Big Weather Coming

We are always on weather watch, monitoring the weather, wind and sea patterns. I guess that started in Croatia where the Bora can be quite dangerous and severe -- it is not uncommon to have 50 knot puffs in a Bora, and big seas pile up quickly in that scenario. Then with all the passages we've made, we try to err on the side of less wind than more. Diesel fuel is expensive, but we're more into safety than anything else.  As Easy Swissa says (North Sails owner from Herzliya Israel) it's not the wind you worry about, it's the waves.

Anyway, Marina saw we had 2 days of 25-35 knots coming and we wanted to have a place to hide, so we chose Alcudia, one of the major tourist cities on the north side of Mallorca. When we left Cala Molto the wind was on the stern at 20+ knots, so we were looking forward to a fast beam reach once we turned the corner at the top of the island. Unfortunately, like most islands, each corner seems to have its own weather pattern, so we went from a fast downwind to a no-wind scenario pretty quickly. We sailed, motored, motorsailed and finally sailed into Alcudia. We pulled into the fuel dock and took 30 liters of fuel -- less than we've ever taken before ... I guess we did a lot of sailing this week, certainly the wind was up that's for sure. Anyway, they assigned us a slip between a couple of 50 foot powerboats with about 1 foot to spare on either side. I think David and Elizabeth were surprised that we were trying to put our big wide boat into such a narrow spot, but it's the normal course of business here in the Med, put yourself into a narrow slip, using bumpers if you need to (we seldom do!) and tie the boat in. 

The satisfying thing was that within an hour the wind started to howl. A magnificent vintage sailing yacht from Malta arrived shortly after and we watched them put a 120-150 foot sailing yacht into the laid moorings quite easily, amazing considering how big that boat was and how windy it was getting.

The next couple of days were a bit of a blur. David and Elizabeth were flying back to the UK on the 19th, we decided the weather looked better for the 20th for our hop to Mallorca.

The girls were staying with us for another 10 days or so and then would fly to the UK from Marseilles, so our kids would have company for a couple of weeks. So all we needed was a weather window right for the trip back to France. We had two options: 1 to go back via Spain, 100 miles or so to Barcelona, 100 miles or so to the southern tip of France, and 100 miles or so across the Gulf de Lyon; or 2) bite off an overnighter 200 miles from Menorca to Hyeres. We chose the overnight route because it would give us more time to do the 'fun' type of sailing in the French islands, plus the weather looked like it was more favourable for a passage than for a number of day hops. The Gulf de Lyon had been spitting out these 30-40 knot systems for the past week, and we had a 2 day respite, then it was forecast to push out even more wind on the weekend. Our best bet was a sprint day across the northern Med to somewhere on the southern French coast and then hide from the wind there. So....