We departed on 4 July – an auspicious day indeed for us Amies – on a 840NM transit from our winter berth in Marina di Ragusa, Sicily, Italy to our pre-crossing berth in Almerimar Spain. We expected to motor some of the way as our fuel tank (140gal/530liters) would not allow us to cover that distance non-stop at our average SOA of 5 kts. So we searched for wind that would take us in our desired direction. If all went to plan we’d be in Almerimar in about 7 days… Ha Ha Ha!
All you Old Med Sailors are thinking – after their 5 years in the Med – didn’t they know how unlikely that would be?! Why else is it called the Motorterranean - no wind, too much wind or great wind from the wrong direction!
It took us 14 days! It wasn't just crummy wind & sea conditions which were nothing like the predictions BUT unbeknownst to us - lurking under the hull was the real culprit which we did not discover until our second unscheduled stop along the transit.
We noted around Tunisia that it wasn't just opposing seas & winds that were slowing us down - they stayed about the same, speed reduced and our RPM remained the same. The wind we'd counted on based on weather predictions did not arrive so since the RPM was not good we made our first unscheduled stop, off base course, in Cagliari, Sardenia, Italy.
Entering the very busy port was ultimately okay BUT no one on VHF16 spoke English to tell us where the advertised fuel station was. Since we were feeling fuel desperate we ploughed on determined to find it ourselves. Then we called a local marina described as "family run & friendly" - eureka - the very kind man spoke English & gave us directions. We found the fuel pier in the most unlikely place and finally got alongside safely despite gusts blowing us on; filled up with twice as much as Peter estimated (not good) and then proceeded towards Almerimar looking for wind.
Wind/sea conditions and RPM did not improve so we remembered the neat little port on Mallorca we’d been to before in 2013 - Porto Colom! We knew they had fuel and hopefully other help. Peter by now has eliminated everything but something wrapped around the screw/shaft. The two young English speaking marineros in the rib that came to escort us to a berth couldn't have been more helpful.
We told them up front we thought we had prop problems so they were ready for it when Peter could not manuever the boat into reverse to back in to the berth. One jumped back into the rib which he used to push us astern while the other was on the pier pulling on the stern mooring line. Then the one on the rib jumped aboard and tied off the laid line (aka slimy line) for us. They were the first marineros we ever tipped!
One of them called a diver as soon as we were tied up. He came out at 7PM and sure enough he had to cut off 40-50 ft of polypropylene wrapped on the screw/shaft! Fortunately, since then we have detected no negative effect of this mishap.
After a few days rest in this very relaxed tourist town, we finally sailed past Capo de Gato (our previous nemesis) to Almerimar with winds roaring over us from astern and gusting to 30kts. Again happy to get into port but pooped.... getting too old to do this much work!