We decided we would head for Cagliari, which would be less travel hassle for Susan and also meant she could spend more time aboard. We decided to make it a two day trip of reasonable day sails. The first planned stop was Teulada. It was a very clean marina with an egg that opened and served drinks, no kidding! It was in the middle of nowhere though.

We got a taxi that night on the premise of whether we wanted fish or meat. We chose meat, I think the girls let me chose meat when they might have preferred fish, however what a choice or rather lack of it. It was a massive beautiful set meal and they just kept bringing out more. In the end we took some back in a doggy bag for lunch on the next day’s sail.

Passage to Teulada

Galley slave making lunch with the leftovers

Content or what?

Peggy Too on the helm

Teulada Marina

The next day we set off on Susan’s final leg with us to Cagliari

The main harbour and old town in the background at Cagliari

The walkway in from St Elmo Marina were we are now berthed (masts in the background)

Having seen Susan off at 0500 onto her next holiday in Alicante via Edinburgh we went back to sleep.

Over the next few days we visited a few other potential wintering stops around the area by bus.

We finally settled on where we were in Cagliari. They all had pros and cons so only time will tell.

The next visitor will be Snawbaw, my sister in law, who is coming out for a week on the 5^th October, cannae wait. Captain Chaos signing off for now……..

We spent a couple of nights in Calasetta. It was a nice place and we even considered wintering here. Though we all agreed it could probably get a bit quiet in the winter. We tried two different restaurants and had a day at the beach just chilling, bliss after two nights at sea.

The woman from Del Monte

Goes with my eyes No ?

A Passage to India Sardinia!

Susan is a sailor back home and she was keen to do the passage to Sardinia with us. This was about 300 miles, two days and two nights at sea. So we spent the day checking alternative flights back to Edinburgh to see if it was a goer.

It was.

We set off on Monday at 0800 into an expected swell that we had hoped would subside. It didn’t and the first day was a bit uncomfortable but it quickly got Susan used to Camira.

Having three on board made the passage a whole lot easier. The second day was far better and we managed a good sail for a sustained period of the passage. We could have sailed into the night but decided to shorten sail and motor sail. This was just as well as for six hours of the night passage we altered course continually to skirt electrical storms.

At 11:00 on the Wednesday we made landfall in Porto Callaseta, Sardinia.

Leaving Palma

Sunset at sea

Dinner being prepared

Italian courtesy flag being raised by Susan

3,000 miles so far since Ardrossan

Arriving Porto Calasetta – Do we look tired and smelly , Nah not us !

Louise singing into the radio on arrival

Susan arrived from Edinburgh on the Saturday morning. The plan had been to let her catch up on her sleep as she had been up since silly o clock. However we went supermarket shopping instead!

How much fun can the one man have?

Having been to Palma before Susan wanted to treat us to a cocktail at Abaco and amazingly she found her way directly to it via numerous wee alleyways. If anyone has been in Arta in Glasgow this is where they got the idea.

This is us on our way for dinner after cocktails, Spanish style it’s now about 23:00 hours and we have between us hatched a plan for the weeks sailing ahead.

It was obviously going to be unsettled weather but we took the opportunity over the next couple of days or so to anchor in some of the callas. Dragonera is a nature reserve and you have to pick up a buoy to preserve the posedonia grass. However we managed a few nights free anchoring.

Dragonera Island in the distance

Louise in swimming before the fish came!

Me feeding the fish pieces of bread. If you look carefully you can just see them under the surface. Well come to think of it where else would they be? Down the bingo perhaps?

Only one other yacht for company that night

The next night was anchored in Camp de Mar we dighied ashore for a beer before having dinner on board.

The anchorage with Camira way in the distance

The next day the rain came on with vengeance so about 15:00 we upped anchor and set off for Palma where we arrived at 19:00 and did a tricky bit off stern too berthing. It looks easy in the picture though!

We are now waiting here for our pal Susan to come out for a week’s break.

The view from our berth in RYCP

Just so we are not totally hacking you off with good weather photos, here are a few of our epic bus trip from Andtratx into Palma.

The bus trip should only take about 45 minutes or so but it took two and a half hours on the way in and three and a bit on the way back. The weather was so severe in the Islands that it made the national news; we know this because Manuel & Victoria contacted us by email to check we were OK!

While we were in Palma a mini tornado apparently hit Port Andtratx.

However in spite of the weather that we had a sightseeing day around the capital and checked out the marina for when we moved along that way.

Mmm Chilli Heaven

Palma Cathedral

We set out on Monday 31^st August for the 130 mile trip to Mallorca.

Little did we know that there were a set of unseasonal storms set to lash the Balearics. On our overnight passage we had six hours of electrical storms with forked lightening, very exhilarating but not one I would like to repeat too often. We arrived in Porto Andratx at 10:45, 25 hours after leaving Valencia.

Having signed in and having a kip we went out for a traditional Mallorcan meal – curry!

Andratx is quite upmarket with designer tourist shops and the prices to match. The curry almost exactly the same we would usually order cost twice as much as it would in Portugal. We weren’t surprised we had been warned about the prices in the Balearics. Norwegian 42 footer had been charged 500 Euros for 2 nights in Ibiza! Thankfully we are not in that bracket!

Port IB Andratx

Shops and canal Porto Andratx

Typical Mallorcan Meal

For those of you who have seen the King & I…. etcetera, etcetera

Louise won’t let me wear these off the boat. I don’t know why!

Some other strange sightings:-