It is a sad fact that in the Med, the fish life is being rapidly depleted. We had evidence of that today - the boat suddenly slowed and the engine started to strain. We stopped and Graeme went swimming to see what he could find. Attached in a nice bundle around the propeller was the remains of a net which we had run over. We have line cutters on the propeller so the actual size of the original thing we hit will never be known, but I am positive that what we collected was just a very small percentage of one percent of the original size of the net.

The question was asked if I could see any fish when I was cutting away the net (which we saved and will dispose of properly). If the stories are to be believed, 20 years ago there would often be a fish or two swimming around a stopped boat in the Med. This is no longer the case. Technology has improved in the fishing business, but the fish have not. Larger and lighter nets mean bigger hauls and fish finding sonar makes it easier to target them. All this is applied so that the restaurants and public can get their fill of fish.

The oceans are not like farmland. The general consumer does not jump on a boat and go look at the sights in the ocean - see the equivalent of sheep, cows, orchards and vegetable gardens. Even if they do go boating, the nature of the ocean means that she keeps her fruits hidden at depths we can not see from the surface.

Sailers understand the cycle and can see what is happening - hopefully the public will before it becomes too late.

GR

Hello again all!

As the title says, we are on the move again! After a 13 day stay in Palma having the boom fittings repaired, we left on Sunday and headed around the west coast of Mallorca to a bay that Graeme and Lynley know call Cala de Sala Calobra. This is a little north of Soller if you want to check it on the map.

We spent a pleasant night on anchor there and then motored most of the way to the north side of the island called Menorca. Near the middle on the top edge is a bay called Cala Mica which is where we sepnt another pleasant evening. The blow up kayak was deployed and a visit ashore was underway.

Today we are off again on a long leg to Sardinia - about 180 miles. All going well, we should be in there later tomorrow afternoon. From there, we have yet to make a plan...

So all is well here on Destiny!

Enjoy!

Well, you probably know by now, but we are in Palma de Mallorca!
We had a good trip from Horta and encountered good winds acroos the Atalantic to Gibraltar, but just off Gibraltar the wind came up nd was directly on the nose, so that made it unpleasant. However with just a mainsail up and effectively 2nd reef, we motorsailed into the wind and made it in to the Med!

We continued to motorsail and then just motor as once through the Gibraltar Strait, the wind dropped away and we couldn't sail well.

We called in to Catagena on the way to ensure we had enough diesel to get to Palma and late afternoon on Monday, 18 July we arrived.

We are now having repairs done and the boom looked at once again witht he view to getting it sorted so that no one has to worry/stress over it.

So thats it in a nut shell!

Cheers

Hi All,

We have made it to the Med!

Took us a while to break through in to Gibraltar as we had strong winds right from the direction we wanted to go. Unfortunately, a sail yacht can not sail straight in to the wind so we have had to take our way up through the heads.

We have had very strong winds for four of the last five days, with yesterday being the only day where it calmed down a bit. At 6am this morning it all came back and we are again until very little sail and motoring to get us through it.

We will not be calling in Gibraltar this time in order to save some time and get to Palma.

Will update some time soon if we get the chance!

Cheers Crew of Destiny!

Hi All,

Well at 11:30 this morning, we dropped our lines at Horta and restarted our voyage east!

We have said farewell to Jeff on Friday and welcome Nelson back onboard even after the fact he took the long route to get to us with missed connections and all that other typical airline type thing.

Horta has put on a great day for our departure. Clear skies and good winds from the southwest to get us going. But now that we are out of the island influence, the winds have returned to their flukey games that we had coming into Horta.

We have a little over 1000 miles to run to Gibraltar. How long we will stop there (if at all) has yet to be decided. It will depend on the time it takes us to get there.

So stay tuned and watch for updates. You will at least get a map update once a day and I hope that someone will create a blog entry regularly as well!

Have a great day - we are!

Graeme, Lynley, Nelson, Hartley and Martin!

Well, we are signed up and ready to go so this is just a test t make sure that Graeme knows how this works...

Hopefully this means we will be able to update the blog by email each day we are at sea!

Here goes - :-)