We arrived in Favignana Sicily and anchored inside island of Preveto in time for a quick sail in the Walker bay dinghy before lunch.

I began to admire the cliffs of the nearby mountain and after lunch we decided to attempt to climb up.

Rowing ashore

We rowed ashore and looked for a path, but our first attempt would have been too steep and arduous for the kids, so we walked along the road towards town in search for the reccomend path.

Local donkeys

An hour later, passing small hotel resorts, donkeys and farmland we finally reached the town and sat down to enjoy some snacks.

Coastal walk

We decided to abort the climb and instead explore the village. Before tourism Favignana was famous for its tuna factory and jail. We passed the jail, old tuna factory, an array of huge old anchors, and a variety of tourist bars before exploring the quaint little town.

Row of anchors and tuna factory in backdrop

We returned to Sunday island at sunset for dinner and an early night as we were all tired from our voyage from Malta. I spent the evening studying our SSB radio and Winlink computer software trying to get emails and satellite pictures via HF.

Em and Rich with the rock in the background

The next morning after breakfast I decided to attempt the mountain solo while Em did school with the kids. The climb up the mountain was hard but fantastic. I decided to climb up the western face of the rock which ended up being a near vertical climb and a fun challenge. The view at the top was amazing with 360* views of the Mediterranean. After visiting the fort ruins at the top my decent was more conformed down the western path with streams of tourists puffing their way up the hill in the other direction.

View from top

I arrived back onboard as the kids were finishing their school work for the day and we climbed into the Walker Bay dinghy and rowed to Prevento island for some exploring.

After lunch the winds were blowing force 4 from the right direction and there were storm clouds in the distance. We had the choice of sitting in a rolling anchorage at anchor with variable strong winds generated from the localized storm or set sail and roll about at sea. Emilie and I agreed on the latter and after a quick sail in the dinghy around the bay with Issy and Max we secured the boat and set sail.

Storm clouds

An hour later passing Isle Marritimo the storm clouds were looking menacing and there was thunder and lightning within 10nm so we tucked in two reefs and waited for the storm. Not long after tucking the reefs we were shooting down wind at 8 kts with 30kt gusts.

While the forecast continued to announce forecasted winds NE Force 4, there were idiotic Al notes of localized storms that continued to suck our wind away resulting in variable force 2 winds at best.

Sailing walker bay dinghy with kids

The temptation to drop sails and drift for the vending were thwarted by our proximity to Tunisia so we slowly motored and rolled our way to Sardinia.

Throughout the night and morning the wind was variable changing from 6kts from the east to 20kts from the North east making watches busy altering sails between spouts of motoring. By early morning the wind had settled to a delightful NE 12kts and this remained with us until after midday when it swung back to the east as we continued to motor sail towards Sardinia.

In the early evening we anchored in Carbonara in the SE corner of Sicily and plan to enjoy the southern region until we have a good weather window to sail towards Mallorca.

Approaching Sardinia

After a fantastic few weeks visiting family and completing some big projects we have Departed Malta for Palma, sailing via Sicily and Sardinia.

The forecast is light headwinds so we expect to arrive in Favignana Sicily late Tuesday night.

Malta gave us the opportunity to complete the works on the radio station, get our radio certificate finalized, re build the freezer, build some shelving for the kids forward cabin, and numerous other improvements to Sunday Island.

While in Malta we also took delivery of a new 3.1m zodiac and Emilie’s family gifted us a Walker bay sailing and rowing dinghy. We also took onboard our new 6 man liferaft.

Whilst in Malta I became officially Maltese and now have a red and a blue passport.

We are now prepared for the Atlantic. And our journey is becoming very real. It is so nice to pick up the anchor knowing that for the next 3 months we will be sailing west!

You can follow our position with our AIS that transmits to other vessels and land base stations.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:7304925/mmsi:256002505/imo:0/vessel:SUNDAY_ISLAND

Sunday Island set sail from Greece on the 21st August with fair winds from the north north west of 12-15kts. We enjoyed a nice afternoon sail with two reefs in the mainsail and all other sails set

The first day was a bit bumpy due to a he shallow waters off Greece however once we sailed into the deeper waters of the Ionian Sea the short chop was replaced by a longer swell.

The first evening the wind picked up to 20kts and we dropped the mainsail and sailed on with missen, staysail, and a reefed Genoa.

By the next morning the wind had dropped to under 14kts and we hoisted the full mainsail again. By late afternoon the wind dropped out altogether and we motored on slowly towards Malta.

Early the next morning we were surrounded by huge storm clouds that sucked the wind away from us before the lightening began to strike. When my teeth started to tingle and my hair started to fill with static I knew lightening was close. I turned off all our instruments and helmed in the darkness, surrounded by lightening strikes and huge crashes of thunder. Amazingly Emilie and the kids slept through the intense electrical storm.

Once the clouds cleared We enjoyed light winds of 10kts and sailed on towards Malta. We began to see a lot more ships, many anchoring far off the Malta coast waiting for their assignments.

During the day we enjoyed a small school of Dolphins who played in our bow wave much to everybody’s delight.

Over the past few months my beard and hair had got well out of control until Emilie refused to kiss me until I cleaned up my facial hair. While Emilie enjoyed her afternoon nap I had Issy and Max assist me in trimming my hair. Emilie awoke to the sound of clippers and scissors and half my beard blowing around the cockpit.

Max decided to get in on the hair cutting action and allowed Emilie to cut his shoulder length blind hair. Max’s transformation into a small boy was incredible.

We sailed in towards Manoel Island and anchored off the Royal Malta Yacht Club in the early evening and enjoyed dinner at anchor with a splendid view of the bastions.

While we anchored off the RMYC we enrolled Issy and Max into sailing school for a few days and thy loved sailing around the bay with the other kids. With the kids “back at school” this gave Emilie and I some time to get some maintenance done.

Unfortunately while at anchor off the yacht club another yacht collided with us when the lone sailor was hauling up his anchor. The sailor was very apologetic, however we are now dealing with their insurance company Pantaenius who are not being very helpful in resolving the situation and refuse to pay us back for repairs until we have paid for them with our own money. This puts us in a difficult situation as repairs, though not major involve replacing a 4m section of teak and could cost €15,000 and three weeks of our schedule!

Malta was a good stopover to see family and get Sunday Island ready for the Atlantic. We ordered our liferaft and new Zodiac tender. We also completed our radio station and had radio survey to complete our Malta registry. Our location can be tracked occasionally through the marine traffic website MMSI 256002505.

The freezer I had built in our previous visit to Malta was only dropping to 6*C and so we consulted a refrigeration engineer and had a stainless steel freezer box made up. This will be fitted before we depart Malta and hopefully we will have a freezer for our Atlantic crossing.

For the past week we have enjoyed some time off the boat relaxing in a Gozo farmhouse by the pool with Emilie’s family. We will cruise Malta and Gozo for the next week while we wait for our ordered spain parts to arrive, have medical checkups, visit family and friends and enjoy Emilie’s grandmother Dora’s 90th birthday before we set sail to Sardinia and then to the Balearic Islands ready to step off into the Atlantic Ocean.