Provincia di Sassari

It's a quiet, grey morning as we leave the sleeping anchorage of Port D'addaia, for a 190 n.m. (350km) journey to Sardinia.
It seems like a deeper step into the Mediterranean, further away from Spain and a coastline we have grown somewhat familiar with.
This will be our first overnight passage since we arrived into Cartagena last October.
As always on such a passage, there's a little nervous tension in the air, or maybe it's just in my head.
Last night I fitted our lifelines, strong straps which run down the the length of the deck so you can clip on your safety harness if needed on deck in foul weather, or at night, when there might be nobody else up to raise the alarm should you go over the side.
It's been a while since I last fitted these and they certainly remind me we're going offshore.
In the last week we discovered some dirty diesel in our tank, and even though we've changed the filters and extracted 25 litres from the bottom of the tank, there's still a little nagging doubt about the engine, which I know we will need on this trip.
I'm also still recovering from a heavy bout of Covid which left me feeling washed out.
We could be waiting to be ready for ever, sometimes you need to go. Vamanos!
The forecast is for the strongest wind and swell to come in the first 12 hours of the trip, on our beam, before calming overnight and helping by moving behind us and helping our progress. That's as good as as it gets.
And so it proves, within 6 hours we are reduced to motor sailing with a double reefed mainsail, to minimise the roll from the northerly swell.
Regal had been carrying her headsail OK, but was just heeled over too much for comfort, so we decided to furl that instead, even at a slight loss of speed. Colm feels the most seasick but thankfully he doesn't get sick.
By dinner time the wind and seas have calmed somewhat and the night ahead seems like it will be OK.
Colm rallies enough to eat a full meal and watch an episode on his ipad so all seems pretty good.
I take the first watch and thankfully the time passes reasonably quickly, with just enough shipping to keep you alert but nothing coming too close. At 23.00 we pass into Italian waters so it's ciao all round when Ruby visits to examine the stars, using an app to help identify the various constellations. At midnight Margaret comes on watch and I gladly turn in.
Shortly into my next watch, at around 4.15
I am sitting on the compaionway steps when I hear a loud thump, we have hit something.
Not what you want to hear.
I rush up into the cockpit and am just in time to hear something splashing in our wake. I figure we must have hit a large fish like a sunfish which we have often seen lounging on the surface.
That excitement helps to wake me up for my watch!
The Eastern sky ahead soon starts lightening and I next get a visit from Colm, full of beans after a night's sleep. He's soon joined by his sister and I take advantage of their presence to lie down in the cockpit and grab a quick nap.
Not long after we see the mountains of Sardinia rising ahead. Time to hoist our shiny new Italian courtesy flag. A few hours later we are passing under high cliffs and into a large sheltered bay, where we drop anchor and relax for the next two nights.
Then it's a short trip across the bay to the historic city of Alghero, for some clean diesel, drinking water and a night out.
Arrivederci!Read more