indeed the fridge itself. All of these things got fixed but it was frustrating.

We have always liked copper oat and three years ago had it redone at Suffolk yacht harbour. However, I don’t think they prepared the old one well enough and I think the new coats didn’t take and fell off. When we got Mariadz out, it was clear that we did not have a thick coat of copper coat which there should have been after two applications in her lifetime. The dryer weather in Italy should suit the application perfectly and Balsamo did a great job of that.

We already knew about a leak in the gas system which balsamo fixed in minutes by adjusting the pipes, trimming and refitting. Such a simple fix but a weight off our minds.

The electric winches are about the only thing on the boat that have not been replaced and, to my shame, I hadn’t serviced them for a while either. We also had the remains of a bolt that had been mostly drilled out. I am not going round the world with an important winch which is only attached to the boat for four of its five mounts! Again this wasn’t a difficult job once the guys started looking at it, and they did a good job of extracting the remaining thread of the bolt like a stainless steel thread, returning the original thread to as new. Testing the winches didn’t go well either with one of the winches not working. Ollie has been our saviour so many times (and will be mentioned more here) and once again helped me to diagnose the problem. On this occasion a failed switch.  The problem of course is that the switches are 25 years old and were discontinued nearly twenty years ago. The replacement is a different size and also substantially larger than the fifteen millimetres of depth. It meant I need to drill out the hole in our coach roof to for the new switches but we are now very happy with them.  I fell short of changing all of the switches because the switch is directly above the electric winch motor and on the starboard side the drive is very close to the switch – I wasn’t sure there was clearance and I didn’t want to take the risk unless I absolutely had to! That can be a problem for another day especially as I have a functioning switch as a spare now. The winches also deserve a service and I have to admit I referred to my own notes from a few years ago, the moment fading as I get older.

Our ST1000 autopilot has a remote controller which is incredibly useful, however after twenty years the battery died. After checking on the internet it is possible to get a replacement battery, solder it to the harness inside the remote controller and voila!

The constant use of the boat, especially for the seven years we lived aboard, had taken its toll on the leather cushions. One in particular had ripped on a seam. Our fantastic friends Carlo and Sabrina recommended a reupholsterer in Ostuni.  When we met him we instantly liked him, and by removing some of the bolster on the cushion, he was able to create enough overlap of the existing leather to fix the cushion. He was at pains to tell me, no kneeling or standing on the cushion, twice in Italian and once in English from his apprentice.  I suspect he doesn’t want us to kneel on the cushion! An amazing fix and cost us about €30!

Regular readers will know that Maria likes the creature comforts and Mariadz was fitted with three air conditioning units. One was unserviceable due to a par that is no longer available and we had various leaks and issues with the others.  At a boat show a number of years ago we had seen the Frigomar inverter technology, which doesn’t have the traditional big initial hit of power. They are quiet and efficient as was confirmed by a very nice Russian and Ukrainian couple when we were in the Straits of Messina. I had decided that if we were going to do this I would get the new air-conditioning units, fitting should be simple since they are a like for like replacement. The job was quite easy for the team at Balsamo and I also had them re-route a pipe that had been fitted wrong originally. Linked to the aircon was the fitting of the new fans. The sirocco fan in our aft state room had finally given up the ghost despite my best attempts to resuscitate it, so we needed a replacement. Maria also wanted one in the bunk room, where there was what looked like a prewar fan, which still worked but wasn’t good. So two new fans were bought and maria wanted these in our bedroom and the galley with the original galley one in the bunk room. Well that shouldn’t take too long…. All was going swimmingly until I got to the bunk room. Removing the old one was fine but the wiring for it went to an independent switch next to it. My initial thought was to keep that as an override but the wires were very tight and the solder on the switch poor which meant it disconnected. Ok plan b is remove the switch, join the two wires together and then use the rest of the existing wiring to fire up the sirocco. I wanted to solder the two wires together, not least of all because I could barely get any slack in one of them. Needing three hands, Maria helped me to do that and after a little swearing that part was done and my trust multimeter proved that it worked. I then go to the wire that will go to the sirocco which is about three inches too short to reach the terminals. More soldering! A three act drama but now we have three working sirocco fans.

One of our maintenance jobs is to regularly open and close the valves on the through-hulls. The last time I had done this I had noticed that one of the valves under the kitchen floor did not seem to work well. I asked the marina to change the valve, and they stated that the through hull also needed to be changed. Strange! Even stranger when they then said that all 20 needed to be changed. Again, if you have seen our blogs before, you will know that we had changed these a few years ago at considerable expense to have a final solution. I asked for the marina to wait until I arrived before doing anything else. In the end this was a god-send. This was the time that they realised we weren’t chequebook yachties with unlimited funds. I went on board and realised that in my absence, the valves had become very stiff.  The boat was on the hard so I decided to start trying to unfreeze these. With a mixture of brute strength and extension pipes I was able to get the, working properly.  When I showed the yard manager, Massimo, he got it, freed up the rest and we didn’t discuss changing them all again!

When in England, we had an automotive fitter remove all of our windows and refit them to overcome a common Moody issue of leaky windows. To our horror, a few years later these were leaking very badly to the extent that our beautiful interior wood was damaged, and water had got into our victron 5kw Quattro inverter charger and blown it. I was able to source a replacement which was easily fitted but it was a lesson on what happens when you leave the boat alone. However, our electrical problems weren’t over. 

The new inverter charger kept tripping and we eventually traced this to the heating element on the water heater. We needed a replacement,ent and Balsamo were at a loss for where to source the UK sized element. Rather than replacing the entire boiler, I sourced two in the UK and brought them to Italy but that wasn’t the end of the trouble. Water had been around the top of the element and there was a fair bit of rust with the element being seized in place. Balsamo fabricated a large hexagonal tool out of steel but even this needed an extension bat to free up the old element. The new element went into place beautifully and despite a few teething problems with the temperature and safety cut off settings, this worked well. However, the pressure release valve was also faulty, fortunately I had sourced what I thought was a like for like valve since I was sure the original was a 3 bar valve. Once fitted this kept releasing as the hot water caused the pressure to go over the pumps 2.5 bar.  I was told we would need a 5 bar valve and this was available quickly and did the trick.

Mariadz has a toe rail at the stern and when docked stern to, I had noticed that the workmen placed a board on the toe rail at the stern. There was clearly an issue but on one of the occasions a chunk of this had broken off. Clearly no one had noticed and a repair was required. I was wondering whether we would have to fit a piece of wood into the original when the yard decided to replace the section of toe rail with new teak. They then varnished this and it looked amazing but of course made the rest of the toe rail look awful. We have tried to get a nice looking toe rail using various products and had shied away from varnish because of the maintenance but it is clearly the best. Maria and I agreed we should have the rest of the toe rail done and after negotiating a slightly better deal by doing some of the preparation work ourselves, we now have a beautiful varnished teak toe rail. Now to varnish it again regularly. Of course a beautiful varnished toe rail has to be adjacent to a wooden coloured teak deck, grey just won”t do. Fortunately, I had some teak wonder in my spares (replacement ordered, delivered, stored and inventorised) and maria and whiled away away a few hours, and layers of skin because of the acid, getting our decks looking beautiful again.

There was a little bit of work on the mast too. I know the rigging was fine but I had noticed that one of the spreader lights had half failed with three lights lit rather than six. I had already found the exact lights to replace them with and asked the yard to do this since I was just too bust with work. They fitted the first light, replacing the failing one, and when we tested them, they did exactly the same! We disconnected and brought them all down for a test – one of the new ones had failed in exactly the same way as our original.  I bought them some time ago so have no recourse but it was frustrating. We have two working ones, one old and one new so we will go with that.  While they were up there I asked them to lubricate the blocks at the top of the mast, unfortunately, this wasn’t too carefully done and a lot of drips from the silicon lubricant cam down and landed squarely on our new cockpit tent. These have stained it badly despite all of our best efforts to remove them. I did the rest of the blocks and running gear myself and they now all work beautifully.

One of the jobs I was looking forward to was doing a full inventory of everything in our storage areas. We have, and as you can see need, a lot of spares and when you need them, you don’t want to turn the entire boat upside down to find them. So one of my jobs was to categorise everything we have in the storage areas. It was fun and a

We found things that we knew we had but didn’t know where they were! The last stage of this was going through the lazzarette. Whilst doing this I noticed the hydraulic fluid was a little low and just before filling it up noticed a large split in the back of it, grrrr. Quite often on boats you find things from other vehicles being used and apparently our hydraulic fluid container is used on a Mitsubishi four wheel drive. Trying to source one in the internet revealed that they were only a few euros, result…. If you bought 200. I travelled around Brindisi seeing if there was anything that could be used. There wasn’t. When I approached Massimo his initial reaction was that we would fibreglass the whole thing, with a fibreglass bracket. Inspired. It looks brilliant and when I fitted it, the positing was not as exposed as previously so I suspect that it won’t get the same kind of punishment.

The rib, Connie, had been on dry land for the winter and it was now time to return her to the water and her place on the stern of Mariadz. One of the workmen, ricardo, tested her engine and made sure everything was working ok and she was left floating next to us overnight.  The next morning I got up to check on her and to bring her round to go up on the davits at 7am. She has twelve inches of water inside her, lapping at the bottom of the battery. I am assuming that this is from the drain hole and a plug that hasn’t been fitted as I start to empty her, initially with a hand pump and then with a submersible electric pump. However, it looks worse than that with water coming in from the support structure for the stern which has a couple of hairline cracks. The guys get her out of the water and set about revealing the whole stern section. The next day, we are ready to try again. After a few minutes it is clear water is still coming in and we are all looking very worried. Connie is back out and in the work area. I suggest we fill her with water and see where it drains from and we set about doing this. Not too deep as it is the opposite pressure to normal. There are a few drips from the stern but nothing significant and a little more work in this area sorts this out. However, there seems to be something odd going on at the lifting points for the bow. These have stainless pads on the outside, one of which has some rust on it and the other is dripping. We agreed that we will remove these completely reseal them and tighten everything up. We can then test everything over a couple of days. As you will see she was bone dry, despite a couple of related mishaps from my side, so a success. Especially when you consider that the yard and Maria were looking at new boats to replace her!

Whilst doing the lazarette I noticed that the hydraulic ram had failed, when the lid came down sharply on me! That had to be replaced and we may as well do the other after locker while we are at it.

Having done lots of work, we decided a test sail would be in order and decided to return to Corfu, with our great friends Carlo and Sabrina with their son Dario. That trip is described elsewhere but at the end of it we had a few more jobs to do…

On our return, there are a few jobs to do, some of which are below but I also noticed that the teak deck on the swim platform floor has come away.  We have re glued this but the full solution would be to replace this – perhaps when we get somewhere with cheap teak! However, a major problem is that for the whole of our trip, the engine would not charge our batteries. Ollie to the rescue with a list of things to check. We went through all the diagnosis, changed some older fuses but still no luck. At this stage, having worked back from the batteries, it must be an issue with the intelligent alternator. I have checked a few things, battery voltages are coming through well, no error messages on the control panel. Ollie then suggests removing the blue and white charge wire from the alternator. It is incredibly hard to reach but I get my hand in there.  I decide to press it first before pulling at it and there is a reassuring click. Surely not! Surely. Engine revs up and 1kw is flowing into my batteries. What a shame I didn’t thing to check this on our holiday! I suspect it had happened when the engine was serviced, it is quite near a filter and I can imagine it could get knocked. Another frustrating issue but thankfully with a simple fix.

It is then time to attack the TV that stopped working on the trip. Firstly it is clear that the tv needs to be lower on the stand but that isn’t possible because the top mounting hole has a part missing, and it is rattling around in the tv. There is also the small matter of the tv not switching on. At this stage I have already ordered a replacement, this has been problematic for a few years now, but as usual I am keen to understand what the problem is. Since I will have to remove the back of the tv retrieve the floating piece of plastic, I take it into the aft stateroom. I actually have a lower supply for an avtex here so no harm in trying… the TV boots up first time no problems. Cancel order for new tv. After removing 20 small screws and a couple of clips for the electronics, I can see the problem with the back of the tv. So I reposition the floating piece of plastic, secure it and put the tv back together. All good. Plug it into the power to check it works… nothing. No. Plug the original tv back into its own power, nothing. Check I haven’t tripped anything, panel looks good! Oh {please add your expletive of choice}. So now I have two broken TVs. I decide to try the bedroom one first. The access is good for the power and I recall there are two lots of power fed from the box, one for the sirocco fan and one for the TV, as I look, I can see a loose wire, I must have pulled it a bit hard by mistake. That seems fine except the negative is wired into the earth wire! The sirocco is wired how you would expect, positive to positive and negative to negative and I decide I will rewire it properly. Once this is done everything is working fine – including the large TV so now to understand what is going on in the saloon. For historical reasons we have a 24v to 12v converter in this setup which the avtex doesn’t need but the original tv did. When I look at this, we have power going in and power is coming out but hang on, the connector isn’t connected. It should be a crimped connector which appears to have been held together with blue electrical tape! Again that is going to change! A nice new insulated crimped end is added and now we have perfect power again. Hopefully the end of our TV problems since I can now mount it a bit lower using the repaired top connectors 🙂

As I fly back on the 24th July, the day before we start the grand adventure, there are still a few things to do and I have a large bag of spare parts, essentials (chocolate and ginger nuts) and several bikinis for maria (also described as essentials since she has lost weight and her old ones now fall off her!)

The last few jobs are;

• to replace the bulbs for the navigation lights on the bow which have got corroded and failed under the water splashing over the bow, 
• Fix some of the interior LEDs which are failing after being replaced fifteen years ago. 
• The rubber around our windscreen needs replacing and it is on order 
• I also need to check the solar panels, I suspect one isn’t working, hopefully just a loose connection 
• Fix the WiFi booster where I think the power over Ethernet block has failed again.

Oh and whatever else breaks as we start our journey …