Knock on Effects

Our plan was to cross from Sardinia to Menorca on September 20th with Gabe and Leanne. Our grounding messed that up. In addition, we were planning to meet Stephen and Shenna in Majorca on September 28th. Shenna was going to spend a few days on the boat and return to Scotland from Ibiza, Stephen is going all the way to the Canaries. Those plans were also messed up. Stephen and Shenna were very flexible and bought new flights to Sardinia, still arriving on the 28th. The problem is we were in Cantieri Navali del Golfo Srl, a commercial shipyard, with limited access by road, and we had a housefly invasion, so we could only open the hatches that had screens. These buggers bite too. So we agreed that they should best stay in a hotel for a couple of days rather than join us. So they stayed Friday night and Saturday night in Cagliari, in the south of the island.

On Sunday, they took the train from Cagliari to Porto Torres. I said I would pick them up in the dinghy in Porto Torres and bring them to the boat. It is about 1.5 miles away. While we were in port, the wind had been blowing anywhere from 10 to 27 knots, building a nice swell. On Sunday afternoon, the winds dropped, but the swell was still rolling in, so it was a slow, rough, and a little wet ride to the boat! But Cheryl had a nice smoked salmon pasta for dinner, so all was well there. Also, we had a cool evening, and that seems to have killed off the houseflies. Today is a perfect sunny day, no wind, no flies, no problem.

Our next planned rendezvous is with a couple of Stephen’s buddies from his time on the Clipper round-the-world race. We are planning to pick them up in southern Spain on September 9th.

It is now Monday evening, September 30th, and the rudder did not arrive today. We are hoping it will be here tomorrow morning, and the great crew here at the marina is ready to jump on it as soon as it arrives. But now we have to have a good weather window to cross from Sardinia to Menorca (about 36 hours). The challenge now is the weather. Tomorrow is a good day to cross for comfort, not for sailing. The next two days have light winds and little swell; we would be motoring a lot of the way, but for the sake of the crew, that would be fine. If we miss that window, we might get further delays.

The forecast for Thursday is a little uncertain. Three of the weather models have a continuation of the calm, and two have a new Mistral forming. We will be watching. If we can get out tomorrow, we can island hop through the Balearics and still meet our deadline.

Our recovery plan is for Cheryl to jump ship and for Stephen and me to do a longer multi-day dash to Cartagena on the Spanish mainland, with a brief stop in the Balearics. Either way, we will not be taking any risks to meet a deadline.

Rimanete sintonizzati per il prossimo episodio

Thursday Morning (on one weather model)