Sailing through the Mediterranian Sea

My sailing trip will be from 17th of Mai up to the 03rd of June 2014.

A mail of my nighbour took me out of my normal way of life. He had bought a sailing boat together with his wife in England what he wanted to sail to Greece. For this trip one person of the crew was missing helping with the night service, to fix and put away the fender, fixing the electricity cable, helping to fix the sail, cooking, cleaning and bringing the waste away.

The plan was that Sylvia and his husband Klaus and I should fly to Alicante to take a rental car from there to Cartagena.

But the plan changed. Because of the bad weather the old crew had the last days so that they where stucked in the habour of Barbate south of Spain ca. 60 km west of Tarifa.

No we had to drive 670 km from Alicante to Barbate. Just hard work to do because I arrived Alicante at 5.30 pm. Quite exhausted we arrived the sailing boat in Barbate at 1 o´clock in the morning. After a wellcome drink and exchange of the things that were happend, we went to bed. The next morning the wife of the skipper drove the rental car back to Malaga and took a flight back home to Hamburg. The new crew started the sailing trip threw the street of Gibraltar and up to Cartagena where the skippers son wanted to fly back to England. It was perfect that we had his help for this part of the trip because the wind still was blowing with 7 bf and that let the new crew feel seesick.

In Cartagena we visit the nice city and filled up the supplies and also fuel, water and electricity. The next 5 days we shouldn´t reach land and for that it was quite important to do. We didn´t get a lot of sleep when we arrived Cagliari on Sardinia. That was the reason that we stayed 2 days over there, enjoying to have land under our feets and walking arround in the beatiful city.

After 3 nights we arrived Tindari on Sicily. There Silyia and Klaus took a Taxi, Bus and Train to get to Catagena and the flight back to Denmark the next day.

The skipper and I started to sail on again the next day, sailing throgh the Street of Messina to a bay in front of Taormina where we ankered. We where realy lucky because we pushed away the dark clouds in front of us so that we didn´t get any rain. Meanwhile we could also sail without the motor. Perfect!!

It was something special to visit the gorgeous city Taormina.

To get to Catania was only a trip of 5 hours with a lot of sunshine. In Catania we took the day very early a bus to the vulcano Etna. It wasn´t the best weather for it, but we could see the top and the clouds sometimes where laying under us.

Where the bus stopped we took a cable car and after that a big 4-wheel-drive car brougt us up to a heath of 2700 m . During a round trip by foot a guide give us a lot of informations. The regular bus took us back to Catania at 6.30 pm. That was a little bit too much time to spend on the vulcano.

The city Catania looks awful. They haven´t done anything at the houses and it seems as if they only have done inside of the restaurants and bars. Therefore you´re glad to leave Cartania. It´s not a city for Tourists.

Beeing back home I will sleep a lot and feel richer with a lot of impressions.