Ibiza, Spain

The next day was the opposite of the one before, a motor-sail in light winds to Ibiza. On the one hand it is a nice respite to have nothing to do but read, make lunch, and take part in Seppe’s impromptu podcast episode about risk and risk-taking. Yet, after 10 hours of grinding motor noise we were happy to make it to the island and, after some grumpy looking stares in the crowded harbour, find a space for an evening swim and dinner. After the murky beach water of Valencia and Barcelona, the crystal-clear, blue and turquoise water of Ibiza was a positive shock and we stayed as late as possible in the sea snorkelling amongst the sea grass, octopi and shimmering schools of fish until our stomachs were growling for dinner.

As if to give Seppe the best possible array of experiences Ibiza delivered a glorious day sail up to a bay on the north side of the island. We set off as early as we could given the two days of sailing ahead, pulled out the spinnaker pole, and cruised downwind in a refreshing light breeze blowing firmly over the royal blue sea. The wind did sort of peter out at the end but we didn’t let that dampen our spirits and we set anchor at about 14:00 in another glorious Cala alongside only 3 or 4 other boats with plenty of time for swimming and an introduction to cliff jumping using a prominent 10m tall boulder jutting out of the water near the beach. We took advantage of the short sailing day with an early dinner and cards under the stars, speculating that the bay was almost certainly so quiet because of the terrible, yet cherished cell reception.

After such a long shore break, setting back out to sea always has the tingle of nerves. The day was forecast to be steadily stiffening winds coming off the tail end of the Mistral that would start to veer as we reached the tip of the mainland. We set off with the hope that we could hop straight over to Ibiza through the night but a backup plan to stop off at Denia if the trip proved too hard going.
The light winds in the morning soon picked up into a pretty sporty first day out sailing for Seppe who had looked a little green the day before on the day trip, yet he took to it with wide eyed excitement and only a small amount of stomach rumbling. Even when the wind started to shift earlier than expected and we were beating against waves and a force 4, Seppe was up on the wet foredeck taking photos and shouting into the wind. As we got to mid-afternoon our heading had shifted some 30 degrees with no way to make the headland. We saw some other boats making tacks to get a line out towards the islands but after 8 hours of heavy going we decided to call it a good first day out and head into Denia.

We called in on the radio, luckily got a space, and after the choppy entrance and a terrible parking display, made it to our space. As we were packing everything away, however, a loud plop was followed by a scream, “NOOOOOOO!”. The crossbar for the Windpilot had gone in the marina’s murky water. Now, the water is not that deep, but swimming is usually forbidden in the marina and the visibility in what isn’t too far from an open sewer is usually next to zero. Still, having just spent 200 euros on a few bolts for Joe the Windpilot, we shuddered to think what the cost of a crossbar would be, so Cameron went to fetch the goggles and fins. Alerted by Roni’s stage scream, a friendly British boat from a few spots down came to investigate and immediately offered help in the form of a floating battery-operated dive compressor and some diving weights. “Do you know how to dive?” “Yes, of course!” Cameron says, immediately half-unsure about it. “Just be sure to breathe out when you come up, remember?” “Uh, yeah, sure, got it.”

We weighted a line off the stern beneath the Windpilot as a guide for where to start the search and to help orientate in the brown depths. After a couple of false starts, Cameron was finally rummaging blind around the mixture of sludge and unidentified sharp stuff that makes up the bottom of every marina. Suddenly, a flash of metal, and we had it! The whole team was pretty chuffed with the success and excitement and we all befriended each other on the required sailing apps. Then our exhausted Seven Tenths crew went on the routine check-in expedition, got a shower, and shove down some food in preparation for the long leg starting early the next morning.

VALENCIA, Spain

The city-break to Barcelona was a nice interlude in our trip, but after a few days of baking heat and streets heavy with summer tourists, we were happy to get back on the bus to Valencia and Seven Tenths, this time with Seppe in tow. We were filled with a small tingling of anxiousness at how our first boat guest would adapt to the lifestyle but tried to excite him on the ride south with planning and stories that had by now become exaggerated in the telling.

Since our stop in Valencia before had been so short, we carved out a few days to spend in the city and had invited Eyal to come from Berlin to share them with us too. Although we hadn’t yet experienced the Balearic Islands in summer, we had the feeling from stories and the overbooked marina schedules that finding a stable place to stop and make repairs was going to be very expensive. That meant that mornings in Valencia were spent on little repairs and tweaks until the heat became too unbearable to work and we would get a taxi in to town to walk around the city and dinner with Eyal and Peter.

After Barcelona the city felt much more local. We were taken by the surreal and regal Cuidad des les Artes by Calatrava, although the complex apparently sucks up local funds and suffers from endless broken panes of glass, and it’s contrast with the charming old city. The most memorable part of the city however, especially in the summer heat, is the linear park following the river bed as it curves around and through the town down to the sea. The shade and running water feels like another form of public transport that you can leave at the right stop for the part of town you want to visit. Although Eyal wasn’t going to make the trip out to Ibiza with us, we did manage to go out for a day sail with the boys, trying to keep down lunch in rollercoaster swell anchored off-shore a few miles south of the marina.

BARCELONa, Spain

Torrevieja, Spain

Torrevieja is by no means a place we would have stopped if not for the leak. During the week we had spent there we were constantly baffled by the large number of British, Dutch and German tourists, as well as the many Spanish tourists that flooded the promenade and quayside.

Sure, the Salinas are beautiful and there’s the Submarine “Museum” which, as exciting as it may be, is even smaller than the Lee-on-Solent Hovercraft Museum, but the rest of the city is nothing to write a blog post about.

We ended up in Torrevieja because of an annoying drip around our prop shaft seal that had suddenly become a significant leak.

On our 2nd morning on anchor since leaving Cartagena, we got up and readied ourselves and the boat for the next leg to Valencia. During the routine engine check we (Cameron) decided to try and put an end to the old, slow leak and put some grease around where the water was coming from. Immediately we started taking in an amount of water worth worrying about (two cups of water every 20 minutes).

We weren’t particularly worried about sinking -  the water-activated sump pump was doing it’s job efficiently - but more annoyed by the periodic drone of the pump. We decided we didn’t want to press on to Valencia as that would mean the leak continuing into the night, and one of us (Cameron) would have to get up at 20 minute intervals to turn the pump off manually.

The next 3 hours were spent ringing up every boatyard within a 30 NM radius , including Cartagena which we just left, to find a place that would take us in asap. Eventually salvation came from Oscar, a Dutch mechanic who owns a boat yard in Marina Salinas in Torrevieja.

We arrived at Salinas at around 17:00 that day and despite the hour, got to work immediately.

Diagnosing the problem was simple - the shaft seal was leaking. Normally, the shaft seal has to be changed every 500 motor hours or every 5 years, ours hasn’t been changed since 2017 and we hoped we could get away with changing it at the end of the season rather than when we first bought the boat…

Yet, as with all boat repair jobs, the complexity is not in the repair itself, but all the work you need to do to even make the repair possible: we quickly realised we couldn't take the shaft off to replace the seal because the flexible coupling located between the shaft and the gearbox had welded itself together with rust into what was has become essentially a single piece of metal.

So started the week long saga of attempting to remove the coupling with the help of Oscar’s endlessly patient crew.

We began with light encouragement - tapping, banging, pulling, using a comical series of progressively larger and larger wrenches. Yet after a couple days it was obvious that a heavier hand was needed and whilst we watched with dread, the acetylene torch was finally wheeled over to the boat. The bilge was covered up with wet rags and the torch flame aimed at the coupling and a few blasts with the torch followed by flash cooling finally loosened the stubborn nut.

Finally, after a week of persuasion, the boat was ready for the 20 minute job of changing out the shaft seal. They dragged us over to the travel lift and slowly craned us out. Then, while everyone was at lunch, they switched out the seal and had us back in the water in an hour.

After much thanking and promises to return, we settled our stunning cheap bill (considering how much they did for us) and organised the boat for a few days of hard sailing to make up for the lost time.

We were now a week behind schedule with a date to keep in Barcelona.

Cabo De Palos, Spain

The first night on anchor after a long period in the marina is always a relief. No matter how long or rough the journey to the anchorage was, no matter how nice the marina you’d just left was, and no matter how exhausting the anchoring process itself may have been, the moment you still the engine and sit down to have your well deserved dinner surrounded by nothing but clear blue waters and cliff sides you know it’s been worth it.  With that said, our journey over to Cabo de Palos was neither rough nor was the marina in Cartagena particularly lush, but the elation we felt was no lesser.

Not much to say about Cabo de Palos itself as we did not visit it, in fact, the closest we got to the town was the boulder in the water by the beach which we and a bunch of local teenagers climbed onto from the water in order to repeatedly jump off of.

After the swim and the jumping we returned aboard for a sunset dinner and an early night, as we planned on leaving first thing early in the morning towards the next charming anchorage.

Sometimes that’s all there is to a story.

Cartagena, Spain

Returning after such a long time away is often a bittersweet experience. What you left remains frozen in your memory, (and in your fridge) yet the inevitable passage of time means that despite your best attempts reality has not stood still.

In some aspects the attempt to freeze time is a matter of maintenance. When you leave the boat, ideally almost everything works. If you’ve done the ‘winterising’ right then it should still work when you get back. On that front we did pretty well for our first hibernation period. Even after 6 months the mooring lines were almost good as new and after a bit of fuel, oil and encouragement pretty much everything sprung obligingly back to life. The batteries were still alive, nothing was mouldy, the engine ran (although a barnacle hat to be prized off the through hull to revive the water intake).

In the spirit of our resolution to take things slowly this season, we decided to simply lazily wait for some good wind to carry us over in the direction of Valencia, rather than beat up wind or motor. We’re not rushing towards the Atlantic this time, so we can afford to only move when conditions are ideal.

Anyway, we still had a couple of weeks of boat maintenance to go through in Cartagena so we turned to face our wall of sticky notes once again and tackle them one by one. In between tasks we had time to meet up with some old and new friends in our boatshood. Dawn and Joe the veteran, who were getting ready to sail back to the US, and Gal and Martina who were passing through Cartagena again on their way East. Probably one of the greatest joys of sailing is having a nice boat-cooked-meal and playing cards into the small hours of the night with friends.

We also had more time to explore Cartagena, a city we probably never would have come across if we hadn't been sailing. The city is mostly known for its naval history but it also has an impressive amount of Roman ruins in fairly good condition (as recommended to us by Cameron’s grandfather). Whenever we needed some off boat time we would go to one of the various, almost-free museums the city has to offer; underwater archeology, naval history, submarines, amphitheatre, etc. and spend the day in their cool and quiet halls.

P.s. Cartagena has a fancy  array of pavements:

Cartagena, Spain

If the Menorca leg was where we started to notice the cold, the trip to Cartagena is where it became the most present part of the journey. The winds and the course were definitely in our favour more than they had been for months. We were still beating to make progress towards Spain, but the route we chose skirted along the southern coast of the Balearic islands, staying close to land for cell signal, important emotional support, and some shelter from the north westerlies along the way.

Unlike our most recent few passages, setting off into the ocean with screenshots of the weather for the coming days on the iPad, now we could replot our route as we went along and adjust for the fickle forecasts of the Med as they updated. 

Yet the bright, warm sailing during the day was a necessary respite from the bitter nights. After dark the temperatures plunged quickly down to single digits, pushed even further by the wind and the damp. Each night was a battle with the elements to be comfortable enough in the stern pilot seat and last through one's watch, gritting against the cold wind. On the last night arriving finally in Cartagena, the cold was so extreme that the person on watch could only bear to do so from below, poking his or her head out every 10 minutes for a bit until the shivering took over and we had to retreat back into the sheltered cabin.

Finally rounding the point into the harbour at 3am the place appeared ominous and picturesque. A cruise ship terminal, gas processing facility and military shipyard sit clustered around the water, with the pair of marinas huddled in the middle. A thick fog lay in folds over the swaying masts and a dense wall of noise from the huge flock of seagulls circling over the fishing harbour, diving and swooping to snap chum from the water. A lone marinero helped us tie up and then wished us goodnight in broken English. We had a roasting hot engine water shower and slept like the dead cuddled up in the front cabin.

When we woke up, that world was gone. A friendly guy directed us to our winter berth and helped us snuggle into the pontoon where we promptly met the neighbours. The charming Dutch with their fabulous motor yacht from the far east (never thought we’d call a motor boat fabulous, but this one truly is), the Brit and Lithuanian pair using their boat as a mobile office for their wine reselling business, the French family trying to get their boat back to Normandy.

After a day spent trying to check in and being firmly told that we really needn’t bother, we were collected by Andre, Belinda, Oliver and Renate for a night in town where they introduced us to the dangers of 3 Tapas + a bottle of wine for 20 euros and we shared the stories of how we all made it to this funny, former Roman harbour town on the south coast of Spain.

The next day they also invited us to join their Christmas table, combined with the Sunday barbecue held weekly next to the marina office. We feasted happily under the Spanish sun that finally broke through the fog, drinking bottles of regional wine pulled out of Oliver’s bilge, and talking about plans for the winter.

The funny thing about plans though, is that they tend to change…

Menorca, Spain

The faint weather window that we chose for the way back to Menorca was at least an improvement on the Tunisia-Sardinia leg, nonetheless we definitely learned how valuable our engine is. Leaving in to the evening head-swell of almost 2 metres was definitely an uncomfortable start, but as expected, soon the waves settled down. The issue turned out to be making enough progress to windward as the wind swirled around by 10-15 degrees at a time. A broad reach would quickly become close-hauled or even a tack, and the engine stayed on constantly to ensure we were making enough progress before the strong winds which were due to arrive on the evening of day 3.

The character of the Balearic autumn made itself fully felt in the 3 day crossing. The cold and the wet of the European winter that we hadn’t really experienced till now gripped the boat from the sundown until the late mornings. Blowing down from the southern alps the bitter wind made our summery wardrobes feel very thin and during those hours we had to utilise every warm piece of clothing and waterproof we could, layering them like an onion. Those swirling cold winds also brought storms and although we plotted our course well to avoid them, the second night was spent with an alarming outlook over a 360° horizon constantly lit by lightning cracks. Sailing at night with no other vessel in sight for hours and even days, surrounded by storms was rather nerve wrecking, we focused on spotting the lighting and counted the seconds after each one to make sure we were out of the thunders’ sound range.

Needless to say, after 3 relatively sleepless days of constant rope adjustments, tacking and engine noise, we were very glad to see Menorca on the horizon. As the sun set and we slowly motored into the beginning of the long, natural cove that is Mahon, even in the dark we were stunned by the sheltered and beautiful old port city. The entrance reveals itself like a set-piece from Lord of the Rings as you follow buoys up the gorge where the blocky shapes of buildings and clusters of lights cover the steep hillsides and every small clump of island within the channel. Although the marina was closed for the Sunday evening we slowly manoeuvred into our spot in the calmest of waters and quickly fell asleep feeling very safe indeed.

Waking up after the cold nights of the open ocean during the crossing, the morning seemed to return summer to the world. Deeply sheltered from the wind, the sun flooded down into the steep and layered streets and steps of the city. Although not full of particular monuments, the whole city is a delight to explore, feeling preserved and transported from some other time. Alleys twist and wind through the stark geology, unexpectedly delivering you to the many courtyards and plazas of the city. Yet always, the place relates back to the sea and the water, with small boats ferrying people between the islands and kids having kayak races in the harbour. 

The experience of Mahon's concentrated life along the 3,5 miles long bay reminded us both of Jonathan Raban’s A Passage to Juneau (p.81): “When white settlers and missionaries began to travel aboard Indian canoes as passengers, they were baffled and irritated by the strange, slow, halting progress of even the simplest voyage… …The whites had entered a looking - glass world, where their own most basic terms were reversed. Their whole focus was directed toward the land: its natural harbours, its timber, its likely spots for settlement and agriculture. They travelled everywhere equipped with mental chainsaws and at a glance could strip a hill of its covering forest, and see there a future of hedges, fields, houses, churches. They viewed the sea as a medium of access to the all - important land. Substitute “sea” for “land,” and vice - versa, in that paragraph, and one is very close to the world that emerges from Indian stories, where the forest is the realm of danger, darkness, exile, solitude, and self - extinction, while the sea and its beaches represent safety, light, home, society, and the continuation of life.
The civilization of the coastal Indians was centred on a thin ribbon of shoreline between the water and the woods. Their grandly substantial wooden houses, with family crests painted on their fronts, flanked by carved totemic posts and poles, faced out to sea, their backs turned to the forbidding land. Going into the forest was distinctly more dangerous than going to sea: its hazards were more unpredictable and less easily avoided than the maelstroms and krakens of the deep.”

After the weeks in Italy, the arrival in Spain was also a welcome change. Supplies for the boat were suddenly cheap again and we took advantage of the varied cuisines by heading to a delicious Mexican restaurant whilst waiting for our clothes at the Laundromat. Menorca in the off-season definitely felt like a lazy paradise, a sea village hidden away from what we knew were harsh, early winter seas.

Carloforte, Sardinia

After the eventful voyage from Tunisia that both boosted and dented our confidence, it was nice to finally have a short and calm day-sail along to Carloforte. We spent two whole weeks in Cagliari waiting out the worst of the headwinds. We felt refreshed and ready for it, even keen.

We had also organised with the Aussies to meet at Carloforte for dinner and were looking forward to seeing our friends again and finally sharing our story of the journey across from Tunisia since we hadn’t seen them since. Our attempt at a dawn departure was sadly delayed by waiting to settle up our bills at the marina, yet the late start let us set off into the warmth of the morning sun with barely a cloud - a blessed thing when Sailing in the winter. 

With 25 knots behind us and 60 nautical miles ahead of us along the south coast of Sardinia, it was a perfect day to try out the new pulley system for the wind vane as a test run for the longer trip to Menorca.

Our third-hand Windpilot had so far been merely hitching a ride for 1300 miles, yet after a bit of fiddling to attune to the wiggle of the boat we settled into a calm, straight course. The only problem was the strange vibrations that seemed to be resonating through the hull caused by the movement of the water over the pilot’s rudder… but it’s a nicer sound than the squealing of the heroic Autopilot with its constant begging to be bottle-fed, and presumably there’s a way to work that out. That’s a problem for another day! 

We headed into Carloforte harbour, the nearest marina to the Balearic Islands and our “waiting room” for the next however-long-it-takes-for-the-weather-to-clear. With the wind dying down to only 10 knots the pressure couldn’t keep the vane straight, so we turned on the engine in the still waters of the bay, one of us steered in the dark whilst the other went up to the bow to keep an eye out for fishing pots that the Aussies had told us to look out for.

We arrived to a warm welcome, Hannah, Matt, John and Alison, and Ralph the dog were waiting for us on the pontoon, and we stepped almost straight off the boat to dinner with them. We dined in a local restaurant that felt almost carved from the rock in the barrel vaulted cellar of a building in the small town. 

Carloforte is mostly a summer getaway for the local Sardinians and the island is only reachable by boat. It’s on the one hand, understandably quiet and secluded in the autumn, and on the other shockingly lively for such a small corner of the world. Halloween evening was spent at a tiny pub in town-square. It had seemed as if the whole town was out for music and a puppet show as kids scrambled through the legs of the chatting adults holding glittering sparklers.

At the marina we got a small taste of home, emanating bouts of techno at random times of the day, a race boat, full of tall, beer drinking Germans vacationing in the most stress not-free way one could imagine - delivering the boat to the starting line for the transatlantic race.

But of course there is no such thing as a week without anything breaking down on an old boat. Ever since Tunisia we have noticed a strange, unpleasant smell around the galley. We came up with a wide variety of speculations as to the source of this smell (somewhat like a rotten egg), but it wasn't until we settled into Carloforte that we finally realised that the fleeting stench and the constant setting off of our gas alarm was not actually from the gas bottles – which we had meticulously looked over to the point of madness – but in fact from our dying started battery! It turns out that our dying acid battery was venting sulphur fumes and a suspicious bubbling liquid into our bilge… Oops. Luckilywe had the world’s most helpful marinero looking after us and he magicked us a new starter battery for a fair price within no time.

Cagliari, Sardinia

Cagliari appeared slowly as we sailed in, moody and bleary eyed. The capital of Sardinia grew where it is because of the large shallow bay, sheltered from the Meltemi winds that roar down through this area in the winter. So sheltered, in fact, that we had to turn on the engine still almost 20 miles from the city, and slowly putter into the harbour with the thick mist condensing on the deck and in our hair, salty from the storm.

After finding a spot in Marina del Sole, a shabby but friendly place at the end of the town quay, we all took long deserved showers and settled in for a desperately needed midday nap. Although not 100% refreshing, that provided us all enough energy to make it out of the marina to the nearest pizza place for the food and celebratory pint that we had been dreaming of for days. That of course sent us immediately to sleep again! 

We woke the next morning much more alive and walked the hour out to the coast guard office for the friendliest check-in we’ve ever had, with speedy paperwork followed by coffee and a tour of their uffici. Then to the train station to see off Sonja who we’d almost forgotten would have to leave since she now seemed a natural part of Seven Tenths.

Suddenly we were alone again with a few days of forecast headwinds in which to explore the city. 

Despite the atmospheric beginnings, Cagliari turned out to be a beautiful and lively town deserving to join the list as one of our highlights. The huddled old-style streets by the water are full of small surprises like the Kyrgyzstani dumpling restaurant, which we visited for lunch, and a surprisingly well stocked chandlers.

Walking up the hill from there the steepness comes as a shock. From the sea you don’t notice the gradient hidden behind the art-nouveau facades of the grand boulevard yet suddenly you find yourself  hiking up impossibly steep alleyways and grand staircases to the fortress city that overlooks the harbour. The buildings themselves seem shocked by the transition - with so many seeming to be barely held up by gridded auras of scaffold. All the while we were struck by the textures, sounds and the smells of the place from the many street musicians, the bustling food market and even in the churches there always seemed to be some choir or organist practising. (We’ve collected some sound samples from around the city, you can listen to them below).

The individual ‘attractions’ of the city didn’t hold us for long – the Roman amphitheatre is best seen from the road and the botanical gardens are charmingly tumble-down – but the city felt welcoming and lively after our time in the Tunisian marina, and we embraced the dropping temperatures and fresh air of European Autumn.