Trip from Northern Sardinia to the Balearics
Rubicon
Mon 21 Sep 2015 15:36
This area was established in Roman times, reputedly by Julius Caesar, and in the past was one of the main ports in Sardinia. At some point in the 11th century the inhabitants moved from the coast inland 15 kms to the town of Sassari, which contains an apparently a lovely and well preserved medieval village. We weren't able to do much of the touristy thing, but we were taken with Porto Torres, and wouldn't have minded exploring around a bit more. This place is an important economic area in that is a major producer of chemicals and has a power station. This becomes an issue, as after we arrived back from dinner, which was lovely and classically Sardinian, the propane alarm was blaring! In our previous boat, Rubicon III, a 38 foot C&C 115, our propane sensor got fried after I baked something in the oven, and it put a dent in our cruise as we had to repair it before the stove would work.....so Vlad and I were a little on edge, thinking about the unpleasant
and dangerous possibility of leaking propane, how in the heck were we going to fix it, and that making a passage with this on the fritz wasn't appealing. Vlad did a few checks, which at first didn't solve the problem, and I was working to remain calm. We aired the boat out and reset the sensor, and voila...problem solved:) Vlad suspects that either a very smelly boat belched fumes over Rubicon setting off the alarm, or that the chemicals in the air tripped up our system. Haven't had any issues since.
So the next am, after I got fresh bread and loaded up on Sardinian gelato, we headed off towards Menorca, hoping for an easy crossing. The winds were forecast to be in the green zone, up to 20 knots, according to windyty.com, the website that we have been using to look at weather predictions. We took a short cut between the mainland and Isola Asinara through the Fornelli Passage. The shallowest area has 3 m of depth on the charts and also 3 m according to Rod Heikell's book "Italian Waters Pilot", but from our experience in Sardinia, the charts aren't always correct......We went through it anyway. It was fairly calm but there was some swell coming through the strait, which made us both a little more nervous than we already were. The approach was stunning. The water was crystal clear with patches of white sand. You could see the details of the sea grass in 20 feet of water. As we got closer, I was at the bow, checking for unexpected shallows or rocks.
Right at the end of the passage was the shallow, rocky bottom, with swell coming through, and as we went over it I said a little prayer to myself( maybe more than one), and wondered why we decided to do this in the first place. As I held my breath, bobbing up and down in the waves, we broke across, no harm done. Phew. That was crazy. I wouldn't recommend it.
Cruising isn't all palm trees and margaritas. Once one thing happens, it seems that a cascade effect occurs. I tend to get seasick, and have used scopolamine patches to ward off nausea with great results. However, I have been running low on them, and I am not sure I can buy them in Europe, and I ran out of my stash of Stugeron, so have been trying to get away with sailing passages without pharmaceutical help. This was a bad call on my part for this passage to the Balearics.
The conditions were initially promising. There were some waves, and soon I wasn't feeling well. I toughed it out, but was lethargic, had no appetite, and as a consequence, the family pretty much had to fend for itself for food and drinks. At about 6:30 pm as Vlad and I were eating dinner in the cockpit, hotdogs, we heard the sound of the fishing line running. Vlad jumped up. I wasn't in the mood. He urged me to slow down the boat, take in the jib, pull in the main etc. and as I was pulling in the sail, concentrating on easing the jib sheet, I missed an override and I blew our main cabin-top winch that we use for the sails. You can't imagine the feeling of breaking this winch. This was the kind of thing I knew I could do, and that I desperately wanted to avoid. There was no time for worry, as I had to rush to get the gaff out of the locker, as Vlad had caught another tuna! The conditions were bumpy, and the sun was setting. The kids were thrilled. We
prepared the thing and threw the meat into the freezer. I kept thinking about how gross I was feeling. Then Vlad worked on the winch, and got the main part going again, so we could still function with sails out to stabilize the boat motion, but the central part that does the self tailing was toast. Great! And the ocean state got rougher and rougher. The water poured over the boat, sometimes with a force that pushed it through the narrow opening where the lines are fed into the cockpit, and into the cabin with a large splash. Great! 10 foot waves at least, head on, and they were close together, and it wasn't fun. For the first time we did a 2 hour watch system as it was too rough to take it for longer stretches. At some point I was up in the cockpit barfing. Worst passage ever. Oh yes, and the jib needed to be repaired as the block fell off. Fortunately Vlad had a spare so that should have been easy, except even though the roughness of the sea had eased
somewhat, it was tricky due to the motion of the boat and occasional waves crashing onto the foredeck. Vlad lost his footing and hurt his left hand, leaving him in a suboptimal state. At least it wasn't broken. Things started to settle, and we made it to an anchorage at the the entrance of Mahon harbour in Menorca just before sunset. We don't like entering an anchorage that late, in a place we don't know, but we needed to rest. We were all relieved to be away from waves and get a full night's sleep. BTW the kids had no major issues with this crossing. Pavel slept more than usual and Catherine was fine, reading Harry Potter books.
What I learned. The Sardinian Sea is best avoided. And take the drugs!