To Sicily

On Thursday night the wind slowed down, swell wasn't bad and we slept well. In the morning we sailed off around island of Sant Antioco towards South. We were hearing warnings about navigational hazard on the radio all week, and now we got the chance to see the reason why. It was a big cargo ship, sitting on the rocks.

Maybe the engines stoped working and the wind put it up there. I can hardly think a big ship like that would try to sail so close to the shore.

After a slow start wind picked up and we were sailing fast on just a flock. On South side of Sant Antioco there are several islands and rocks, these two are named Isola Vacca (the cow), the smaller one Isola Vitello (the calf)...

...and in the distance, just a shadow next to mama cow you can see Isola del Torro (papa bull). The whole bovine family.

As we reached Capo Teulada, wind was really strong, about 25 knots, and the steep cape made for some additional gusts. It was a bit too sporty for me, as well as all the way up to Porto Teulada, as we had wind from the side. Luckily we rolled the flock on time and sailed only on storm jib.

No need to mention that the boat was encrusted in salt after sailing. In the distance on the right deep in the bay there is a marina...

...and in front of it a beautiful anchorage. Water colour was so pretty, so we went for a dip in the sea despite the strong chilly wind.

It was blowing all night, not as strong as during the day, but still enough to make enough noise to keep us waking up and listening if everything was fine.

In the morning we checked the other side of the tower and there's also nice anchorage there, just with more fetch.

Then we sailed further South and soon wind was between 25 and 30 knots again.

We didn't have far to go, we just rounded the Capo Malfatano...

...and then anchored in front of one of the prettiest beaches in Sardinia. Wind was still blowing and the gusts were pretty strong, but this part of the bay is protected from almost all sides, so the waves can't develop, because there is no fetch.

We ran out of bread, so I baked a soda bread. It was chilly enough from all the wind, so the oven didn't warm up the boat too much. It turned out quite good. And warm bread with butter...

Did I mention how pretty the water was? And there were tons of fish around our boat.

Wind calmed down a bit in the night, so we slept well. Next day we sailed East along the rocky coast.

It is wild and pretty. I read that this light house is now a luxury hotel.

We had a nice breeze and sailed all the way. Our next stop was just around Capo di Pula,...

...a nice bay with turquoise water...

...and ruins of ancient Roman town of Nora. I read that there are also some ruins in the sea and I thought I should go and snorkel around them, but I couldn't find anything on Google satellite shots, so I didn't know where to go. But we swam plenty in the afternoon, because it was really hot.

In the evening, but only when the sun was low and temperature down a bit, we rowed the dinghy to the shore and walked to the town of Pula, 2,5km far. It was a long walk, but we wanted to buy some food and I wanted a pizza. We got both, pizza was delicious and the service great, and luckily we found supermarket that was open till 22.00 on Sunday. Even after pizza we still bought too much stuff (usually that happens if we go shopping hungry), and we had to walk again 2,5km back to the shore, with everything we bought.

Once there, I couldn't believe our luck - the wind turned and instead of blowing from NW, it was blowing from NE and made quite big waves in the bay. Not to mention, we had to row the dinghy against wind and the waves to get to our boat. And evening started off so good! We managed to get to boat dry, loaded all the stuff we bought from the dinghy and secured dinghy to davits. It was lots of work and afterwards we deserved a double rum. And we need it too, the boat was riding the waves and the night was not very calm. Only towards morning wind eased down and waves slowly disappeared.

Next morning we prepared the boat and after big breakfast and a dip in the sea, we sail out of the bay around the watch tower, towards Sicily. We knew there would be lots of wind, another portion of Mistral from Gulf de Lyon was coming down from North, we just hoped the waves would not be too bad yet.

Wind got stronger in the afternoon, and the waves bigger. Waves never photograph well, but maybe you can get the idea from this photo of not small fishing boat, sailing against the waves.

It was quite wild and in the evening we didn't eat much. Despite the forecast, waves grew to over one meter high, many were more than 1,5m. And it really doesn't show on photos.

The night was hard on both of us, and towards the morning wind slowed down, but the waves stayed, so it was even more rolly. It stayed like this during the day and we were both relieved to see the Isola Marettimo, one of the Egadi islands on NW point of Sicily.

It still took us couple of more hours to get to the town of Trapani, where we anchored in the port under the forth. I made a nice dinner and then we went to bed early. It was very calm and we slept well. But the passage was one of the worst we had, for me anyway.

Next morning we discussed our plans over the coffee and since it was already scorching hot before 10 in the morning, we decided to not go into town, but rather sail to some place nice where we can swim and be lazy. We've been here already 7 years ago and explored the town a bit then.
This is the same forth from the outside of the port, with town of Trapani in the back.

Sicily has so many wild and rocky hills, unfortunately there were clouds covering them, so it all looks a bit hazy.

We dropped the anchor in a bay behind Capo San Vito.

The colour of the water was absolutely beautiful..

...but because of the clouds it doesn't show. We still swam a couple of times, but didn't go ashore.

 Only in the evening we had a couple of rays of sun again.

Although it looked calm enough during the afternoon, it was unfortunately very rolly during the night when the wind died. Well... looks like we'll need a double rum before sleeping more often here...