We left Europe from Las Palmas in Grand Canaria on 4th Dec to cross the 2,700nm to Antigua. Our longest sail to date and our first crossing with crew. With food for 3 for at least three weeks, fully fuelled up and with everything checked and re-checked, the last thing we did was look at the weather and to our delight we had a steady 20-25knts Easterly which would give us a lovely sail.
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The sail to the Canary Islands is roughly 600nm south west of Gibraltar, so we have been checking the weather daily to find a good window. Our batteries were due to arrive on 29th, which meant we could fit and test them easily before setting off around the 2nd Nov, but on arrival we discovered only one had been delivered. We checked the website again and saw that the other 3 were not due until 4th – another delay but not too serious. Trifecta arrived and Bilby came in a couple of days later so there are now 4 cats all waiting to cross. Sisu are already in Lanzarote waiting for us and the next good window is 9th November.
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We ended up in the adorable named northern coastal Spanish town of Roses to hide from a large storm front that was coming through. The Spanish coastline has very few boltholes offering protection so most people go into the marinas. Roses was the exception with a large protected bay right off the town so we ended spending a few days here.
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The nearest French island to Sardinia in Italy is Lavezzi – a mere 8 miles, and it was a must stop for us because Indian Summer is a Lavezzi catamaran. When we first purchased her I looked up where Lavezzi was (all Fountain Pajot catamarans are named after islands) and wondered if we would ever get to visit, and now we were here – it was quite exciting
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We arrived in Sicily early in the evening, dropped anchor and poured ourselves a glass of red. We were the only boat in the anchorage outside Licata marina, which for Aug 10th must be a first. We had been warned repeatedly not to be in Italy in August as the crowds were horrendous but 2020 is proving to be a year of change and tourist-free is one of the very few benefits. We caught up with Matt and Cristy from Trifecta for a late brekky and to check in – all very easy and a free check-in – bonus. Continue reading
We were met at the pontoon of the Royal Malta Yacht Club by Mike and Proud and two other boats from the Covid-free Odyssey group after a frustrating sail, including one day of lovely 25kn winds where we sailed at 8.5knts all day and a couple of days solid motoring with headwinds. The group now consists of two Australian and two American boats and that evening we had drinks on board the other Australian boat Ikigai. continue reading….>
While we were waiting for news of which countries would accept boats from Turkey, we decided to spend a few days in Gocek bay. The first deadline of 1st July had passed and the -continue reading…>
After 10 weeks of lockdown we are eventually allowed to sail outside of our immediate area and go off exploring the gorgeous coastline of Turkey.
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After weeks of having to stay in the small town of Kas, we were suddenly allowed to go sailing for a few days. We had to stay in the province of Antalya but that gave us a few beautiful anchorages to go and visit and shake out the cobwebs that had been gathering on the boat. We left with another boat Acheron skippered by Jim and headed down Kekova. Kekova is actually an island but has lots of anchorages around it – all of them spotlessly clean and of course completely empty. continue reading…
With the COVID19 crisis dominating our thoughts and screen time, I thought I would write a post that had absolutely nothing to do with the virus. I couldn’t think what to write about until I remembered a conversation we had with some cruisers a while back where we were all discussing some of our ‘must haves’ on board. -cont reading…->
