Las Palmas, Gran Canaria – Palmeira, Isla de Sal, Cape Verde

Distance: 878 M

Duration: 5 days (inc 12 hours motoring)

Average speed: 7.3 knots (maximum speed of 13.6 knots reached by Max while surfing a wave)

Wind speed: 15–30 knots

Point of sailing: Broad reach, dead run using a preventer (tiried a new gennaker one morning and got it broken after half hour of sailing)

Number of fish almost caught: 3

Number of fish caught: 0

Marine life seen: many groups of dolphins, 1 turtle, many flying fish (one hit Max in the chest during his night watch, 2 others found on the deck in the morning)

 The new gennaker that we tried and broke after 30 minutes.

The Cape Verde archipelago is made up of 10 large and 4 smaller islands. All are of volcanic origin. The islands have always been poor, due to lack of rainfall, deforestation and droughs. The largest source of income is a foreign aid and tourism as we saw it in Baia de Santa Maria where plenty of touristic developments were in a speedy and continuous process. It seems to us that majority of tourists are Italians, and that locals took to Italian language with ease. It wasn’t hard to come across even some fishermen who spoke as well quite good English and Spanish languages.

Our first stop on the island was Palmeira, an anchorage on northwest of the island where we had to clear in. The place was bizare as there were just a few buildings around a beach and huuuge premises of Shell company!

Next day we headed straight for the south of the island, Baia de Santa Maria – famous for windsurfing. That anchorage was very uncomfortable as quite a big swell was present at day and night… Consequently, the landing on the  beautiful sandy beach with our dinghy proved to be tricky, but I believe we got accustomed to it eventually.

For the most of the time (well at least when it was windy enough) Max went windsurfing and surfing, we swam quite a bit and Andrea was totally lost to his latest passion – fishing. He did it from our dinghy in a bay and quite succesfully; we had fish for dinner twice.

We were joined by two other members of the crew: Lorenzo from Genova and Mauro from Savona. With the crew being full, there was not much to keep us in the bay. On the 19 Feb we went for a day of sailing around, for Lorenzo and Mauro to familiarise themselves with the boat and to make some water using our watermaker.

A day later we left for Mindelo, St Vincente island that lies around 130M west from Isola de Sal. The night passage went well and quite quickly and around 0900 we were at anchor in Baia do Porto Grande on which Mindelo, the archipelago’s second largest city is situated. The entire island is very lacking in both natural water and vegetation, and is largely of an unrelieved sandy brown. The town (60 000 population) is quite lively, with everything what any sailor needs. We found a laundry where our clothes were washed in 2 days, many supermarkets, bars, internet point, post office… even French bakery.

 This foccacia was made by Lorenzo, very  much appreciated by all of us!!!

We provisioned and prepared our boat for a passage through Atlantic. The biggest problem we are experiencing at the moment is a leakage of fuel tanks. All bilges were checked in order to see until where the leakage has spread, then all bilges were cleaned. We think we managed to found a “crack” in a steel fuel tank and for the moment used sikaflex to cover it. If this won’t be sufficient enough, we will have to find a good shipyard in Caribbean…

Barcelona – Valencia

We woke up to a sunny day and by 1000 were on our way to Valencia. With NW wind Force 3 we sailed with our full main and genoa. Our log for 1140 reads: “Full main, full jib (genoa), sighted dolphins, flying south.” Unfortunately we didn’t fly for long as around 1330 the wind died and we had to motor. When we checked the forecast again the good wind conditions were predicted for another day so we decided to change our course to Ibiza for refuelling and probably spending a night at some anchorage there before we would continue to Cartagena (this way we would be nearer our final destination Gib).

At around 1800 a little bird landed on our deck. Max was on duty and he mentioned to me that he saw it flying around our boat for a while. Andrea was down bellow and when he went to our bow cabin to get something he shouted at us: “Guys, there is a bird!”. He wasn’t aware of the bird until then and was quite shocked seeing him tucked under our duvet. As we disturbed the bird by our movements, at this stage all of us were in the bow cabin, the bird flew away. Seconds later he was back, flew back to the bow cabin under the duvet and stayed there. We tried not to disturb him any more as we realised that he must have been exhausted when he decided to “risk his life on the boat full of humans”. We just gave him some bread, water and later on some seeds – not sure he had any of it. He stayed with us until next morning and around 0600 while Andrea was on duty, he (the bird) came up the deck, stood there for 20 seconds and left. At this point we were near Ibiza.

   The little yellow spot in the middle is the bird who spent a night in our bow cabin. As you can see we took a good care of him; offered some food as well.

Nearing Ibiza the weather got worse, no wind, was quite humid, cloudy and rainy. As it was 1400 we decided to press on and continue instead of anchoring overnight. Once again without wind we motored and motored all night long until we reached Cartagena around 1400. I should mention as well that we caught another 2 tunas, not very big though.

Passage: Barcelona to Cartagena lasted for 2 1/2 days, sailed/motored 311 miles.

We were moored alongside the pontoon in Cartagena next to which was a promenade with a couple of bars. Spanish people tend to go for walks there and to have a look at the boats. Cartagena is a home to naval marine ships (we felt very safe in their presence). And on Sunday a huge ferry called Golden Princess arrived full of Americans. Everyone who wanted to get to the town from the ferry passed us.

   Golden Princess – her departure coincided with ours, as she was bigger than Pointzero we left her go first.

Hyeres, France – Barcelona, Spain

Once again with a weather forecast checked, we were setting off for another destination. This time it was in another country as well. Crossing a Golf of Lion, sailing some 200 miles or so should bring us to Barcelona in Spain.

We started off with a very good wind NE 4–5, reefed in main and genoa (reef 1), were on broad reach. The fishing gear set up, we were just waiting for the familiar noise when the fish is caught. And it all happened at around 1500. The tuna we caught was realy huge, it took 3 guys to get in on the board; Andrea holding the fishing line, Max and Strassu getting the fish from the sea (see the picture in our photos session). Marco C was trying his best to hold the course and not to gybe. You can imagine how hard it was, when he heard the rest of us yelling how big the tuna was. Well, Gaby was behind the camera trying to catch the moment of seeing the fish for the first time in all her beauty…

   Good team work paid off! More pictures in photos section.

Catching a fish is one thing, killing, gutting, filleting is another. The excitement from getting fish on board is over, the hard work is starting now. And both, Andrea and Max, would agree with me, that this is or can be quite painstaking, not very pleasant job.

The nights arrive very quickly those days and although we had dinners around 1900 we ate them in complete darkness. All of us sitting in the cockpit, tacking in whatever the mother watch of a day prepared for us. Usually we all were so hungry, that nobody spoked, we all concentrated on getting food down fast.

In early hours of next day the wind died so we used engine for 3 hours and then back to sailing under full main and genoa as wind picked up to SW 3–4.  Nearing our destination, we had to work hard and tack all the way – it was a bit frustrating when we saw the city but couldn’t reach it for another 4 hours. As we approached Marina Port Vell around 2100 we practised on pilotage. Finding the lights with certain characteristics proved challenging as there was quite a backlight of the city. Eventually, we found our way and moored stern to around 2200.

   Marina Port Vell, well equiped with great location.

Next day we explored the nearby surroundings. Marina is situated literally in the middle of a touristic area, with Nelson column and famous Las Ramblas 10 minutes walk away. And there it was where we met in the evening with our Spanish friends Ferran and Anna. Went for few drinks with tapas, dinner in a touristic place called Caracoles and then some more drinks after. Barcelona seemed less busy, probably because of the time of year.

   Enjoying food and wine with our Spanish friends.

We returned to the Pointzero in the early morning hours, all happily merry and said our goodbuys to both Marcos as they were leaving us in 4 hours to catch the plane back to Italy.

We spent 40 days in Genova, AlphaYachtsYard in Sestri Ponente getting our boat ready and refit. We did the following (in no particular order):

• installed inner stay
• installed Furuno console on cockpit
• installed IS15 depth sounder and log sensor
• installed SSB radio
• installed lee cloth
• installed solenoid
• installed grounding
• installed battery monitor
• installed radar support
• installed solar panels
• installed storm jib hallyard
• installed wind generator
• installed inventer
• installed blinds
• installed rope cutter
• installed radio
• installed safety strap in our galley
• installed red light on our chart table
• moved watermaker test valve inside of boat
• checked rudder installation
• checked forestay lenght/sag mast rake
• fixed tack on the main sail
• made 3rd reef on the main sail
• added patched on the main sail
• moved watermaker installation
• built protection for watermaker (fiberglass)
• added one cranck battery to engine and linked with generator
• made Mayday, PanPan cards
• made seacock plan
• attached wooden plags next to each seacock
• plastified plans, cards
• replaced main hallyard
• bought pilot books and charts up to Caribbean
• checked boom pin (turned)
• made storm boards
• checked and added anodes
• prepared grab bag
• bought surf boards (fixed place)
• got vaccinations
• created map of the boat
• got replacement for E111
• built holder for kedge anchor chain (epoxy)
• built holder for cutting/cleaning fish (epoxy)

Luckily for us, the weather was great, so we could work outside every day. Every day (apart from 4–5 days) was sunny and warm . Although we enjoyed all the work, al fresco lunches in Pointzero cockpit, fresh Italian food and company of some very interesting people with passing days we were getting impatient… Well, the D day came on the 17 November 2006. 

Savona, Italy – Antibes, France

Our plan was to do the passage Savona to Gibraltar all in one go and we estimated that it would take us around 10 sailing days to finish the passage. We wanted to head for south, pass west side of Corsica, Sardinia and then go west towards Gib. Checking weather forecasts for the last couple of days we realised that we would have gales for 3–4 days in the middle of our passage so we decided to change the route. Playing it safety, we would head for France sailing in good winds and once the conditions deteriorate we would go to harbours and wait for better weather there.

Sunday, 19 November around lunch time we were ready to go. After two hours of motoring wind got stronger enough for us to put main and genoa up and from then we had 20–25 knots of true wind all the way. The boat moved quite a lot, we all felt it on our stomachs – no  hanging around the guardrails though ;). We had a nasty surprise on the way, when Max realised that our radar support was not holding properly. Action was taken immediately by Andrea who climbed the backstay, cut the cable and dismantled the radar. We stored it securily and continued sailing. Before dinner we managed to catch a tuna. Having our dinner already prepared (in Savona’s harbour) we cleaned the fish and stored it in the fridge.

With steady southwesterly Force 5–6 we tacked all the way during day hourly, during night every two hours. We reefed in the first reef, around midnight the second. We had some showers with gusts coming on us, lightning nearby – reefed in our new third reef and furled in 2/3 of genoa. Pointzero was happily sailing at 7–8 knots, slowing to 4–5 knots for an hour or so and going back to 8 knots. Great feeling, she handled very well. It took a bit of coordination when we reefed in at that speed in total darkness but we were quite pleased of our quick progress.

With the light next day we realised that during night we broke a blok on the first reef and a pennant on the second reef. As the wind was light, we hoisted our main up and headed for our first harbour – Antibes. After 24 hours of good sailing we arrived to sunny harbour and stayed for two more days.

We repaired the pennant and block, bought and changed both (1st and 2nd) reefing lines, washed the boat and polished her guardrails. We even managed to sort our 4 tool boxes and make inventories. We installed another foot holder on the mast (4th) and tried to fix the radar support but to no avail – we need more time (planning to finish it in Gib).

We sailed to Isola Ischia (another charming island that one day we have to come back to explore more) where we anchored for the night as we wanted to get as much rest as possible before continuing on our passage. What a night it was! Nobody got much rest and it got nothing to do with a bad weather. We just chosen bad anchorage and SE wind force 2–3 overnight made it a very uncomfortable. But still, woke up at 0700 next day and headed off…

The breathtaking welcome from Isola Ischia!

Our next destination was a peninsula called Argentario some 180 miles away. The wind was brilliant, stayed with us all day and night, very constant 10 knots in the morning, 15 knots in the afternoon, 20 knots overnight… We sailed all the way on broad reach, used gennaker for more than 8 hours well until the sunset. Pointzero happily sailed at 6 knots in the morning and then 9 knots in the afternoon. At some point Andrea said: “We’ll get to 10 knots tonight”. South westerly force 4–5 was expected for the night, so it was a plausible assumption.

Little did we know what was to come!

After the sunset the wind picked up again so we reefed in (reef 1 main), we gybed carefully couple of times during night. Our watch system was as usual: 2 hours off, 4 hours on with two people staying on the deck. This time we didn’t get much rest though. With the stronger wind, the boat was healing (no leeclothes installed yet), the wood inside was squeeking and the water passing outside of the hull made a noise like Niagara waterfalls – at least that how I felt when lying on the bunk trying to get some sleep.

It all started when I came back “well rested” after my two hours off. While I was putting on my oil skin and a life jacket I quickly checked on navigation table what was the wind speed as it seemed that the wind increased again…  25 knots. The boys just waited for another couple of hands to come up the deck so we could reef in main again (reef 2) plus genoa. It was still pitch dark at 0600 and it took me a while to adjust to this condition; mentally – get used to the increased wind speed and physically – as I took the helm I needed to make sure we didn’t gybe and that I lead our boat through the waves safely.

Well, to cut the long story short, the wind increased again and we were steering the boat in 33 knots of wind. At first I felt apprehensive, I thought I won’t have enough strenght to continue helming for a longer period. It’s amazing how quickly we adjusted to this new conditions and after a while whoever was steering the boat managed to look around and take it all in properly (it was a couple of seconds at a time, in order not to loose the control over the steering). It got brighter as well although visibilty wasn’t that good and we couldn’t see any land that was nearby. 

Andrea was right. We really did it! Sailed Pointzero at 10 knots for the last hour or so. There seemed to be a little competition going on between us, we all wanted to break the others records. And I did it with 10.9 knots!

The weather deteriorated rapidly, we had lightning, thunders and strong wind over 30 knots. It was good that the wind was constant and not gusty. Heavy rain followed, the waves changed to bigger and longer…Although it was around 0800 it wasn’t that bright and from our port side there were huge black clouds approaching very fast.

The first day – a beautiful day and great sailing; the second day began with this view. It was a great experience for all of us although we were shattered at the end of it!

And, of course, my record has been broken quite soon. Our skipper managed to surf the boat on those long waves and we reached 12 knots of speed – we all were very excited! All the time we headed for a Porto Ercole where we planned to stay for a couple of days because of the very strong NW winds predicted…

Once again when we contacted a marina, we didn’t get any straight answer if there were berths available. Quick glance over the marina’s entry and it didn’t look that good. But then just in front of us we saw a space between two boats and it realy seemed that it was there just for us to take it. So we did! Andrea went to speak to “someone” in the office and the news wasn’t great. The berth we took was a private one and apparently its owner was supposed to be back from his sailing venture yesterday – he was overdue, in this weather you don’t know for how long…

   It was very hard to believe that there was no vacant berth available in the Porto Ercole.

Actually, all berths in this marina (our pilot book mentions 400 of them) are privately own. We could use them if they were not occupied and then pay the owner – so the prices would differ from one berth to the other. We were advised that there are 4 visitors berths and we had to go there. It involved going stern to a pontoon and using our own anchor at the bow. Let me remind you that at this point we’ve been sailing for over 26 hours (and not having proper sleep). So we tried once, twice… The problem was that the wind was quite strong in the marina and our boat being 53 feet long was swaying from one side to another – it wasn’t safe at all for us; not mentioning the two other visiting boats next to us.

At some point I saw that Andrea staggered over our lines. Fatigue was getting to us or already has been there and we just didn’t notice… It was still raining, windy and dark. This berth didn’t work for our boat, we were too big for it. Desperate for some rest, we decided to go back to the previous berth.  It was 1230 so we have battled in the marina for over two hours. We had brunch (hot chocolate with bread and jam) and went to bed.

Later on, we learnt that the owner of the berth we were using was definetely not coming back that day, so we could stay overnight. That was a relief but we couldn’t rest until we got our berth sorted for the next day or two. As it happens in Italy a lot (that is my point of view) there was possible to come alongside of the pontoon that was used by fishermen. Although a big notice board said “It’s forbiden to use this pontoon for visitors” we did move there next day. Fishermen coming and going said nothing, nobody else came asking us to leave.

      Next morning moved our boat to a “fishermen” pontoon, for a change alongside.

We stayed in the marina for two days, rested, got our girl back on track, walked around town… I love getting lost in town’s little streets, narrow paths full of beautiful flowers and trees. Each corner brings something new. The weather was still good (apart from the day when we arrived) with nights and early mornings quite cold but very pleasantly warm and sunny during day.

   Old part of town is on a hill with narrow streets and stunning views over the marina.

Our destination from a lovely town called Camerota was Capri. 60 miles to cover, we decided to leave in the afternoon, sail during night so we would arrive at our anchorage in the morning. The weather forecast was good, team spirit as well (there was a 2kg roast beef in our fridge, thanks Gigio for a recipe).

As soon as we were in the open sea, we were met by long and quite big waves. For the next 3 hours we had a good sailing consisting of taking  Pointzero up-up to the top of the wave and then sliding down like in a roller coaster (in fun not scary way). And then, another gale warnings, the same as before: isolated thunderstorms with local gusts.This time the storms weren’t that far away. With the sunset the sky looked stunning: big black, grey, orange and later on red clouds. With the darkness, lightning came and another “fireworks”. At one point we saw at the same time 3 lightnings on our starboard side and at the end this thunderstorm played with us a bit, we got gusts of 17 knots. We were prepared for it though and reefed in before the storms reached us.

This type of clouds gathered before sunset. We enjoyed the colourful masterpieces until it went dark and thunderstorms started.

Almost forgot to mention that we caught another two fish - white meat. Around 0100 wind died completely so we motored. One of us made a shortcut in taking the main down and we paid for it two hours later when on taking main up again as the wind got stronger the hallyard got stacked on the masthead light. We couldn’t use it, so we had to motor until we reached our destination. By the time we got to Capri we realized that the masthead light wasn’t working – I was already imagining a broken cable that needs to be followed by another dismasting .

The anchorage on the south of Capri wasn’t suitable (only for calm conditions), we headed west to check another and then ended up sailing around all island. The main marina on the island Marina Grande is very expensive, we didn’t even consider going there. Luckily next to it was a good anchorage. We arrived around 1000, straight away started working on the masthead light. This job involved winching Andrea up the mast couple of times – the job is still not done, will continue tomorrow as we all were quite tired, it was very sunny and hot and wind picked up.

A very busy marina (ferries of all sizes)from Naples and other ports on the Tyrrhenian coast) is on the left. This is the main town spread all over the east side of the island. The second town is called Anacapri.

You probably gather from this log that this passage wasn’t that enjoyable. Even staying at anchor wasn’t that smooth as on previous occasions, we had re-anchor later in the afternoon (not because of dragging but avoiding one motor boat), took us 4 tries, the waves were quite uncomfortable for all the time. It got darker around 2000 and much colder as well. Well, the good news is that we have fish tonight for dinner cooked by Max.

The next day we went to explore the main town – Capri. We swam to the shore in our swimsuits (shorts) and on the beach put on dry T-shirts that we had in our drag bag. The place is full of tourists, everywhere queues especially for a cable car to the top of the town. So we took the stairs instead and we were rewarded by stunning views over the island – absolutely breathtaking. Spent another night at the anchorage.

“The romance of sailing is undeniable. Gliding through the water, the wind in your hair and the sun on your face is as good as it gets – thought it isn’t always so blissful. When there’s a gale blowing and your crew mates are bent over the side, bidding farewell to their lunch, things may not seem so rosy. But that’s the beauty of going to sea – you never know quite what to expect. There is always a new lesson to be learnt or a new delight to be experienced.”

Miles Kendall, The Sailing Companion

The above sums it up perfectly. Although we enjoyed our time spent in the bay of Porto di Ponente in Island Vulcano the weather on the 15th couldn’t be better for great sailing. So, off we went. We headed to the north where the rest of Aeolian Islands are. We practiced handling of the boat, reefed in couple of times and were tacking happily all our way towards Island Salina. On the way I caught two quite small fish and managed them clean under Andrea’s supervision. As we were turning back to the south in order to find another anchorage for the night, Andrea suggested: “Why don’t we keep on sailing?” meaning not going back to the south. Wind was great so we did. Our next destination was Napoli or somewhere on that coast.

 Sailing around Aeolian Islands, north top of Island Salina when we decided to keep on sailing

Few miles to our trip with good wind and sailing and there we go: Isolated thunderstoms with local gusts were issued by Italian Maritime Coastguard (IMC) once again. The wind died, we had to motor. When we were passing Stromboli – another island that is part of Aeolian Islands, it was already dark and we could see some lightnings appearing in the far south. What we didn’t expect to see though was a red light from the top of the island. As we were quite far away and intrigued what it might be, be checked the site with our binoculars and there it was: Stromboli was “erupting”. Not sure this is a correct word because the eruption neither didn’t cause any national havoc either got to the first pages of the Italian newspapers. But there was something going on, a helicopter flying around… Another excitment happened almost straight afterwords when huuuuge lightning stroke on the starboard side of the boat – not literally next to us. Although the lightning was far far away it lit half of the sky and for those 3 seconds we could see silouethe of Sicily and islands – amazing view. Then realisation stroke, we were out at sea. It didn’t help that IMC kept on issuying those warnings every 30 minutes… The weather forecast for the next day was expected force 7 (30–35 knots of wind). So you know what we did? Run. And run preaty fast. I must admit that our skipper made a great decision and alter our course and destination to the nearest one which happened to be: Marina di Camerota.

Our log entries on this trip were done every two hours (on watch changes). It says under remarks the following:

Log time: 2400 Lightning on our starboard side

Log time: 0145 Lightning behind and ahead of us

Actually I was at that time on the watch with Andrea and we couldn’t believe how long the lightning session was going on. It reminded me fireworks, its last 5 minutes when you get to see the best of it. We saw that night a spectacular performance by pure nature. And the fantastic think was that we didn’t hear any thunders – no thunders, the storms is not that near us as it seems. We were already on reef 1 and genoa down.

Around 0400 when we could see the lighthouse and later on land lights the wind picked up. It was umbelievable how great Pointzero felt. We had max 14 knots, but the sea was quite rough with big waves and there were gusts coming unexpectedly. We were doing 8 knots and it was great feeling, going up and up. At one point with 12 knots of wind our speed was 8.6 knots.

Entering the Marina di Camerota I really felt like we were seeking the safety refuge. Don’t take me wrong, the atmosphere on the boat was great, but with all those lightnings, wind, constant rain in the last 2 hours and gale warnings predicted I believe all of us felt relieved. Well, until we saw the place where we were to get our boat. I was absolutely convinced, knowing Andrea’s skills, that he’ll do it but it will take him a couple of tries. You know how many? Zero. He just took our fat lady and led her to her berthing without touching any of the very near by vessels. Max and I were gobsmacked – absolutely brilliant job done by our skipper.

We put the boat in bed, didn’t wash her as it rained before and more rain was predicted (honestly, we were quite tired and ready for our beds!).  Andrea was complaining that the IMC makes a lot of havoc about nothing, where are the gales they predicted for today? He had to wait another 10 minutes and there they were. Literally from zero to 35 knots, tons and tons of water pouring down from the sky…

The picture doesn’t really show how windy and rainy it was but Andrea is getting soaked pretty fast…

We rested for a couple of hours (some of us couldn’t, so we kept on checking if the boat was ok), had lunch and rested again. It was around 1600 when we went to the nearby beach. Max bringing his surf board, Gaby her camera, Andrea  his swimsuit. We had brilliant time!!! Sunset provided great opportunity to take some pictures, please have a look at our gallery. Those 3 hours were great elixir to our souls and we already felt rejuvenated, more energetic and very, very happy, lucky to have such an afternoon!