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!