Yearly archives: 2018

If sailing north Corsica had been amazing, to sail west Corsica was even better. Given that I’m writing this several months later from our winter berth, I can confidently say it was my favourite area of this year’s summer cruise.  It had clear, electric blue water, abundant sea life, walks […]

Sail West Corsica – Fish, Mountains, and a Mistral

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Post via ssb Crossing from Sardinia (Calaforte) to Sicily (Winter Quarters- change of plan!!) Departure date Sunday 30th September, 2018 at noon. Eta 9am Wednesday 3rd October 2018 Tuesday 2nd October Noon Current Position: 37 33.61 N 12 32.78 E Speed: 5.1 knots Course: 119 deg Noon to Noon run […]

Position Report- High Seas

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Post via ssb Crossing from Sardinia (Calaforte) to Sicily (Mazara) Departure date Sunday 30th September, 2018 at noon. Monday 1st October Noon Current Position: 38 20.76 N 10 23.46 E Speed: 5.6 knots Course: 111 deg noon to noon run 115nm (not bad for an old girl in these conditions) […]

Position Report- High Seas

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Test Post via ssb to check comms for crossing from Sardinia (Calaforte) to Sicily (Trapani) Scheduled departure date Sunday 30th September, 2018 at noon. Current Position: 33 06.02 N 08 18.21 E Speed: 0.0 knots Course: Anchored All well on board. BBq planned for this evening. Hoping for a reasonable […]

Position Report- High Seas

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Looking over Portoferraio harbour
Run Away From the Wind 20th August: With a strong mistral forecast in a few days time we were running away from our furthest point north on Italy’s mainland, back to Elba. It wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing, preferably we’d be doing an overnight to north Corsica […]

Running Away to Elba

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Looking down to Vernazza
12th August 2018 – It was another motor north from Pisa to Le Grazie. The previous day’s wind had left a swell at the entrance to the river Arno, but we still had plenty of water under us. Heading out to deeper water, the swell dropped down and eased throughout […]

Liguria – The Coast of Pastel Houses

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With some southerly winds forecast, it seemed the ideal opportunity to head on up the Italian mainland for a spot of touristing in Pisa. Baratti We didn’t fancy an overnighter to get to Pisa, so chose to do a couple of day hops. In hindsight, the overnight would have been […]

Tourists in Tuscany

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Fishing boats at Portoferraio
Our visit to the Italian island of Elba, or Napoleon was ‘ere part II. We were pleasantly surprised by Elba and spent more time than expected there. There was plenty to see and do on land with beautiful scenery, well marked walking trails, history, musical entertainment and an interesting cable […]

The Island of Elba

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Off to Corsica We left the Maddalena islands on a sunny morning for the short trip across to Corsica. Our plan was to sail south east Corsica aiming for Porto Vecchio. The often feisty winds of the Bonafaccio Straits were having a rest day and the most we saw was […]

Sail South East Corsica

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The Maddalena islands sit within a national park on Sardinia’s north east coast, just across the water from Corsica. A permit is required to visit and we hoped this fact might keep the number of boats down, now that we were ramping up towards the busy, high season months of […]

The Maddalena Archipelago

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