Addaya Minorca to Sardinia

Altea
Fri 25 Jul 2014 12:48
40:00:33N 04:11:99E

11July 2014

It seems that in my absence there has been a minor drama, with the harbour authorities asking everyone to clear the anchorage in the Mahon approaches. There had been a plan to meet up with the crew of Alkira, a Najad that we had first spotted in La Caruna, and who had followed a similar route last summer, also ending up in Sant Carles. J and L had chatted with Maggie and Charles (and got some welcome help with a stubborn winch bolt) when they were tucking Altea up for the winter. They had spotted us on the pontoon at Mahon. It seems that they are also heading to Sardinia and Corsica.

Evicted from Mahon, Alkira had led the way about 10 miles north west and then through the slightly tricky channel of Addaya and this is where I find them when I am dropped off from the airport. It is a lovely sheltered spot.

We crack on straight away with the installation of the capacitors, S on the tools and P as electrician's mate noting down the connections and passing tools, plus paper towels to mop the drips from the end of S's nose. The engine room is pretty warm.

We have an initial celebration, but then notice that the generator is now kicking out 280 volts rather than 230. We switch off and investigate the automatic voltage regulating system, reading all the manuals again and trying to work out where the control box is. After about an hour of thorough research we are ready with our plan, switch back on and it is absolutely fine. Bang on 230 + or - 3 volts, as per the specification. So we don't need to do anything, and assume the fluctuation was just the new capacitors settling down.

J and L return from their drinks on board Alkira as night falls and we eat on board and turn in feeling pretty happy with our progress. A few more engineering mysteries solved.

12 July

We had flirted with the idea of sailing to Corsica (or Sardinia, depending on the wind) today, along with Alkira, who are setting off for the crossing. Just on balance, we decide to leave it a day. There has been a weather system to the north which has blown up quite a sea and the skies are still heavy, so we will wait.

We have a dinghy ride up to Mercat which at first surprises us, as there is a complete absence of restaurants or bars along the front. Eventually find a restaurant called "Biosphera" a street or so back, with a wi fi connection, which is a must, to pick up weather and check emails.

None of us was expecting much but we had an outstanding meal, freshly made and served with a smile. The fish couscous was one of the nicest things I have eaten for a while.

The rain did eventually come, and we arrived back at Altea a little damp. One of the benefits of this unseasonal weather is that the evenings so far have been very pleasantly cool, which makes for a good night's sleep.

13 and 14 July

We cleared for action and set off at about 10:00. The plan for the early part of the crossing was to run the generator, test the water maker and, all being well, fill the water tanks. If there were any problems we could then go back to Mahon. All did go well... until I decided just to test the water quality, and make sure it was still good. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of switching the valve from "tank" to "waste" too slowly. Of course, as now seems obvious, a ball valve held in the central position between the two outlets effectively closes the pipe for a brief moment. As I was being careful and slow this moment was too long, and because the system runs at high pressure it didn't like it and stopped. The generator also decided that the resultant spike in demand was unwelcome and it too took a breather. Fortunately, all that was required was a cool down, and when we re-started the process an hour later, all went perfectly. Another lesson learned.

The sailing was great. As we had hoped, the skies had cleared and we pressed on at 5 to 6 knots with 10 to 12 knots of wind under a blue sky. We rigged a gybe preventer as the wind was aft of the beam and had a very comfortable few hours progress. We were visited by a family of dolphins along the way, and as we were at the bow watching them play in the bow wave, we had the extra bonus of seeing a turtle come spinning past. It was only about 18" across and looked very cute...if a little disorientated. To be fair, it had very nearly been run over by a 25 ton boat and two or three 6 ft dolphins.

I had the first watch and although we now had cloud cover, the visibility was good and J sat up with me as the moon rose. We had opted for a comfortable sail, and took down the main at dusk, losing a knot or two of speed but still making a decent 4.5 knots or so. There was still a weather system to the north and we knew we would need to gybe in the night, so decided to keep it simple.

I handed over to S at 2 am, gave him the obligatory cup of hot coffee to wake him up, and went to bed. His watch went by peacefully. I was woken up by L at about 7 with "skipper could you come and have a look please." The girls had found themselves with an approaching thunder storm and had decided to put up the full main in order to outrun it... I came on deck to find them both in their foul weather gear (with glimpses of pyjamas at the bottom) streaming with rain, big grins on their faces, and surrounded by black clouds and rain squalls - with lightning dead ahead. The wind was now almost 30 knots.

We looked around for the brightest bit of sky and headed off in that direction. The storm was clearly also on its way to Sardinia, so rather than keeping it company we hove to for a while, which Altea does very nicely with just a flattened main sail, and no genoa. She just sat there doing 0 knots, and we had a cup of tea.

We then tried to latch on to the tail winds of the bad weather for a while and made some zippy progress at 7 knots for an hour or so before dropping back to 5 or 6 in the sunshine, as the storm clouds advanced into the distance ahead, and we picked up gale warnings on the VHF, alerting those in the Bonifacio Straits to what was coming their way.

The remainder of the 14th was very relaxed. We played bridge through the afternoon, sacrificing a bit of speed to limit the heel of the boat to a comfortable level that kept the cards on the table. We had decided to head to Cala Del Bollo on Sardinia and dusk was falling as we arrived. Rather than waiting out the night we headed in to anchor, with S preparing a pilotage plan that took us in past the dramatic lighthouse that sat on massive sheer cliffs at the mouth of the bay, then headed due east to pick up the 50m depth contour and used that and a bearing on the smaller beacon in the bay to identify the point at which we could turn into our chosen anchorage. A lookout up front and the light from the moon was designed to protect us from the danger of picking up a lobster pot along the way as we nosed in at walking pace. We saw one pot marker and dodged it nicely. We anchored in plenty of room, well away from the boats that were already there. It was only in the morning when we looked back out to see a veritable forest of lobster pot flags and buoys that we realised what a good job we had done (how lucky we had been...). Note to self, the lookout in future will have the search light to hand and we will go even slower.