Sat 30 June and Sun 1 Jul

On Saturday we sailed back to Barcelona from Andraxt, which is on the south west corner of Mallorca. We’d had a lovely calm night on our mooring ball but I didn’t sleep too well, I’m always a bit restless before a long passage. First thing on Saturday morning we downloaded the latest weather forecast which still looked promising. 15/20 knots NE wind for the first 12 hours, then dropping to 8/10 for the remaining 10 hours which sited us as we were heading due N all the way. Almost perfect! The sea state looked OK too, 1m waves from the NE which would make it a little bumpy but manageable.

We left Andraxt at 1020 and headed off. After an hour and a half we were in the open sea, which was lumpier than we were expecting and there was very little wind, so we started to question the accuracy of the forecast. Oh well, we were on our way. Over the past few weeks we’ve learnt that for us it’s important to get into a routine when doing longer passages. This is especially true when the conditions are challenging as it’s difficult (and tiring) to move around the boat and reading can make you feel queasy so unless you’re on the helm, there’s not much to do other than sit and look out to sea. Doing this for a few hours is easy, doing it for over a day becomes mentally pretty difficult so our anecdote having things to do. Our routine involves writing a log every hour, which means recording in loogbook your current position, heading, wind speed and direction, barometer reading, trip distance and anything of interest. “Massive tanker off our starboard bow” is a good example. Not only is a log officially a legal requirement (many sailors don’t bother though) it also helps to see the progress you’re making. We also take it in turns to be on watch and to helm, usually doing a two hour stint depending on the conditions. Sometimes it can feel like an awfully long way to where you’re going so instead of counting total hours to go, counting in your number of watch duties makes it feel a whole lot more manageable.

At 12:30 the wind picked up so we got the sails up and we were humming along nicely at about 5 knots. At 14:00 the wind increased to a sustained 20 knots and the boat was becoming harder to handle, so we put in a reef (made the sails smaller). By now we had water coming over the bow so every so often we’d get a good showering. Things continued like this for a while and we were flying along doing 8 knots. We had lunch then at 1530 the wind started to build again. At 28 knots it was time for another reef. This time going up to the mast to tuck it in was more challenging as the boat was slamming over the waves and the salt water had made the deck really slippery. Still, we managed and sat back down in the cockpit. These conditions were now quite a bit more than we’d bargained for and crossing our minds was: What if it gets worse? We’ve been in tougher conditions before so we were confident we (and the boat) could cope, but with just two of us this time, and with a nighttime to come we were feeling a little daunted. We checked the forecast again which showed no sign of anything more sinister, so we donned our wet weather gear (which was a good call as we got soaked!), clipped into the cockpit and continued for the next 6 hours.

Everything was going OK until we got hit by a big wave and could suddenly we could smell gas. The knock had caused the regulator which connects to the top of the bottle to shear off. The bottles are underneath the helms seat (an awkward place to get to) but we got underneath and managed to dismantle it. This meant no cooking for us, which was off the cards anyway as the oven was swinging around all over the place.

As the sun set the conditions settled and the wind dropped so we decided to see if we could get some rest. Tom took the helm and I curled up on deck. I was soaked and the cabin we’d prepared to sleep in was a mess thanks to the contraption we’d rigged (to keep stuff to one side) giving in. After an hour I gave up trying to sleep and took the helm so Tom could rest. At 0300 the wind dropped considerably and we were limping along at 3 knots so we shook out the reef and got going again. The wind had also come around more to the north, which meant we were sailing a course which sent us further west than was ideal, so as we drew closer to the coastline we were some 20 miles south or Barcelona. At this point the wind died completely so we switched on the engine and headed around the coast, which took forever as now we were motoring straight into the waves. We were marking our progress against a row of orange lights and for hours we seemed to be sat in exactly the same position!

We finally made it back to Badalona marina at 0920 on Sunday morning, after a gorgeous sunrise, playing frogger with the busy shipping channel, getting some wind and sailing, losing the wind and motoring so by the time we arrived we were dead on our feet. Being Sunday the marina office didn’t open until 10:00 so we sat in the sun for a while moored to the fuel pontoon until we were allocated a berth. From there, first order of business was a shower. Second order of business was a much needed nap!

The rest of the day was pretty quiet. We went for a late lunch then were thrilled to be visited by Linus and Jenny with whom we sat and chatted to until late into the evening. A perfect end to an awesome few days!