Dearest Family and Friends,

Greetings from Sardinia! Finally. To say that our life has been governed by the weather in the last 2 months would sorta be an understatement!

We were unable to leave our winter quarters in Marina di Ragusa, on the Southeast coast of Sicily when we would have liked (late April/Early May) due to one gale after another. If the Southeast Gales weren't dumping half of the Libyan desert on us, then the Northwest Gales were blowing a lot of dirt on us. Our mast and sail track were so filthy that Chuck had a helluva time pulling up the mainsail the first time. He finally had to haul himself up to the top of the mast with a hose to clean it! Because of our delayed departure in the last week of May, we skipped the Sicilian "coastal hop" and took advantage of a fairly small weather window (or so we thought!) and just blasted across the Sicilian Straits directly to Hammamet, Tunisia. No, we didn't WANT to go to Tunisia again; it's just that EU VAT (tax) issue that required us to "step out" of the EU again; so now we have a full 18 months again to be in the EU. There are so few places to "step out" that we had to take advantage of being near Tunisia. And NO, the weather window didn't pan out according to the forecast, and it was a very uncomfortable 34 hour passage….not the winds…. just the waves. ughhhhh. Happily, we only needed to stay in Hammamet 3 days before another weather window opened up for us to head north. The conditions and timing weren't good enough to go all the way to Sardinia, so we did a shorter passage to Marsala, on the west coast of Sicily. That was only 22 hours, and thankfully, the conditions were nice and calm. Delightful to arrive. We like Sicily so much better than Tunisia. It felt like coming home. I like to think that it's more than just having good access to the internet, but I won't deny that having good, reliable communications and access to weather and info DOES make a BIG difference in our quality of life. How things have changed since we arrived in Northwest Spain 8 years ago! We relaxed in Marsala, stocked up on groceries, cooked more passage food, and waited 5 days for the "Mistral" (strong NW winds) from France to blow itself out and stop creating havoc in the Western Med. So this past Tuesday morning, we set out again at 7am with the goal of reaching Arbatax on the east coast of Sardinia, 180 miles away, by Wednesday afternoon. It started off a little uncomfortably….. big swell and waves again…. for about 4 hours, but by my 2nd watch (Chuck and I do a 3 hour watch schedule), the seas were calming down. Bliss. The sea between Sicily and Sardinia didn't have much shipping traffic, so THAT was good, especially because it was pretty foggy at night. Fortunately, our radar was working, so no worries. Since our goal was to get from point A to Point B as quickly as possible (before weather windows slam shut!) we motor-sailed the entire way averaging about 6 knots. Now that we're on the east coast of Sardinia, we'll actually be able to be in "cruising mode" versus "passage mode", which will be much more enjoyable. No more over-nighters for awhile. yay!

And here we are in the wee town of Arbatax surrounded by gorgeous, dramatic mountains. I'll have to go out and take a picture so you see what I mean. It's relatively inexpensive here, so we'll hang out for a few days before advancing up the coast -- coastal hopping! Our only real deadline is to be in Corsica -- the French island, just to the north of Sardinia -- in plenty of time to meet our daughter Sammy and her boyfriend Brian when they arrive on July 4th in Bastia, Corsica. They'll visit with us onboard for a few days before heading out again.

"So," you ask, "what have we done for FUN since my last Chaligram…. since passages aren't that fun?" Gosh, in the almost 2 months since I last wrote, our time was filled mostly with social events in the marina, laundry & grocery shopping, spring commissioning jobs on the boat, and a few little trips. For those of you who live in homes with washing machines, it's probably hard to imagine how doing a load or 2 of laundry can take up a whole day, and be the source of way too much gleefulness to discover the washing machines available, and then relief to have the chore done. One benefit to the Marina laundramat though was the opportunity to meet new friends. We participated in a "car share" from April 15-May 15, so we had access to wheels to do chores and go exploring a little. We celebrated Chuck's birthday by driving to the lovely inland town of Vittoria and had a DIVINE seafood lunch! Later on in the evening we went to a local restaurant for dinner with our good friends Sandy and Martin and Albert and Ineke. In April, Albert and Ineke and we also went exploring inland to Modica as well as to Piazza Armerina which is near the Casale Villa Romana, site of an enormous Roman Pallazzo from the 4th Century AD that featured exTRAORdinary mosaics -- thanks to being underground for so many centuries. (see the pix in the link below). Our Sicilian friend, Gioi, whom we met way back in 2007 during our first visit to Palermo, came to visit us for a weekend with his girlfriend. It was wonderful to see him again. There's something very special about making friends with the "locals." And for those of you who've been receiving these ChaliGrams since at least 2010, you might recall that Gioi became Zoey's "godfather" when he researched/vetted and recommended a good Vet Clinic in Reggio Calabria in southern Italy back when our little 4-legged angel developed a herniated disc. We had the passage from hell getting from the Peloponnese, Greece to Reggio, but ….. we made it, and Zoey got cured. *sigh*. Zoey is still doing fine; We don't take long walks with her anymore. At 14.5 years of age -- which puts her over 100 in human years -- she doesn't have the same stamina of course; and…. she leaks like a sieve, AND she has arthritis in her hind quarters, AND she's as deaf as a post, but she still seems happy. And the doggods know, she certainly makes US happy! During our passages, she was perfectly content and felt very secure to sleep in her little doggy-tote bag in the well of the cockpit…. all cuddled up in her soft blanket. Like a little baby, she pretty much peed in her diapers during the entire passage. awwwwwwww. precious little thing.

We have also spent a lot of time researching about whether to 1/truck the boat overland to the Baltic, and if so whether we should 2/do it this Fall, or next Spring, and if this Fall, then 3/where to store her for the winter. THIS is a big reason that having good connectivity is important to us….. researching future adventures. No decisions are made yet. There are a few passport issues to consider and quite a lot of expense involved in this plan, not to mention that the season is very short up there, and we need to make some purchases and improvements to ChaliVentures so we can tolerate the cold. Going to the arctic circle on the west coast of Norway next June/July? Having daylight 24 hours a day for days on end? Stay tuned…… I have to say that the weather in the Med so far this year, doesn't exactly make this such a wonderful place to be!

PHOTOS: Since I got my new MAC, it seems that the new Picasa and/or Safari has changed my sharing options. If this link doesn't work, please let me know. I can have Picasa send you the album directly. I just like including the link in the Chaligram, that's all.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=chaliventures&target=ALBUM&id=5886361352958569857&authkey=Gv1sRgCJ6eieKQp6jy-gE&feat=email


Hope all is well with you and yours and you're enjoying a lovely spring!

Love, Alison, Chuck and Zoey of course