It’s 200 miles from Menorca to Sardinia. A two day sail for us. We studied the weather apps and made a plan. Days of winds from the south were now shifting as a mistral (famous brisk north wind from France) was developing. We wanted to take advantage of the wind as it developed, without getting caught in the big stuff.

We were doing 6+ knots easily the first day, with a double reefed main and half a jib. We had set the wind vane, so the boat was essentially steering itself, and using no electricity. The first 24 hours were some of the best sailing all season.

The night sky was absolutely spectacular. I had been resting in the cockpit, lying on my back, and opened my eyes to take it all in. All of a sudden I was distracted by what looked like a chain of 20 lights moving across the night sky. Luckily I got Trip’s attention and he saw it too (he’s always teasing me of seeing cool things and not telling him). Other than a really slow UFO, we had no idea. I later googled it and found out that it’s one of many StarLink satellite chains.

Then the seas grew. Two meters (6 feet) is generally not that big of a deal, but they were only 5 seconds apart. You generally want twice the interval in time to the height – we had a one-to-one. The boat plowed through the swell easily enough, but the wind vane had a hard time because the sails were not balanced and it was a bit bouncy to be going forward unless absolutely necessary. Trip decided to hand steer and muscled his way through several hours. We were finally getting closer, and could change course and set the auto pilot (wind vane bungee had snapped, and the repair would have to be done in calmer conditions).

Sunset during our lively sail

The next challenge : Finding a place to anchor in the dark. Italy is like Spain in that they have huge colonies of the sea grass posodonia which needs to be protected, which means you can only anchor in sand. Easy enough to do at noon with full sun, not so easy at 1 AM. We had done so well with speed that we were now arriving in the middle of the night instead of early morning. As soon as we had cell phone coverage (whew, the Spanish SIM card was still good in Italy), we started studying the anchorage apps for options, and then comparing them to google maps, whose aerial shots do an amazing job of showing sand. We picked a no-brainer anchorage, motored to about 20 feet of depth, confirmed with google maps that we were in sand, and dropped the hook. I use a headlamp when anchoring at night, and very quickly realized that with the night sky (sliver of a moon but very bright) and the crystal clear waters, that, even at that hour, I could see the anchor and chain! Every inch of the boat was covered in salt, several blankets and shirts were soaked from the sporty sail, but we were in Italy!