Sailing SV Cordelia: When everything seems to be conspiring against us

Sept 2020

Have you ever had a time in your life when no matter what you do everything seems dead set against you achieving your goal? At this moment in time, this is how we feel.

Three weeks ago we were in a beautiful Cala in Menorca, with crystal clear water, awesome sea caves with a fabulous beach cafe/restaurant. It was getting towards the end of the summer season so there weren't too many boats in the anchorage and life was great.

We knew we had to make the decision on where we were to spend winter. The Mediterranean can be a beast in winter, the winds kick up something crazy so most people opt to spend a few months in a marina and this was something we were quite happy to do as we also had a couple of major boat jobs to sort out and life would be easier in a marina environment.

Our options were to go back to Spain either Cartegena or Almerimar, go on to Sicily, head back to Gibraltar or further still to Lagos in Portugal. Our preferred destination was Sicily. This would be an excellent starting point for our summer 2021 season in the Greek Islands. Our reason for going back to any of the other places was that next summer we would continue to sail west in preparation for our Atlantic crossing.

Issue 1: Brexit is playing a big part in our decision. We are British and with the UK leaving the EU this means as of 1st Jan 2021 we are only able to stay in a Schengan area (Schengan being almost all of the EU, of which the Med is surrounded) for 90 days in any 180, whereas at the moment we have free movement as long as our stay in one country does not exceed 90 days, that's my understanding anyway. As of 1st Jan 2021 we will not be able to move around freely. There are only 5 countries in the Med that are non-schengan and 2 could be dangerous, 1 is at loggerheads with another Schengan country, 2 are in Covid lockdown and that leaves Croatia.

Weighing everything up and looking at our loose plan for 2021 we decide we are going to winter in Ragusa, Sicily.

Issue 2: We arrived in Sardinia, completed several online and offline forms knowing we would have to have a Covid test before we were allowed ashore. We booked into Sifredi Marina in Carloforte, who told us they could arrange our test. We arrived in the marina and waited for a date & time. The marina fee was £55 per night; however we were not allowed ashore, not allowed to use the marina facilities so after 1 night we told the marina we were going to anchor in the bay. They apologised, which was very good as it was hardly their fault, they were just following government guidelines. We just weren't prepared to spend £55 per night and not be able to use the facilities.

Issue 3: Day 3 at anchor and we were caught in the worst storm we have experienced. It only last an hour but the winds were +50knots with lightening, thunder, torrential rain, on a lee shore and we lost all electronics. It scared and stunned both of us. We moved anchorage to Calsetta and continued to wait for our Covid test date. 10 days after we left the marina they contacted us to say our tests would take place in the car park at Calsetta Port.

Test's done we then had to wait for the results. All this time apart from going ashore for the test we were still not allowed on land. No matter, we had enough food & drink so we were fine for a few more days. Another 6 days past, no amount of contacting the ATS by phone or email was getting us our Covid results so we decided to sail on to Cagliari. We had now been in Sardinia over 2 weeks and not seen any of the beauty of the island we had been told about.

Issue 4: On arrival in Cagliari we only needed fuel. We found the fuel dock, as directed by someone on Navily (an anchorage and marina app) within the harbour but it looked derelict. However, all of a sudden from nowhere a guy appeared and we topped us with fuel. More fool us as the fuel was the most expensive in the world at £1.89 per litre and cost us over £423.

We moved just round the headland to Poetta an anchorage, and settled there for a couple of days waiting for a good weather window to cross to Sicily. We will come back and explore Sardinia on our way out of the Med. Two days later and the winds were in our favour so we set off.

Issue 5: Wind....what wind? We ended up motoring for 50hrs going to Sicily. The water was like glass most of the way, so 70% of the 'most expensive fuel in the world' had been used in one 2-day trip!!

Issue 6: We arrived in San Vito Lo Capo, the northern tip of Sicily and dropped anchor in a lovely bay. We'd been contacted via email from ATS, who informed us we were negative so we were allowed ashore. Great, we had a scrummy meal in a restaurant and couldn't believe how many people there were about in the little fishing village.

Day 2 and at 7am in the morning we were woken with rain splattering on our heads (we sleep with the overhead hatch open), within 5 minutes the heavens had opened, the wind was hitting 30knots with thunder and lightening. Not again surely? Then all of a sudden Steve started calling to me that we were going to be hit. I looked forward out the cockpit and coming towards us at about 5knots was a catamaran side on. I called to Steve 'brace yourself its going to hit' and BANG! it hit us and slid all down the port side of Cordelia. We watched the catamaran drag another 100mtrs and then come to a halt. At this time the rain, thunder and lightening stopped. What had just happened? The skipper of the catamaran came over and after asking 'did you hit us' and we explained 'no you hit us' he bought over a bottle of wine as an apology - he'd picked up the cat 3 days previously and was on charter. Luckily the only damage to Cordelia was a 6cm scratch but Cordelia had ripped out their middle cleat and damaged the port side hull.

Issue 7: We could see another storm on the wind apps so decided to move anchorage to a more sheltered bay near Palermo. This was a wise decision because the storm lasted 4 days with winds gusting up to 38knots. It meant we had to do night watches even whilst being at anchor, just to make sure we were safe and we didn't drag. Two other boats in the anchorage did drag at 1.30am on the first night, both at the same time too. Lucky for us they were dragging out of the bay away from us. We were exhausted after 4 days but decided to use the last of the wind on day 5 to sail along the coast to Cefalu.

Issue 8: It was a fabulous sail. Although the waves were still fairly large the wind stayed with us and we made great time reaching Cefalu. Cefalu has a small entrance and by the time we arrived it was dark, although the moon was almost full so we did have some light. On turning the boat head to wind so that Steve could take the mainsail down, we realised we had a serious problem with the steering. The helm would not move and though we were facing the wind so Steve could take down the sail, we were unable to turn back towards land. This was a blessing though as Steve then had to go and reattach the steering cables. That done, we decided to carry on and sail through the night to Vulcano in the Aeolian Islands.

Issue 9: We started our night watches and whilst I was asleep Steve came and woke me asking me to watch the helm - he could smell diesel. After investigation he found the diesel leak, a compression fitting had worked its way loose. We think this may have happened when we motored our 50hours on tick-over form Sardinia.

CAN THIS ALL REALLY BE HAPPENING?