2nd - 4th April 2006 - Mallorca to Sardinia

Posted at 4:55 AM, Wednesday, April 5, 2006

Marcus arrived of his Heathrow flight and was with us by 1230.  As Gerry, Sue and I were still suffering a hangover from a big bash last night, we decided not to go for a land based lunch, but rather slipped out of our berth at 1400.

Fully tanked with 260 litres for fuel, 360 litres of water.

Pleasant sunny weather, with winds from the south / south east at 15 knots.

The nice light beat southeast towards Cabo Blanco, the eastern headland of the Bay of Palma, did not last long.  By 1520 we were down to 4 knots so furling the headsail, we fired up the engine.

Still motor-sailing, we were intercepted by our German engineer Erich and a bunch of his pals who were out for a day sail to Cala Pi (halfway along the base of the island).  It was nice of him to motor over and give us a farewell.

At 1800 we took up our 3 hour watch system, with Gerry pairing with Marcus, and Sue with myself.  Both the guys shot below for a nap – but no one was really tired and the engine noise in the aft cabins must have made it hard to sleep.

At 1920 we passed Cabo Sabinas – the most southerly tip of Mallorca, and could then shape up onto our due east course away from the Balearics and onward to Sardinia.  We were fare welled a second time by two playful dophins who zoomed past as we cleared the cape, and we settled in for the night. The 240 mile leg meant we should arrive in two days provided we maintained a 6.5 knots boat speed.

The cloudless night sky was filled with stars.  We saw many shooting stars and the first was so low and bright we all thought it might have been a white flare!  It wasn’t.

With a quarter moon which soon disappeared, it was a dark first night at sea.  The  phosphorescence appeared in very big blobs in our bow wave and wake.  Must have been jellyfish.

Had two further dolphin pods come and say hello during the night watches – trailing phosphorescence behind them. 

At 0700 a light northerly breeze picked up to 5 knots and we launched our new code 0 headsail for the first time and were well impressed.  A fabulous shaped huge head sail.  It gave us 6+ knots of boat speed in the 5 knots of breeze.  But was also sadly saw our brand new bowsprit begin to bend upward under the strains imposed.  The new stainless bowsprit stopped bending at about 25 degrees – so we’re hoping that’s how it will settle.  If not, it may break.……

The wind stayed steady for about one hour so the guys finally did get off to sleep on a silent boat, but sadly the wind died again and the engine went back on at 0830.

Motor sailing and creating our own breeze means we can keep to 6.5 knots at 2,000 revs – but it also means we’ve had to adjust our destination port to one where we can be guaranteed of taking on more fuel.  So we are heading for Perd’e’ Sadi (just south east of Cagliari) on Sardinia’s southern coast.

The remainder of the trip was very uneventful.  A few more dolphins came to visit, plus we came across four large turtles spread over say 5 miles, slowly swimming west.  Otherwise, we had the sea to ourselves.

The second night at sea was slightly warmer than the first, and as dawn broke we could see Sardinia appear over the horizon in front.

It is now 0930 and we are passing that southern tip of Sardinia on our port side, and should arrive at Perd’e Sadi 25 miles further by midday.  We’ll stop today and overnight for fuel and a run ashore, and aim to depart for Sicily early tomorrow morning.

Cheers

JOHN