Our departure from Porto Pollo on Thursday was very pleasant, a beautiful sunrise, gentle breeze, sails up, cruising nicely at 5 knots towards the Straits of Bonifacio....and then it all changed! As is the way in the Med, the weather situation changed very rapidly indeed and we were soon fighting against a Force 6 gusting Force 7 right on the nose for the next seven hours. Despite quite a few attempts to actually sail towards Bonifacio, tacking was proving to be somewhat helpless against an increasingly rough sea and winds hitting nearly 30 knots. So unfortunately the engine was fired up again and we made our way painfully slowly towards Bonifacio, still a further 15 nm to go at 1.5 knots! Not happy! A few course changes and a move closer towards the shore allowed us to make more progress. Just as I had decided that this would be our best option, there was a terrible grinding noise coming from inside the boat, first thought being a gearbox problem. I heaved the boat to (parking at sea!) and went below to investigate. All appeared OK with the engine which only meant one thing - the autopilot control motor had stripped its gear wheels. Wonderful. Not a safety issue really but very annoying as no autopilot means steering the boat by hand now all the way to Corfu!! Back on deck, I turned the manual steering wheel lock to release the wheel so that we could get back on our way and, shock horror, the locking wheel became disconnected from its brake shaft, leaving the wheel jammed hard over to starboard. Please give me a break! Back below, toolkit out, mole-grips on the job, problem resolved and on our way again. Five hours later...we arrived in Bonifacio, tied up on the quay side in 20 knots of crosswind, made the boat safe and went for a beer. A long day.