700 miles passage from Sicily to Palamos, Spain
2023.07.26 - AYB - Reading time ~4 Minutes
So by July 7 I have arrived to Sicily to join the trip. Palermo met me with a very nice weather, not too hot, just fine. I had to get a train to the Cefalu and I found that trains here are really cute. Only four wagons about 40 seats each.
I met the captain and we spent some time wandering around and doing groceries while waiting another participant — captain took a tourist aboard to cover some of the expenses for the trip.
Sicilians have some symbolic plant that they carve, cut, sculpt and mold everywhere and also selling to tourists.
Our passenger arrived, we boarded the boat and set the course to Olbia, Sardegna, where are located one of the most beautiful sightseeing and snorkling places in Mediterranean. It was a day and a half passage with almost no wind so we were mostly motoring. Motoring is definitely not the best way to sail the boat — ha-ha, oxymoron — but it’s the best way to make your tourists comfortable and happy. There was very light wind — maybe 5 knots and the sea was table-flat.
About the middle of this passage I remembered that I never ever was in water when there’s absolutely no land in sight. Since we were motoring I’ve asked captain to stop for five minutes and have that fun.
Me jumping to the kilometer-deep sea with no land in sight
The night was even calmer. There was an utter, ultimate still at the sea. The water was so calm that I’ve seen stars reflections in it.
We had our overwatches for 4 hours and mine third overlapped with the sunrise. I did my best ever sunrise photos at this moment, just have a look! These photos were taken with only 15 minutes gap.
This corner of Sardegna is a very beautiful and peaceful place (at least when the weather is good).
These beige stones explodes with pink during the sunset making the scenery half-magic, half-martian.
The city ashore at the sunset
That’s we at the sunset. Half-fairy, half-martian, lol
Got company!
Having about 8 knots of wind and enjoying the true sailing
Finally we departed our guest off-board to continue her journey and started planning our main leg to Palamos. It’s a 300 miles leg which means we gonna spend 3 days at sea. The weather wasn’t very “saily” — promised winds were weak to still but captain didn’t want to stay anymore to wait for the winds — family was waiting.
This is how weather sailing routing looks like in a special application
Farewell Sardegna! See you next time!
Palamos is 300 miles straight forward
Cap taking a nap prior to his night shift
The sunset was spectacular
Night passage trail
There is nothing to say about the passage. It could be even boring if it wasn’t my first one on such a distance. At the day two we met deadwind about 4 knots along with the big waves from the front. We couldn’t use sails so we were motoring and the diesel exhaust was pushed to the cocpit by the wind. I got poisoned by the exhaust and combined with the waves that provoked a sickness strike so I threw once.
At the beginning of the day 4 we reached Palamos. There was a perfect galfwind of 15 knots and the last 30 miles we had enjoyed the best sailing through the calm waters.
There was one thing I’d like to note: Sailors often struggle from absence of comms and internet because having Starlink onboard is quite costy for most of them, but there’s always a need to get fresh weather forecast. Sometimes you may find yourself anchored just 10km away from some village, but your phone can’t get the signal.
So I decided to take my old pocket 4g-router and modify it a little to have internet a little further at the sea. And it worked like a charm. We installed the antenna just below the solar panels and already got the coverage over 20 miles offshore. I got very impressed. On my boat I will definitely use that, but will install the antenna higher to have even better reach.
My custom modified pocket router with external antenna from aliexpress
That was a good trip. Had much fun