Sailing to Sardinia

We had been watching the weather forecasts carefully in preparation for our sail across to Sardinia. This is a passage of around 190 nautical miles which would take us about 36 hours so we were looking for a weather window with wind from anything other than directly east. Typically, the wind was blowing at around 20-25 from the east to southeast until Wednesday 21 May when it would start to tail off and become more southerly. We therefore planned to leave on the 21^st, which would give us around 36 hours of wind from the south before the wind dropped to less than 5 knots for about 5 days. We’d most likely have to motor the last bit but that was much better than waiting an extra few days and having to motor the whole way.

We were expecting a stiff wind initially so whist we were still in the (excellent) shelter of Addaya we hoisted the mainsail with 2 reefs, the staysail and a very reefed down genoa and started heading east. The wind was nothing like the strength we were expecting from the forecast and so we cautiously let out more and more sail, half expecting strong winds to arrive just as we’d got out full sail. Unfortunately we found that whilst the wind had come around to the south, the 3 metre waves and swell were still very definitely from the east. With only 10 knots of wind BV wasn’t getting the power needed to climb these waves and maintain momentum.

Cala Tamarells des Sud

We could have motor-sailed to help BV over the waves but bouncing up and down 3 metres for the next 12-24 hours was just going to be uncomfortable. Anchoring in Cala Tamarelles d’es Sud, on the east side of Menorca, and having another go the next day seemed to be a much better option. Irritatingly, as soon as we turned away from directly into the waves BV set off at 5½ knots, which would have been great had we wanted to sail to Mahón or Mallorca!

Cala Tamarells d’es Sud is one of a number of calas around a picturesque channel between Isla Colom and part of the NE coast of Menorca. Though its entrance faces east, it was well protected from the swell by the island. There were a couple of yachts, one French and one German, anchored close under the island and we had a look at that as a location but elected to tuck ourselves into Cala Tamarells d’es Sud. Later that evening the German yacht, which had been in a very bumpy spot, departed and the French yacht joined us, so we think we got the better spot first time.

We got up at 0530, prepared BV, and set off east at 0645. Overnight the sea had settled to a 2 metre swell from the southeast and the southerly wind was still a little lighter than we would have liked, at just 11 knots, but with the cruising chute hoisted we made good progress at 5.5-6.5 knots.

Along the way we saw a couple of sunfish lying flat on the surface gently flapping a fin in the air as well as lots and lots of small jellyfish (we think Velella velella or ‘By-the-wind-sailor’). They are about 5 cm across and seemed to have a little sail to help them move. I think I might also have seen a large squid but it might have been a raggedy brown plastic bag [Ed: most likely was!]. This, and the sunfish zipped past too quickly to get a photo but the steady stream of small jellyfish made getting a picture easy.

There were a couple of small dramas during the passage. We were gliding along nicely during the afternoon when there was a loud bang from the bow area; we’d clearly hit something heavy. Looking behind expecting to see a box or similar, our jaws hit the deck when we saw a large turtle appear in our wake. His head was out of the water and he was waving 2 fins at us, presumably in disgust. We were both very shocked as, I guess, was the turtle. It was the first time we had seen a turtle in its natural environment and we’d run it down! Fortunately he seemed okay after the encounter.

We set into our standard passage routine with a nice sundowners together with a few nibbles, followed by dinner, before we worked 3 hour watches from 9 pm. By now the wind had matched the forecast and dropped so we were motoring.

Nicky’s sleep was disturbed twice. Firstly there was a bump and then an unusual vibration from the area of the propeller. We had hit something which, I guess, wasn’t too unlikely as we had seen a lot of rubbish float past during the day. The vibration was a worry though and so the engine was throttled right back to investigate how serious any damage was. Having done a visual check of the drive chain, I selected reverse and then forward gears and slowly accelerated the revs. If we had picked up a rope around the propeller we’d probably have to dive to clear it (best done in daylight) so we wanted to see if there was a low power setting we could use until dawn. Fortunately everything ran smoothly as I increased the revs. We think we had hit a plastic bag and some of it had been wrapped around one of the propeller blades. Changing gear had allowed the bag to fall away so we able to press on as normal. We would dive and check the propeller properly when we got to an anchorage in Sardinia.

Later on during the night passage I got quite concerned about the natural firework display going on to our south. 5 areas of lightning ran through a 150 degree arc from our quarter through to ahead of us. Every 10 seconds or so I could clearly see the forks of lightening but I couldn’t properly hear the thunder over the engine noise. Nothing showed up on radar, which suggested that the thunderstorms were a long way off but the left hand area of lightening was definitely moving across our path and getting much clearer. I woke Nicky so that she could get dressed, made sure the emergency grab bag was ready and we both continued to try to work out how far away the storms were. Half an hour later we still had clear skies over us and still couldn’t hear the thunder. Nicky had also spent some time playing with the radar and, with nothing showing up on the display, it seemed that the storms were still well over 24 miles away (the limit of range of our radar set), so she went back to bed and we adjusted the watch times to compensate. The lightning to the south continued but the areas ahead petered out over the next few hours. A good thing too as we were sitting on the only decent lightning conductor in the area!

We motored all night as the wind remained low and, what there was stayed resolutely from behind us. Nicky’s second watch had the twin pleasures of sunrise and ‘land ho!’. She raised the Italian courtesy ensign when we got into their waters and eagerly watched as the mountains of Sardinia appeared over the horizon.

Capo Caccia is pictured above and the town of Alghero, our main destination, is 7 miles beyond. Having had the propeller vibration we didn’t want to go straight into a marina because they are not a good place to go diving, so we looked for a nice place to anchor for our first night in Sardinia.

Behind Capo Caccia’s impressive cliffs is the large bay of Porto Conte. On the western side of that bay is the very pretty Cala des Bollos. We tucked ourselves in there, in sight of an old castle-like watch tower, and turned our baguette into the best attempt at a pizza we could do to mark our first day anchored in Italian waters. We spent the afternoon snorkelling and were very relieved to find absolutely no damage to the propeller or rope cutter. It feels very hot here and we measured 28 degrees Celsius in the shade as we made some tapas for sundowners. I guess, as we are now in Italy, we should start calling our sundowner nibbles antipasto!