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Chart of the Fornelli Passage Skipper and First mate had been having a heated debate the previous night about something called the ‘ Passage di Fornelli ’. I don’t know who Fornelli was, but his (or her - but unlikely let’s be honest) intrepid navigation skills had given us a conundrum. Having been encouraged by Skipper to read the Almanac about our trip up the north west cost of Sardinia, First Mate now realised that Skipper intended to save well over 20NM of distance to our

When Richard first said, “ Let’s buy a boat and go sailing ”, I immediately thought of sunbathing on deck, meeting other like-minded people for cocktails, and pottering around little markets buying up local cheeses and specialty breads. As regular readers will know, boat life hasn’t been like that up until now. We arrived in Sardinia on Saturday, after a tranquil crossing and an engine battery problem (the problem was it wasn’t Eveready). Alghero is a delightful place. It is

Courtesy of WelcomeAghero.com. Missy Bear is in the marina not far from the church spire. Alghero is a coastal town of north-western Sardinia. Part of its population descends from Catalan conquerors from the end of the Middle Ages, when Sardinia was seized from Pisa, and became part of the Crown of Aragon. The Catalan language is co-official with Italian, which is a unique situation in Italy. It is known as the Alguerès dialect. Alghero is sometimes known as ‘ Little Barcelon

Our original dinghy is still, we believe, somewhere in a Charles de Gaulles bonded warehouse. Sniffer dogs are trying to decide if it smells of cocaine or rubber. A douanier is wondering if there are any ham sandwiches hidden on it. And so, we now awaited the coming of our second dinghy. Rumours abounded that SAS in Canet (who fitted out the boat) had not only received the dinghy, but checked it and sent it down to Port Ginesta. But no-one could tell us the courier, or a trac

Well, it was just the two of us. Covid-19 has prevented friends getting to us in France to crew, and Italian five-day quarantine has also ruled-out use of newly-arrived Brits crewing on the leg to Alghero. What about local Spanish sailors? Well, the Balearic mad-season meant that all Spanish professional crew were already booked up for the islands. We had been monitoring the three-day forecast on the best weather site ever: Windy (I highly recommend it for passage planning).