Sailing with Martin from Carloforte to Barcelona

Dottore, Capitàn y Commandante San Martino del Viento di Schaffhausen (aka Martin Löw) needed a hand to bring his chartered boat back from Sardinia to Barcelona after 3 months of sailing the Mediterranean Sea. I was more than happy to give him both of mine. Promptly landed in Cagliari, Sardegna and had a transfer arranged to Carloforte. Martin picked me up, dinner, ice cream (crucial, without it, all navigation will fail) and bedtime to leave early in the morning. Early in the morning turned out to be 9am. Given the plan to get up at 6 to leave at 7, that’s like holidays. We sailed off smoothly, sun shining, until much later the wind picked up a bit and the waves increased a lot. Up north, a strong mistral blew his anger down the Gulf of Lion. Well, I ate something wrong, had too much sun or was just seasick, I don’t know. After a while of sailing in a 3-meter cross-sea, I suffered the consequences.

32 hours later we sailed into the lovely port of Mahon on Minorca. A very pretty place. Comparable, less dramatic but wider than the port of Bonifacio. We stayed two nights, relaxed and enjoyed the calm of a moored boat.

A strong gale warning for the time we intended to sail up north to Barcelona on day 4 got all our attention. We decided to leave quickly to avoid it. It turned out to be the right decision. We sailed, with motor support, 22 hours all the way up on a very quiet sea back to Barcelona.