Voyage and return

Timothy Harkness

Return journey from Greece to Malta, under some degree of time pressure because we needed to catch a flight in the evening of the 28th. But we waited for the wind, which eventually, eventually came and promised us two to three days of good wind, which was going to get us to Malta in just under 48 hours. We motored the first section, saving ourselves a couple of tacks. That was just the first mile or two, then set course and basically ran a single tack all the way from Greece to Malta. Pretty much one line, occasionally steering one way or the other to stay within the optimum wind bubble. Watches worked effectively. I took the one to four watch. Beautiful, serene sailing. We had up to, I think, about 15 knots of wind, which was moving us at some points at around 10 knots. The first hundred miles were pretty quick. Then on the second day, we were ahead of schedule and there was some concern that we might arrive in the hours of darkness. My feeling was it's easier to slow down than to speed up. And as things turned out, the wind died and we did actually have to motor a little bit. We were down to three knots at one point. I turned on the port engine and we motored for a few hours before the wind came up a little bit again and we sailed in at around four to five knots. Arrived into a fairly tight anchorage, put the anchor down, and yeah, beautiful, serene trip. Saw two turtles, lots of flying fish, and just enjoyed the time and the serenity, and enjoyed sailing together with the team and with Claudia.