Time zone UTC + 0.00
Local hour (Italy & France) + 2.00
23.00 - Departure from Isola Rossa
Coordinates 41.º00'560N 008.º52'412E
Heading: 005 degrees
Wind speed: 4 knots
Wind direction: 25 degrees from port
Water temp: 27.6 C
Sea state: calm
SOG: 5.7 knots
The winds are really not in our favour while in Sardinia, it's going to blow like crazy again in the Bonifacio Strait area, the Madalenas Archipelago will be off-limits for a while and hide nearby seems not to be a good option because of the limited options.
So we are going to seek refuge up north in East Corsica.
The only decent window of opportunity to cross the Strait safely seems to be tonight or tomorrow early morning. The original plan was to leave tomorrow before sunrise but since the forecast seems to be moving faster at each update we decided not to risk and leave tonight while we are sure there will be no waves to worry about during the passage.
02.00 - Fishing buoys
Coordinates 41.º13'013N 009.º02'678E
Heading: 040 degrees
Wind speed: 6.8 knots
Wind direction: 125 degrees from port
Water temp: 26.2 C
Sea state: calm
SOG: 5.7 knots
Heading to the narrow passage that allows us to cut time getting north. Lots of fishing buoys during the night and we can only see them when already too late to change course so it's a game of hope we don't actually hit any.
The view in this little passage after the Strait is breathtaking. Doing the transit markers was not easy, very hard to see the backmarker due to vegetation overgrown, MR is on our tail, not sure if they noticed that we had these land markers to help.
We are just glad that the two boats managed to cross the Strait without any problems during the night and before the winds and waves picking up. We can see the sea already changing, it's going to be nasty here in a few hours.
Glad we left when we left.
07.45 - Arrival to Golfe de Pinarellu, Corsica
Coordinates 41.º40'358N 009.º22'732E
Water temp: 28.1 C
Cloud coverage: 80%
Sea state: calm
Total hours of the trip: 8.45h
Total hours motoring: 8.45h
Distance: 56nm
***In the spirit of sharing our dreams and experiences we have shared this blog post in the NOFOREIGNLAND.COM website sailors community.