18^th May, 2011.

The sail to Arbatax involved us passing the air tracking station in the mountains, the aircraft carrier and the unmarked spotter plane which flew over us several times.  We were one of several boats either sailing or motoring.  Jim had the radio on and tried to call the ship in case we should change course but the response was that they didn’t understand English.  So we carried on sailing and covering 41 miles until we got to the headland at Arbatax.  The wind went crazy and for about three quarters of an hour Jim just had to steer through the waves as best he could.  Luckily we saw the wind coming and had taken down the sails.  Unfortunately, Ariel banged her way through it and we made it into the harbour and the safety of the marina.  A cup of tea was very well received by Jim.

As the weather reports show very little wind for the next week or so we are going to stay here for a couple days to explore Arbatax on our bikes.