Zakynthos in Greece to Arbatax on Sardinia

The Panacea is also heading for Messina and Sardinia, so we might bump into her again. They left Kefalonia ahead of us. We first had to go to the neighbouring island of Zakynthos, where we wanted to pick up Lukas from the airport. The timing was good as he didn’t land until the evening. Our area guide said that we were allowed to anchor temporarily in the harbour. But when we arrived, we were sent to anchor outside the harbour. Luckily there was hardly any wind or waves. Mathias picked Lukas up in the harbour with the dinghy and we stayed at anchor overnight.

We wanted to replace the wind sensor at the top of the mast, Lukas had brought a new one with him. The old one had failed again and when Mathias checked the connection at the bottom of the mast with an old sensor that we still had on board, the part started to scorch. It almost turned into a cable fire. Acrid smoke had already spread through the technical room. Fortunately, Mathias had placed the part on a non-flammable surface, but we were “not amused”.

As we couldn’t moor in the harbour of Zakynthos, we tried another bay so that we could climb up the mast. It was quite sheltered in the bay, but there were numerous excursion boats and their waves made it difficult to climb the mast. One of the three small hemispherical anemometers broke off, so Mathias gave up the idea and came down.

We set off on the first part of the journey without any wind measurements. The weather was only half of the way favourable. There wasn’t too much wind, but in order to make reasonable progress and not be overtaken by the next bad weather, we decided to motor sail. Nevertheless, we first had to head south to avoid a thunderstorm area. The three of us can organise the night watches better and get more sleep. I didn’t take over until around 2 a.m., by which time I was more or less well rested. The second night was different. We had waves of up to 2 metres and were beating against the wind, so it was almost impossible to go to sleep.

This time round we passed through the Strait of Messina during the day with little wind. We were able to sit on the sun deck and enjoy the scenery throughout the journey.

After passing through the Strait of Messina, we anchored at Scilla. (The Panacea had just left that anchorage.) The town is on a steep coast and there are innumerable stairs and ramps. Lukas and Mathias went ashore at lunchtime and Lukas and I went ashore again in the evening because the supermarkets were closed at lunchtime and we wanted some fresh fruit.

After the second night at anchor, we sailed comfortably along the Sicilian coast as a genoa sailor. The UV protection on a large section of the genoa had come loose (is that the part I hadn’t re-sewn???). This meant that we had to take the genoa down again. One get the impression that the boat senses that it’s heading for winter storage and is throwing last minute tasks at us. 😉

The genoa required attention. So we took advantage of a windless period. We anchored near Milazzo, Sicily, and in the evening the genoa came down and was brought aft. The next day, my sewing machine and I got to work. Lukas helped, because it wasn’t easy to thread the large and heavy sail through the machine. We literally sewed the long leech up and down. With three bobbins of bobbin thread wound up in one go, there were hardly any delays, but it still took around 4 hours. We patched the tear in the UV protection with spinnaker tape, which was sewn in place. The main problem is the original seams, where the thread is slowly coming loose. That’s why we also re-sewed the centre seam on the UV protection along the entire length of the leech, and now all the seams are new. At midday, a police boat came and told us that we were not allowed to anchor there. There were a few local sailing boats moored next to us, but we were protruding a little further into the harbour entrance. As a result, the sewing continued during the onward journey. We also pulled up the finished genoa while sailing downwind. Work like that is a bit easier with three people.

At the next anchorage off Palermo, we didn’t see much of the city. But Lukas and I went ashore because the skipper had discovered a Lidl supermarket and wanted some quark. The route took us through a kind of China Town with warehouse-like shops. The area was dirty and stank of exhaust fumes. At Lidl, I walked past the refrigerated shelves three times and only on my fourth attempt did I discover the inconspicuous quark containers. Well packed, we returned to the SAN and immediately weighed anchor again.

The rest of the day was fine, it was only during the night that things became unsettled. Mathias and Lukas reefed the mainsail and occasionally the jib was also used. When I took over, we were just passing between Sicily and the island of Favignana. Mathias had to get up again and soon we were both awake. The fringes of thunderstorms made the sea unpredictable: genoa hauled in, rocky ride plus rain. Luckily, the lightning was only visible as sheet lightning. The autopilot also hiccupped a few times and switched itself off. Which meant that someone had to steer by hand and someone down below had to switch the power off and on again. (Fortunately, Mathias has by now found and rectified the cause of this error).

It wasn’t until the following morning that the weather calmed down and we had escaped the influence of the thunderstorms. Now we only had to sail round a fishing boat with a trawl at night, then Sardinia soon came into sight. At one point the wind picked up strongly again and the outer sheathing of the genoa furling line tore, creating an obstacle in front of the cleat, so the line could no longer be pulled through the cleat. Lukas had to furl the genoa by hand. And Mathias again had something to repair. We arrived in Porto Corallo in Sardinia and anchored for the night.

The next day we travelled comfortably to Arbatax where we spent a few days.

James is also here at the moment with his Apocalypse and we managed to meet one day. It was great, as always, and we reminisced about the olden days. 😉

When we took the dinghy to a wooded area on the shore, we first wanted to moor in an entrance to the salt marshes. But a lady told us off, even though we weren’t in anyone’s way. She even threatened to call the police. So we decided to go straight to the beach. That was odd as the people here are usually nicer.

Regrettably, we couldn’t stay longer in Arbatax, because we had booked Lukas’ return flight from Olbia.