Mistrals are fun.......not...

Well the plan was that we leave Calasetta, Sardinia and use the Mistral (a strong NW wind that originates in the Alps near the Spanish/French boarder)to blow us all the way south east to Malta, 350 nm, about 500 kms. I checked the GRIB weather information every day before hand and the prediction firmed up and looked like 15-25 knots for most of the required 3 days, fading at the end so that we would have to motor for a few hours. Close to perfect.

So what could go wrong with such a planed and well thought out voyage?

A continuous 25-30 kts gusting almost 40 kts makes for a bloody uncomfortable sail, that's what.

One feature of the Med is that there is a very small tide (around half a metre), smaller currents and no big ocean swell. When the wind comes up the wind waves come up and when the wind stops the sea state calms quickly. So 15-20 knots behind us should not really be a problem....right? Well when the wind gods get a little carried away and keep puffin up to 40 knots the waves in the Med do get large. When we had a constant 30kts for a day, it was NOT a good idea to look behind the boat to see what was coming!

The wind was blowing directly in the direction we wanted to go, this might sound great but there is a problem. We can put out 2 sails at the front of the boat (goose winged jibs) and this can work well when the seas are slight, not so well with big seas. We were rolling from side to side furiously....not a happy crew! We eventually found a combination that worked, a very small main sail, a very small jib and sailing at an angle of about 30 degrees off our course. So we zig zagged down wind for two and a half days before the wind finally calmed down and here we are now no wind and motoring for the last 20 nm.

That was what really happened....here is the Admirals side of the story....

Quite scary, huge seas with the wind whipping the tops of them into frothy whitecaps. Most of them Sunflower surfed down (best not to look down from the the top of a multi storey wave at the rest of the ocean below!)Occasionally a rogue wave would hit the side of the boat with a huge thud knocking us all sideways and even dumping a large quantity of sea water over the deck and cockpit. We were both tired and battered from being knocked around the cabin, unable to sleep and trying to keep the boat on course. At times I asked myself what on earth I was doing, and why couldn't I live in a nice dry house that didn't keep lurching all over the place. Then as soon as things calmed down, the seas returned to a nice gentle undulating motion and Sunflower was purring along, I forgot all the bad stuff and was enjoying the joy of being underway again,..... until the next time anyway!

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Tales of Woe....

Hmmmm.....we do seem to have a couple little problems at the moment......

My media computer developed a networking driver problem so that I could
not connect to the internet. I tried all the usual stuff and finally an
XP repair. This all went well until I tried to log back on and it
required an activation before it would log me on but of course I can't
activate it until I can log on........Microsoft wins again!!!! Still
trying things...may require a rebuild. I still have 2 computers working
so it could be worse.

That means that I have been unable to update the web site until I move
it all to a spare computer.

So I thought I would update the Chronicles on line......so I log on to
the blog website and find that it will only allow me to edit titles but
not the body text!!! This on 2 different computers and 3 different
browsers.

That means the only way to update the Chronicles is via email, as I am
doing here,

I checked the Frig compressor a few days ago and find that it is leaking
more oil than it was so the seal is getting worse. It is 20 years old so
time for a replacement. It is a Frigomar manufactured in Italy. Hey we
are in Italy, should be no problem......I contact the factory and they
will send me one for 1500 euros yep one thousand and five hundred
euros...that must be close to $2000!!! The factory has now closed for
the August holidays. The short story is that I have found one in stock
in Malta (about 350 nm away). They even speak English there and the
price is .......... 650 euros.

Guess what.....we are sailing for Malta in the next few days. The winds
will blow in the right direction and it will be 3 nights at sea, heading
in the correct direction for our winter marina in Turkey. What could
go wrong........?

Spain to Italy - Calasetta Sardinia

We have now been in Sardinia for just over a week after a lovely 49 hour sail from Mallorca under a glorious full moon. Alan had judged the weather perfectly and we were able to sail most of the way, much better than burning diesel.

We headed for the south western tip of the island to a place called Calasetta. Our main reason for coming here was to meet up with our old mate Peter on Golden Eagle. Although we had spent Christmas with him in his bosses house in the south of France, the last time our boats had been together was 2 years ago in Panama. Peter crossed the Atlantic from Panama a few weeks ahead of us but went directly from there to Bermuda and then Gibraltar, as we crossed from the US and then dallied in the Azores for a couple of months he had arrived in Europe well before us, while we wintered in Morocco. We were beginning to despair of ever catching him up, but he arrived in Calasetta last October and decided to stay put! He is in the little marina here but we are anchored around the corner. We have had our mail sent here and are waiting for it to arrive.

The local mayor has his boat in the same marina as Peter and they have become good mates and Peter has the use of the mayors old banger (one of several vehicles he owns) It 's a very old Fiat Panda with room for one person in the back, mainly because the front seats are rusted into fixed positions and can't be moved forward, so Alan has to sprawl across the back seat as there is no room for his knees otherwise. Luckily Sant Antioco where Calasetta is located is a very small island, so a tour only took about half an hour and the main town of Sant Antioco is about a 10 minute drive away. It's main claim to fame is a Lidl supermarket!

We have been surprised at how much windier and cooler it is here than in Mallorca. There is a wind called a Mistral which funnels down from the French Alps and keeps Sardinia quite breezy, we have had 20-25 knots most of the time we have been here, other friends who are on the north coast have been having 35 knots! On the plus side it is pleasant for sleeping and there are no mossies, but getting ashore in the dinghy can be a soggy experience.

Calasetta is a small village with an old look out tower on the cliff and mainly modern buildings. It has a commercial harbour where the Ro-Ro's (roll on roll off) car ferries ply a constant trade day and night from both the other island and the mainland and the local fishing fleet hang out. Ashore there are a couple of small supermarkets, several excellent gelaterias and several overpriced restaurants (where for some reason pizza is only cooked in the evenings) some excellent fruit stalls and a small but interesting market on a Wednesday morning. Siesta time is taken more seriously here than in Spain and everything shuts from 1pm until 5.30! This makes finding a shop open a bit tricky for us, as by the time we get ourselves together and ashore everything is ready to close and by 5.30 we are thinking of a G&T and relaxing for the day:)

Once our mail arrives we will look at moving on but are not sure where to. We would like to get to the north of the island as we have a friend of a friend who lives here we would like to meet and also another Aussie boat we know from Panama is also up north but we need to see if the winds will co-operate. Otherwise we may just head for Sicily and then on to Malta and Greece. We are now in August which is the silly season in the Med as most European countries have the whole month off and anything that floats in on the water. We would like to avoid the most popular places during August if possible. So the plan is that we are heading for Malta in the next few days.

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