Submitted by Bill Hughes on Tue, 04/05/2010 - 18:33

I'm setting off on the 5th May with some old shipmates to help take a friends boat (Gilly B) from St Carlos (Spain) to Mahon, Cagliari, Palermo, Stromboli, Straits of Messina, Proveza and finally Kerkyra ..... or in other words a quick blast across the Mediterranean Sea :-)

Gilly B is a brand new Beneteau Oceanis 43 and was bought by Graham Bush to fulfil a lifelong ambition of spending 5 years cruising around the Med in very slow time.  The boat was named after his wife (Gillian Bush) in recognition of her agreeing to sell their house (and trade down to a small bungalow) and their gorgeous Najad 331 to help fund the trip.  A small price to pay!

Gilly B set of in May last year from the River Orwell and after completing Rally Portugal she slowly meandered her way with the help of family and friends to her winter berth near Barcelona.

Access to the internet is a bit of an unkown quantity for me at this stage but hopefully I will get the opportunity to maintain this blog and keep our dear friend (and webmaster) Chris Smith happy in the process :-)

5th May - flying with 'Ryan Scare' from Stansted to Valencia

6th May - arrived safely after a bumpy flight with Ryan Scare.  Spent most of the day trying to repair the damage caused by the EMP from a huge lightning strike that occurred close by.  Up and down the mast swapping aerials etc. is no fun :-(  The last thing to fix is the interface between the AIS and the chart plotter and unbelievably I spent the whole of last night dreaming about the damned thing!  Planning to set off from Sant Carles for Mahon today but the wind at the moment is a bit lively so we may sit it out until tonight.  The Doc (whilst patching up the Spanish courtesy flag which disintegrated in high winds) has managed to sew it to his trouser leg which raised a few titters amongt the crew.  We may have to hoist the Doc up the starboard crosstree if we can't remove it in one piece but he'll only have to stay there for 120 miles or so until we have to hoist the Italian flag :-)

Sant Carles to Mahon – The passage was a good a shakedown for both the crew and the boat.  The total distance covered was 190 miles, wildlife was in abundance and we were fortunate enough to see numerous minky whales, dolphins and sun fish.

In addition we had almost permanent stream of Portuguese men of war complete with their peculiar sails that they use to carry themselves along in the breeze.  One piece of good advice from the ‘Doc’ was to always wear shoes on deck when they are around as they can give you a nasty sting.  True to form we found several on deck so his advice was well heeded after that.

My friend the ‘Doc’ is one of the most interesting people I have ever met.  He is a retired GP from Saxmundham and a true eccentric.  Today he was given a perfectly good sandwich for lunch only for him to dissect it.  He started by eating the bottom half of the bread, followed by the top half and finally the contents, one by one.  A true character and one of the most knowledgeable sailors I have had the privilege to sail with.  The ‘Doc’ will hopefully be giving us a talk at the club this winter about his single handed trip aboard his Rival 41 ‘Tuesday’ from Orford to Brazil which he described in his book as a ‘voyage of personal discovery’.

The passage took us just under 29 hours and the night was one of the darkest I have ever spent at sea.  There was no moon, stars or planets to offer any form of light and this is meant to be the Med!  Despite best endeavours to repair the receive side of our AIS we failed but were at least left with the transmit side working.  During the night we made extensive use of radar however a large ferry did pick up our AIS transmission and called us up to advise us he would alter course to avoid us.  What a gentlemen!  We drew some comfort from the Cap de Formentar lighthouse at the bottom of Majorca which has guided mariners over the years, warning them to stay clear of this notorious’ ship killing’ stretch of coast.

Menorca is a very pretty island and upon arrival we anchored in Cala Taulera bay in Mahon harbour.  Mahon has been much fought over throughout the years as it was a very strategic port.  Our anchorage lay between the former isolation hospital and the enormous fort mola

One of the legacies left behind by Nelsons navy is the gin distillery.  This fine liquid is best drunk in the cockpit under the biminy with a slice of cucumber.  The taste closely resembles that of Hendricks if any of you are familiar with that.

What a small world it is.  A boat called ‘Naivasha’, a Hallberg Rassey 36 from Orford and previously owned by Mike Pearce, arrived with her new owners to join us for ‘sundowners’.  Her new owner, a rather blunt Yorkshire man going by the name of ‘Rocket Ron’ was so desperate to join us in getting to our next port of call (Sardinia) that he offered us a crew exchange of his girlfriend Hazel for our very own James Robinson.  Much to our disappointment our skipper (Graham Bush) forced us to decline an otherwise perfectly good offer!

After a splendid gin induced coma, we left our secluded anchorage and headed out of the bay bound for Sardinia, a distance of around 220 miles.

Mahon to Porto Vesmo (Sardinia) – During the first part of the passage we enjoyed an exhilarating sail but seen little wildlife other than a magnificent giant turtle.  The night brought some nasty squalls with thunder and lightning and a very confused and lumpy sea.  We tracked the squalls using our radar, on occasions slowing the boat down to allow them to pass just ahead of us.  We were a little nervous during the lightning having already lost some of our (very expensive) electronics to a previous strike in Sant Carles.  We were pleased when dawn broke so we could start seeing the waves we kept falling off during the night. 

The highlights in terms of wildlife were schools of bottlenose dolphins that ducked and dived alongside us in perfect unison and flying fish that skimmed across the top of the waves.

I tried my hand at taking some sun sights and realised that I had almost completely forgotten everything that I had learned on my Yachtmaster Ocean course. Thank god for GPS that’s all I can say!

For the last part of the passage we enjoyed a lively 30 knots over the transom and achieved a steady 10 knots using full main and poled out Genoa.  The ‘Doc’ protested and claimed we were all barking mad to which we all replied ‘woof woof’.

An interesting observation for the weather minded was that we had both mackerel skies and mare’s tails that we all know make sailors carry less sails. The wind was behind us meaning the low pressure system that was driving this front was on our left (as we are in the Northern Hemisphere).

The passage was 214 miles long and took just under 35 hours.  Upon arrival in Porto Vesmo we were greeted by a very friendly ‘arm waving’ Italian harbourmaster who directed us to our berth and took our lines. 

Sitting in the cockpit enjoying our SAD’s (safe arrival drinks) we observed that the local fishing boats are crewed by 12 or so burly young Italians all shouting and waving their arms and it rather reminded me of seagulls fighting over a bag of chips dropped on the quay.  The boats had no engines and were powered by 4 enormous oars and we figured this cold only mean one thing, yet another wheeze to claw money out of the EU coffers.

Porto Vesmo to Palermo – We are still running away the fast approaching front that is building around Gibraltar.  This is forecast to bring winds in excess of 40 knots with seas of 6 metres.  We had a fairly uneventful passage of some 192 miles taking around 30 hours.  The highlight during the night was dolphins swimming alongside in the phosphorence giving them a wonderful green glow rather like green torpedoes.  On arrival in Palermo we had a devil of a job finding somewhere to park but with the help of a very helpful harbourmaster we managed to squeeze ourselves in outside the Yacht Club Mediterranean.  This was followed by our first night ashore for pizzas all round and a jug of local Sicilian wine.

Palermo to Portarosa - We said farewell to Palermo at 0600hrs and headed East for Portarosa, a distance of around 100 miles and just west of Messina.  Our objectives were to put further distance between us and the approaching front, hole up and position ourselves ready for passing through the straights of Messina.

Swearing was heard around 0800hrs as a result of the ‘Doc’ formatting the SD card in his camera and losing all his photographs.  Yet another senior (CRAFT) moment from our intrepid friend from Saxmundham!

Breakfast on route was a real treat, ‘Birchers Muesli’.  It consists of half a cupful of porridge oats soaked in milk, fruit (e.g. raisins, banana etc.) plus a generous dollop of Greek style yoghurt topped with a drizzle of honey.  Delicious!

Another good weather observation on route was lines of clouds forming over the tops of the mountains and funnelling down the slopes towards the sea.  This is a good indicator of ‘katabatic’ winds to follow and true to form they delivered big intermittent gusts of cold air.

We sailed quite close in to the coast and the scenery was stunning.  The long awaited front finally caught up with us about an hour out of Portarosa and it got a bit lively with winds in excess of 40 knots.  The poor skipper was down below making a chicken curry and it made for very interesting eating whilst we were crashing along and closing in on what is to become our bolt hole for a few days.

Now safely tucked up having SADs and the wind is already blowing its old boots off.

Our next passage will be through the straits of Messina and on to mainland Italy before the final leg to Corfu, a distance of around 300 miles.

We now have around 800 miles under our keel in 8 days and are not too disappointed at having to hole up here for a few days.

At the time of writing, we have spent 3 nights storm bound in Portarosa.  Gilly B has been rising up and down in her berth and at first we thought it was down to the cheap gin we bought earlier in the day, then we realised that it was a storm surge, better known in these parts as a ‘Resaca’.  The ‘Resaca’ was quite small but nevertheless it caused the water level to rise and fall abruptly by around 12 inches every 15 to 20 minutes.  The Resaca is in effect a mini but rapid tidal wave.  The barometric pressure fell from its steady state of 1010 down to 998 in the space of 12 hours.  As you would expect winds of over 40 knots followed.  The barometer then rose again quite rapidly to 1013 which brought even stronger winds.  “Sudden rise after fall foretells a stronger blow” - and makes the crew change their under garments J

We all did our ‘doby’ and the ‘Doc’ for some bizarre reason decided to do his in bleach.  This was fine but he then placed his wet washing on top of ours and the next day we all sported multi coloured designer shirts.  James even had multi coloured underpants which were very trendy.

This morning (Monday 17th May) we walked round to the entrance to take a look at the sea state and make a decision as to whether or not we could get underway for ‘Reggio’ at the bottom of Italy.  A 5m swell and white horses out at sea convinced us it was not worth attempting to get out of the narrow entrance and so (like everyone else) we decided to stay put until things settle down a bit more.  As a result, the plan now is to sail to Corfu in one hit, a distance of around 300 miles.  Winds are forecast to be North Westerly so all being well we should have a very nice passage.

Portarosa to Corfu – We have decided to give the ‘Doc’ his sandwiches broken down in to their component parts to save him time disassembling them.

The ‘Doc’ teaches the RYA Yachtmaster Ocean courses for SeaTrain sailing.  He’s clearly missing it as he insists on using me as his student.  I’ve tried several times to hide the sextant but sadly he keeps finding it.  My first fix turned out to be within 7 miles of where it should have been, or as I prefer to put it, the GPS was accurate to within 7 miles!  My second noon fix was within 2.2 miles of latitude and 12 miles longitude.  Even though the methodology used was the traditional I think there is room for improvement although the ‘Doc’ reckons I didn’t do too badly given how rusty I was.

We left Portarosa at first light in the knowledge that the sea state would be extremely uncomfortable and we would face a 10 mile ‘sleigh ride’ until we rounded the first headland.  It did exactly what it said on the tin and we received a thorough rinsing.  Our efforts were rewarded when the seas settled down after we rounded the headland and headed for the straits of Messina.  The straits are notorious for whirlpools and a strong current runs for which we had timed our departure to take advantage of.  We enjoyed a fantastic sail through the straits touching speeds of 10 knots whilst dodging the numerous ships and ferries.

The transition in the weather when we came out of the straits into the Ionian Sea was incredible.  It was like entering another world.  Proper warm weather gear was donned for the first time since leaving Spain and we enjoyed a very smooth crossing with a glorious night sky and schools of dolphins to keep us company.  We had our best 24 hour run sailing a very satisfying 181 miles, not quite Open 60 standards but not bad for a ‘Beneteau Oceanis 43’ laden down with gin and pork scratchings.  Upon arrival at Corfu we had a spectacular electrical storm with huge forks of lightning that lit up our final few miles to Gouvia.  The passage was 333 miles and took us 46 hours.

Corfu is sadly the end of our little adventure.  We have sailed a total of 1,141 miles in 8 days of sailing and had a ball in the process.  Four very good friends just having fun, often at the expense of each other, but isn’t that what sailing is all about!  All four of us are members of the famous ‘Panic Button’ club that boasts a total membership of 8 worldwide.  The requirement for membership is that you must, through a brilliant piece of seamanship (which has never been in any sailing manuals before but will be in future) get yourself out of a bad situation that you got into through your own crass incompetence.  Members are required to confess to their sins and bars may be awarded for future ‘cock ups’.

Our skipper, Graham Bush, previously owned a beautiful Najad 331 (which he kept at Orford) and he deliberated long and hard before selling her and buying ‘Gilly B’ for his 5 year Mediterranean adventure.  She has been most impressive to both sail and live aboard and her build quality is extremely good.  There is no doubt she is the right tool for the job.

Graham & Gillian Bush will now enjoy the rest of the summer cruising in the Greek Islands along with family and friends. As for the rest of us, volcano permitting, we fly back to the UK courtesy of ‘squeezy jet’.