Week 1 - Crossing the Adriatic

Zacc, Finley and I set off from home late on New Years day and arrived safely in Trogir near Split in Croatia around lunchtime on the 2nd. Having checked into the hotel, we nipped down to MacMac for a quick look. Baotic Marina was absolutely deserted, so we had to break into our own boat and “find” the spare key. After giving the lads a short tour, we walked down the road to get something to eat. Mark Scrancher (our friend and a professional sailor) was due to arrive after 2000hrs but we were too hungry and tired to wait - it had been a long day. Fed and watered we went back to our room to regroup and await Mark.

Upon his arrival, we headed out back to the same place, which may have been the only place in Trogir that was serving food, it really is like a ghost town at this time of year! After a feed and a catch up, it was time to sleep and prepare for a busy next day.

Following a hearty breakfast, we hit the Marina around 0830 and went in search of the 4 bloody big crates I had shipped a few weeks before. Found them quickly thankfully and trolley jacked them down to the head of the walkway to unload in glorious sunshine (although a little nippy). We unpacked the lot onto the quayside and I thought there is no bloody way we will get all this gear on board.

The very first install was the Liferaft, then the scuba gear, lifejackets, wet weather clothes etc. etc. and so it went on. We were chuffed to bits to have all 4 crates emptied, broken down and removed as well has having everything on board by 1100hrs - well ahead of schedule.

I have to say, that down below looked like someone had burgled the place and then set off a grenade! 8 bloody big and heavy toolboxes dominated the forward end and the main cabin, well, you couldn’t actually see it, just total devastation. The master cabin was scary even to look into!

Part of the fun in a new boat, is finding what is below the floorboards and finding all the good places to store “stuff”, but unfortunately we couldn’t find those because of, well because of just bloody everything!!!

The pressure was on as we had to get her ready to leave at 0700 in the morning and the light was fading fast. Whilst Mark and the lads prepped MacMac for sea, I plugged away at getting as much stowed as possible within the time frame that would allow us to get away and I could deal with the rest on route!

We worked hard and did what we could before a dash to the supermarket to victual the boat and return to the same restaurant (again) for a final meal ashore.

Set the alarms for 0600 and jumped into our bunks, not a pillow case nor quilt cover in sight. We didn’t care, we would sort that tomorrow or maybe the next day!!

Up and at it, then following a few final checks we left Baotic Marina at 0730 on the 4th January and settled in for what we hoped would be a four to five day non-stop sail to Sicily.

18 knots of wind from dead astern, so we sailed with just the Genoa set and were creaming comfortable along at a very respectable 6 knots. Downside of that was the surfing downwind corkscrew motion of the boat, which made down below quite unpleasant in terms of nausea for Zacc and Finley. I wasn’t wonderful myself as I stood in the galley, de-boning a chicken and prepping up one of Chef Gary’s recently learned recipes. We wanted to get some good grub into us before dark and settled into a two watch system. Dinner devoured before 1600 and we watched the sun sink below the horizon in a burst of fire at 1630.

Finley and I had the first watch, 2000-2300 having decided to work in 3 hour shifts. Our timing was perfect with a cloudless sky and an almost full moon. It was a very empty, cold and lonely Adriatic Sea - we didn’t see another vessel at all. We did have a stunning moonlit night, saw some amazing shooting stars and joined on a couple of occasions by dolphins on the bow. Thankfully, we were all wrapped up in the best of thermals, gloves, socks Blue Robin hats and decent outer layer, so the cold didn’t penetrate too much. A couple of quilts to wrap up in added a much appreciated top layer.

Alternate three hour watches are a bit of a double edged sword. Great to be only on deck for 3 hours, but by the time you get stripped for sleep and then up again and re-dress, you only really get a couple of hours of sleep in the ever moving roller coaster ride that comes with sailing.

Sailing the Mediterranean in January is not recommended in any of the pilot books (shock horror). When I was telling friends and family about this trip, many conjured up images of 30 degree summer breezes, enticing turquoise blue warm water, T Shirt weather and many hours of glorious sunshine. I can now tell you that this couldn’t be farther from reality.

The truth is, fifteen hours of darkness, thermals, sweaters and hats with frequent spells of very high winds make this trip quite a challenging one. Certainly no walk in the park to sail 1400miles in the Med, in January, on a new boat! It reminds me of sailing the west coast of Scotland in late September on a bad day!

We settled well into the watches pretty quickly and considering it was Zacc and Finleys first ever night sail AND their first day onboard, they passed the baptism of fire with flying colours. Mark has been sailing more or less constantly since last February, so his sea legs were well established. For the three of us, we were having to find our feet and balance pretty quickly as she surfed down the waves and rolled. An absolutely stunningly beautiful first night at sea though.

The sun rose above the horizon around 0730 to warm our bones again. Finley had a lie in having come off watch at 0500 and Zacc hit the hay at 0800. I joined Mark on deck on another very pleasant day, still maintaining our average of 6 knots. We were chuffed to bits to have covered 140miles in 24hours and were looking forward to the same again. Around noon, the wind dropped and our speed decreased to a little over 3 -4 knots, so figured it was prudent to “fire up the donkey” (the engine) to give us a little boost. First time we had used it from exiting Baotic Marina in Trogir. Running it at 1800rpm (which is quite low) we kept an eye on engine temperature with a temperature gun and all was normal. It wasn’t too long though before we noticed a slow, but steady dribbling of oil into the engine well. We mopped the oil up and did some exploratory work and discovered that the oil appeared to be coming from either the oil cooler or the intercooler OR even both. Not at all what we wanted to see nor expected to see!

Safety always comes first on a yacht and bearing in mind we still had at least another 3 days sailing in front of us to get to Sicily, along the “sole” of Italy (which has some notoriously dangerously windy areas in the winter), it really was a no brainer to alter course and make for the Italian city of Brindisi.

The disappointment on board MacMac was palpable as instantly we knew our weather window for Sicily was gone! More disappointing was the fact that the engineers at Baotic had supposedly repaired the oil leak before departure! So turning west towards Brindisi the mood was very subdued.

Eventually we got hold of the Marina staff at Brindisi and not long after we were safely tided up alongside. The guys who took our lines very kindly contacted an engineer who agreed to meet us at 0800 the next morning (even though it was a public holiday). After a quick inspection, he agreed to come back on board first thing on Monday morning. Time for a re-think with regards to our plans.

Saturday 7th January, over coffee and breakfast we had a crew meeting. To cut a long story short, the weather for the week ahead from Monday 9th was very very unfavourable. Strong 40knot winds were forecast from the South from Monday which was to swing around to the west later. Finley had to be back for Uni around 15th January and Zacc was pretty flexible.

The decision was to fly Finley and Zacc back to Dublin on Sunday 8th from Brindisi airport, via Rome. Zacc would return on Saturday 14th January having had a few days back home.

Meanwhile, Mark and I would get the oil leak repaired whilst riding out the weather. It would also be an opportunity for me to sort out the bomb site down below and find permanent homes for tools, scuba gear, clothes, books etc. etc. etc. In addition we could get stuck into lots of little repair jobs and fully explore all the boats equipment, gadgets and systems - so perhaps it would be a cloud with a silver lining!

We then took a €30 taxi two miles into town to do another shop supplies and allow Zacc go for a wander around the city and get some photographs.

Arriving into the town centre at 1300, we discovered that on Saturday, everything shuts at 1330 and I mean EVERYTHING. Mark and I did a swift Supermarket sweep around a shop that a modern garage at home would put to shame!. To say it was a shit supermarket is being polite. We grabbed what we could, picked up the lads and another €30 took us back to the marina. Actually, the taxi driver was a gem - he could talk for Ireland and stopped quite a few times to point out some highlights and features of the city. A very funny man and so passionate about his city.

Zacc cooked another Chef Garys Recipe (meatballs) which was quickly polished off and then the lads got tucked into a few “beers” to round of the evening with quite an eclectic playlist going on in the background as everyone picked a tune or two.

A late night by our standards and all too soon morning rolled around and I had to wave goodbye Zacc and Finley. I loved having both of them with me and was very sad to see them both go, it had been a short but treasured shared experience.

On the bright side, Zacc will be back on Saturday and Finley will fly out to meet us wherever we are later in the month.

Here’s hoping the engine repair doesn’t take too long and that a weather window opens towards the end of next week.

Rigging check and tune up on Thursday morning and hopefully we will be good to go for a night sail starting on Saturday.

Looking forward to our next couple of legs with no preconceptions about where that will take us.

Have a look at a selection of Zacc’s photographs in the gallery below.

Until next time - Robin