Grateful (Malta to Sardinia)

While travelling the Mediterranean, we discover beautiful places with rich history and culture. At the same time, we witness less rosy realities. It makes us so grateful for our lives and every step we complete in this journey.

In the upcoming weeks, the postings will become more irregular as we make our way back to the entrance of the Mediterranean sea and prepare our longest passage so far, taking us hopefully all the way from Sardinia to Gibraltar.

Rich history of Malta

While waiting for a favorable weather window, we took the bus to explore new places in the south of Malta.

For instance, there are several sites with megalitic temples. They bear witness to the presence and ingeniosity of humans 5500 years ago. We visited Hagar Qim and Mnajdra temples, where the disposition of the stones are aligned to capture the light of the sun during the solstices.

At the southeast tip of Malta lies Marsaxlokk. A surprising combination of a touristy fishing village facing a liquefied natural gas power plant and big fishing farms.

Furthermore, we were impressed by the natural beauty of the coastline near Blue grotto.

Grand Harbour marina

It was the second time that we entered the harbour of Valetta with Fabule. The inlets and headlands create a splendid scenery as you make your way in between the fortifications and honey colored buildings on each side.

When we left Valetta, there were fireworks because of the closing festivities (festas) of the Santa Marija Asssunta (Assumption of Mary). This is one of the busiest holiday weeks in Malta.

Foggy morning (Malta to Sicily)

The first leg of this crossing took us from Malta to Sicily. There is a lot of marine traffic in this section of the Mediterranean, used by cargo ships as well as pleasure crafts. During our watches, we listened to the constant VHF radio chatter on channel 16: ships called each other in order to make arrangements for safe passing. We also heard Mayday relays of dramatic situations happening more than 100 nautical miles further south, near Lampedusa: a migrant boat was drifting without engine, another one taking in water. In Mgarr, we had met a boat waiting for a new crew of german volunteers, whose mission was to cruise that particular area and help these desperate people before the worst happened. This is an incredibly sad situation.

As we reached the coast of Sicily near Mazara del Vallo the next morning, a dense fog was covering the area.

The NW wind was getting stronger and was meant to shift to N in the corridor between Sicily and Sardinia. Therefore, we decided to motor up the west coast of Sicily until we could get an angle to the wind that allowed us to sail to Sardinia. We chose the route through the Egadi Islands, where the waves did not build up as much.

Smooth ride (Sicily to Sardinia)

After passing Trepani, we started our crossing west to Sardinia. The winds were light, making the passage slow. On the other hand, the seas were calm and we preferred to arrive in a new place with the morning light.

When planning this crossing, the risk of thunderstorms made us worried. There is an indicator called CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) which was forecasted to be extremely high in the area between Sicily and Sardinia. We knew first hand that thunderstorms could form in this area. Was it safe to navigate there for 36 hours?

It was only after downloading an updated forecast while close to Sicily and looking at the sky that we decided to cross. The french Arome model (very precise but only available for 2 days) was not predicting serious weather. It turned out that we did not see any convective clouds during the passage and the predicted risk did not materialise. This illustrates the complexity of modelling atmospheric conditions.

On the bright side, the high rate of humidity, that probably caused the elevated CAPE values, also contributed to beautiful sights at sunset and sunrise. During the night, we loved watching the stars and the milkyway. Thanks to the Perseides, we observed shooting stars too.

Arriving in Sardinia

As the sun was rising on the 4th day, we arrived at the south tip of Sardinia. It took us 3 days and 3 nights to complete these 340 nautical miles. We will stay in the area of Cagliari while we plan the next leg of our journey and welcome Peter onboard Fabule for the crossing to Gibraltar.