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Sailing vessel RaRa

West of Preveza - The long way home

Preamble — Twenty Years in the Making

For us, this voyage did not truly begin in Greece, nor even in the autumn of 2025 when we first stepped aboard boats with any serious intention of buying one, but much earlier, in those quieter years when the idea of finding the right boat and bringing her home under our own command still belonged more to conversation than to action. For more than twenty years that ambition had remained present in one form or another, surfacing whenever life allowed space for imagining something larger, then receding again beneath work, family, responsibility, and all the sensible compromises that so often delay dreams without extinguishing them.

Long before there was any boat, any practical discussion of Greece, or any realistic expectation that we might one day bring a yacht home across half of Europe, there had already been the much longer and less predictable story of how Rachel and I had arrived at a point where undertaking something like this together felt neither reckless nor improbable, but simply another expression of something already long established between us.

We first met when we were very young, at an age when neither of us yet understood how certain people can settle quietly into memory long before life makes proper room for them. Rachel was fifteen, I was nineteen, and although such details invite more scrutiny now than they did then, at the time it sat within the ordinary tolerance of family and circumstance, with neither side regarding it as anything unusual enough to resist. Both of us were attached elsewhere, both still living inside lives not yet fully formed, and yet from the beginning there existed between us something that felt distinct from ordinary attraction. There was ease, humour, and an immediate familiarity, as though conversation between us required less effort than it did with almost anyone else.

Like many early relationships, ours was brief, interrupted less by conflict than by timing. My own girlfriend returned from travelling, Rachel soon left home, moved to the city, and began another chapter of her own life. We drifted apart not because anything had failed, but because life at that age often moves faster than understanding. Yet neither of us entirely disappeared from the other’s thoughts, and on the few occasions our paths crossed in the years that followed, the atmosphere retained something unmistakably unfinished, as though the space between those encounters carried far more than either of us was prepared to name aloud.

More than a decade later, chance returned her to me in circumstances that even now feel improbable enough to belong to someone else’s memory rather than my own. I saw Rachel again outside a nightclub, at precisely the moment I was being escorted rather firmly through the door by a bouncer. We spoke only briefly, but it was enough to leave no uncertainty in me that if life allowed it, I intended to find her again. This time, with neither of us tied elsewhere, we did not lose one another.

Rachel already had two children by then, whom I came in time to love as my own, and later together we had Jago. Like most relationships that endure honestly rather than effortlessly, ours has known periods of strain, stubbornness, and more than one season in which both of us had to learn that affection alone is not a sufficient structure unless accompanied by effort. We are both strong-minded, both capable of holding a position longer than diplomacy might advise, and in earlier years that often meant progress arrived noisily rather than gracefully. What has perhaps distinguished us is not an absence of difficulty, but a shared belief that difficulty itself never justifies surrender.

At the time of writing we are closer than we have ever been, not because time softens everything, but because shared years eventually teach where compromise matters and where loyalty matters more. In many ways the voyage aboard RaRa has asked of us nothing fundamentally new. It has simply placed into practical form the same principles that have carried everything else: trust, persistence, humour when plans fail, and a mutual refusal to abandon something simply because it becomes harder than expected. It is probably only in that context that buying a boat in Greece and deciding, with no proper precedent, to bring her home ourselves begins to appear less impulsive than it otherwise might.

Neither of us came to this voyage as sailors in the traditional sense. My own background lay largely in powerboats, navigation, and practical seamanship rather than long sailing passages under canvas, while Rachel arrived with something perhaps equally valuable: curiosity, courage, and a willingness to trust both the boat and the decisions that would increasingly have to be made aboard her. Between us there was confidence enough to begin, but also the clear understanding that much of what lay ahead would be learned in real time, often under conditions less forgiving than either of us might ideally have chosen.

The decision to buy in Greece had not initially presented itself as part of any grand strategy. Like many such decisions, it began simply enough: hours of searching listings, conversations that moved gradually from idle interest to practical arithmetic, and the dawning realisation that if we were ever going to do it, there would always be reasons not to. Boats in Britain offered familiarity but little value; boats in the Mediterranean offered sunlight, possibility, and a degree of optimism that perhaps concealed some of the bureaucracy waiting behind it. The Lagoon 39 that would become RaRa first appeared not as certainty, but as one possibility among many, viewed initially through photographs and cautious hope.

Only later, standing aboard her for the first time, did possibility begin to harden into something more difficult to dismiss. She was not perfect, nor expected to be, but she possessed something more persuasive than polish: a sense that beneath the ordinary wear of previous ownership there remained the shape of exactly what we had been searching for, even if neither of us had entirely known how to define it until then. What followed, as we would soon discover, was never going to be simply the purchase of a boat. It became instead a long procession of documents, inspections, delays, official stamps, unanswered emails, translations, registrations, surveys, permissions, and practical decisions, each one appearing at the time to be the final administrative hurdle before another emerged quietly behind it. Before we had sailed a single meaningful mile, the voyage had already begun in paperwork. And yet, even then, somewhere beneath the bureaucracy and uncertainty, the larger feeling remained unmistakable: after twenty years of talking about doing something like this, we had at last placed ourselves in a position where turning back would require more effort than continuing.

Chapter One — Leaving Greece

The first hours offshore did not feel like uncomplicated joy so much as a mixture of relief, disbelief, and caution. Even with Greece slipping slowly astern, it took time before we fully trusted that we were genuinely moving west and that nothing further would somehow intervene to stop us. But the sea has a way of simplifying thought, and before long the ordinary rhythm of passage-making asserted itself: watches, fuel checks, engine glances, weather reassessments, and long quiet stretches where practical concentration replaced whatever had occupied the mind ashore.

Our original plan had been modest. Crotone had been chosen as the first destination precisely because it represented a sensible opening leg, roughly twenty-four hours from Greece and enough to establish momentum without immediately committing to anything demanding. Offshore, however, forecasts began suggesting something more favourable than expected, and once that possibility appeared it became difficult to justify stopping so soon. After everything it had taken simply to leave Greece, momentum had acquired its own emotional force.

So instead of turning in for Crotone, we made the decision to continue. Riposto became the new objective, another full day beyond Crotone and roughly one hundred and forty nautical miles further west. At the time, the decision felt entirely reasonable. The forecasts supported it, the sea appeared cooperative enough, and there was something deeply satisfying in knowing that we were not merely moving but progressing properly.

One small concern stayed with us from early on: intermittent white smoke from one engine. It never became dramatic enough to force immediate intervention, but it remained present enough that every glance astern lasted slightly longer than normal, and fuel quickly became part of almost every conversation — consumption, balance, treatment, possibility. Offshore, even minor uncertainties occupy disproportionate space.

The first day passed in growing confidence, but by the second night that confidence had thinned considerably. Around seventy miles short of Strait of Messina, approaching the western edge of Calabria, the sea hardened sharply into twenty-four knots directly ahead, and the slamming became violent enough that each impact rose through the hulls with increasing force. For a while we persisted, partly because altering course always feels like an emotional concession before it becomes a rational one. Eventually, though, judgement overruled stubbornness, and we altered south of south east, accepting the extra miles almost immediately because the effect on the motion was so obvious. The slamming eased, the boat settled enough to breathe again, and what had felt punishing became merely difficult.

By morning the sea had softened enough to restore rhythm, and land returned ahead.

Chapter Two — Riposto, Relief and Recalculation

When Riposto finally appeared ahead of us on Sunday 15th March, almost exactly forty-eight hours after leaving Greece, the feeling was less one of triumph than of visible relief. Some arrivals carry excitement, but others arrive at precisely the point where stopping has become more valuable than destination itself, and this was unmistakably one of those. The first secure lines ashore seemed to quiet something in both of us immediately. After two days of movement, engine noise, interrupted rest, and constant attention to the boat, the simplest things became disproportionately satisfying: stepping onto still ground, standing upright without compensating for motion, a proper shower, food that required no preparation aboard, and the possibility of uninterrupted sleep.

The marina itself did not entirely release us from the sea. Even tied up, there was enough surge inside the berth to remind us that Sicily remained exposed to the same conditions we had just crossed, and the berth fee was high enough to register sharply after the practical economics of delivery sailing. But none of that really mattered because the stop had become necessary in ways that were not only physical.

The intermittent white smoke that had followed one engine across the first leg demanded attention straight away. Offshore it had never become dramatic enough to force immediate action, but it had occupied far more of our thinking than we had admitted aloud. Every engine check had carried the same quiet question: whether the problem would remain minor or become something that altered the voyage more seriously.

So in Riposto we treated the fuel, checked filters, and monitored both engines carefully before committing to departure again. The result was immediate enough to feel disproportionately reassuring. The smoke disappeared, and with it a tension we had both been carrying almost continuously since leaving Greece.

But Riposto offered little time for complete comfort because almost as soon as one technical concern resolved, weather took its place. Forecasts for the next leg refused to agree with each other in any satisfying way. PredictWind leaned toward caution, while Italian coastal models looked notably calmer, almost inviting by comparison. Larger models failed to provide certainty, leaving only the familiar offshore truth that forecasts eventually have to give way to what is actually outside the harbour wall.

The decision to leave again therefore felt less confident than deliberate. It was based not on certainty, but on accepting that certainty was not going to arrive.

Chapter Three — Hard Water and the Return of Sailing

Leaving Riposto on 17th March produced the hardest sea we had yet encountered on the voyage, and the contrast between the calm certainty of departure preparations and the violence outside the harbour was immediate enough to feel almost abrupt. The breakwater fell behind us, and within a very short time the sea built into something far more serious than either of us would willingly have chosen: five to six metre seas, gusts close to twenty-eight knots, and a motion violent enough in the opening hours that conversation quickly reduced itself to essentials.

There are moments offshore when language becomes secondary because everything narrows to movement, timing, and judgement. This became one of them. For a while there was very little space for anything except understanding what the sea was doing and deciding whether it remained within the limits of endurance or had crossed into something genuinely unwise.

What gradually emerged, however, was that despite its size, the sea remained organised. The wave period mattered far more than the height, and once that became clear, the motion changed in character. It was still severe, still physically demanding, but no longer random. There was order inside it, and order allows judgement to return.

By the time we approached Strait of Messina, that order had become more obvious. The Strait itself carries a reputation large enough to sharpen attention long before arrival — currents, ferry traffic, narrowness, and history all compressing into one stretch of water that feels important even before it is entered. Yet in reality, what we found there was not chaos but discipline. The sea organised itself further, the adverse current became readable rather than intimidating, and ferry traffic, though constant, moved with a predictability that quickly restored confidence.

Then came one of the clearest rewards of the voyage so far. Once clear of the Strait, the wind shifted just enough to offer something that had been absent for much of the passage west: the chance to sail properly.

We shut the engines down, and for seven hours RaRa settled into a beam reach at around seven knots, balanced and comfortable in a way that transformed the entire mood onboard. After days dominated by engines, mechanical awareness, and constant practical thought, the sudden quiet felt almost emotional in itself. The sound of water against the hulls replaced machinery, and movement ceased feeling imposed and instead became collaborative, as though for the first time the boat herself had fully entered the voyage.

Almost immediately afterwards, wildlife appeared, and the timing felt so perfectly placed that it seemed almost theatrical. Porpoises arrived first, precise and elegant in their movement, followed later by dolphins that stayed alongside long enough to feel less like sightings and more like brief companionship. Then, not long after, one final shape surfaced nearby — a heavier fin, slower, unmistakably different from everything else we had seen. It appeared only briefly before disappearing beneath the surface again, but the impression remained clear enough that both of us thought the same thing almost immediately: shark.

The sequence felt too perfectly composed to invent: hard sea, restored calm, proper sailing, dolphins, then predator.

Later, around seventy-four miles short of Palermo, the first real technical setback arrived. The radar began failing in stages: heading sensor errors first, then scanner alarms, then repeated loss of scanner detection. We tried resets, retried detection, and watched for signs of recovery, but the system never returned convincingly. By then darkness and distance made acceptance more sensible than frustration. Palermo would now be not only an arrival, but a place where another problem waited to be understood.

Chapter Four — Palermo, Work Above the Deck

By the time we arrived in Palermo, the city already felt tied to unfinished work, because the previous leg had ended not simply with landfall but with a technical uncertainty brought ashore with us. The radar had failed seventy-four miles out, and although there had been little value in frustration while still offshore, the unanswered question of what exactly had gone wrong remained waiting the moment the lines were secure.

The following day therefore belonged not to sightseeing but to understanding whether the problem was something we could solve ourselves or whether it would become another expensive delay in a voyage that had already taught us how quickly momentum can disappear.

Even reaching the radar required the sort of improvisation that had already become familiar by this point in the trip. A bosun’s chair large enough to use comfortably simply could not be found, which meant adapting an old climbing harness carefully enough to become safe and practical for the job. It was not an elegant solution, but by then elegance had ceased to matter much compared with simply finding workable answers.

There is always a brief pause before leaving deck level when confidence and doubt seem to occupy exactly the same thought, particularly when the task waiting above you matters enough that getting it wrong will cost more than inconvenience. But once above the spreaders, attention quickly narrows into the practical detail of what is in front of you.

From the mast, Palermo briefly appeared suspended between two entirely different worlds: below us the marina with its ropes, tools, and practical disorder, and beyond it the city itself, warm and expansive under Sicilian light, carrying the kind of beauty that only becomes fully noticeable once work begins to go well.

The radar dome came down without difficulty, and once opened the source of the failure became clear almost immediately. What had triggered alarms offshore and left us speculating across seventy-four miles of sea turned out to be nothing more dramatic than a broken drive belt, a fault simple enough to understand at a glance and reassuring precisely because it was mechanical rather than mysterious.

That discovery changed the mood of the whole day far more than the size of the fault itself might suggest. Had the unit gone back to Simrad for inspection, it would almost certainly have involved days, quite possibly weeks, of delay, together with a repair bill likely approaching seven hundred pounds before anything returned to us. Instead, by dismantling it ourselves and identifying the failure directly, the problem became something tangible, affordable, and already halfway resolved.

The satisfaction lay not simply in saving money, although that mattered, nor even in saving time, which mattered perhaps more, but in the fact that for the first time since the radar alarms had appeared offshore, the issue no longer belonged to uncertainty. It belonged to us again, and that shift felt disproportionately rewarding.

Meanwhile, while one of us worked above the mast, Rachel quietly handled the equally necessary practicalities ashore, arranging laundry collection and return so that ordinary life aboard continued while technical work unfolded overhead. It somehow captured the voyage perfectly: one person suspended above the boat solving what had failed mechanically, the other making sure the ordinary fabric of living aboard did not fray at the edges.

By the time the dome was safely down, the fault identified, and the next repair steps understood, the day had become more than simple maintenance. It felt like a genuine recovery of momentum, one of those modest but deeply satisfying moments when solving a problem yourself restores confidence far beyond the problem itself.

Chapter Five — Palermo by Night

By the time the radar had been lowered, opened, and understood, the day had already shifted in character. What had begun with practical focus and a degree of technical uncertainty had ended in something much more satisfying: not only had the fault revealed itself as manageable, but in solving it ourselves we had quietly reclaimed both time and confidence. That alone altered the mood enough that, by early evening, Palermo no longer felt like a place we had merely arrived in between problems, but somewhere we were finally free to enjoy.

There is a particular pleasure in stepping away from the boat after a day in which work has gone well, because the city beyond the marina immediately seems to offer itself differently. Tools have been put away, lines checked, the practical world aboard momentarily settled, and in that brief interval before evening fully takes hold there is often a sense that whatever happens next has already been earned.

We began at Roppolo, where the first cold pilsner tasted exactly as it should after a day spent aloft in harness and salt, simple enough not to require thought but satisfying enough to mark the clear transition from work into evening. It was one of those small pleasures that would mean very little in another context and yet, after the previous days, felt almost disproportionate in how welcome it was.

From there we drifted on to Mazzini 30, where the evening began to acquire its own character. I ordered a Negroni sharpened unexpectedly with mezcal, and the drink arrived carrying exactly the sort of slight surprise that makes a place memorable — familiar enough to recognise immediately, but altered just enough to feel particular to where we were. Smokier, stronger, and more layered than expected, it seemed somehow to suit Palermo itself, a city that never quite presents itself in a single clear line.

Dinner eventually drew us to Scjavúru, and there the evening found its real centre. I began with sardine meatballs before moving on to pasta alla Norma, a dish so rooted in Sicily that eating it there carried a quiet sense of arriving properly rather than merely passing through. Rachel chose a local platter of ham and cheese to begin, followed by buffalo pizza with ham and tomatoes, and by then the table had acquired that particular ease which only comes once hunger has been replaced by enjoyment and conversation no longer notices time passing.

Several glasses of Etna Bianco softened the pace of everything further. The wine suited the evening almost too well: local, bright, and effortless enough that each glass made the city feel warmer rather than slower. By the time cannoli arrived to finish the meal, there was already that shared certainty that the day had become memorable in a way no planning had required. It was not simply that the food was excellent, though it unquestionably was, but that the whole sequence of the day — mast in the morning, diagnosis by afternoon, Palermo by night — had produced a kind of balance that difficult journeys only occasionally offer.

Even the journey back to the marina seemed determined to remain part of the story rather than merely an ending to it. Buses were caught, then missed, then doubted entirely, routes half understood and then abandoned, with enough uncertainty over where exactly we were and whether the next stop was useful that laughter eventually became easier than trying to impose logic on Palermo’s evening transport system.

By the time we stepped back aboard RaRa, with bags half prepared for flying home briefly for our son’s birthday, the city still seemed to linger around us. Palermo had not simply provided shelter or a technical stop. It had offered something more valuable than that — the sense that after the strain of the previous days, the voyage had briefly given something generous back.

And perhaps that was the clearest feeling at the end of that evening: that difficult passages become bearable not only because they are overcome, but because now and then they lead somewhere unexpectedly worth remembering.

Chapter Six — Leaving RaRa Behind

There is something slightly unnatural about leaving a boat when the voyage itself still feels unfinished. Arriving somewhere and stopping carries its own logic when the next leg follows naturally, but locking the boat, packing a small bag, and turning your thoughts briefly toward airports and departure boards introduces a different kind of interruption, one that feels practical enough on paper yet emotionally harder to settle into once it is actually happening.

Palermo had already given us more than shelter. It had offered a technical victory at exactly the right moment, the reassurance of finding the radar fault ourselves, and an evening that reminded us why difficult passages often become most memorable not because of hardship alone, but because of what occasionally follows it. Yet even with that satisfaction still fresh, there remained the awareness that RaRa was not resting at the end of a journey, only paused somewhere in the middle of one.

The practical work of leaving her for a few days was straightforward enough: systems checked again, shore power confirmed, lines examined carefully, lockers secured, and the ordinary ritual of making a boat safe in your absence performed with more attention than usual because distance always sharpens the imagination. Every skipper knows that slight hesitation before stepping away for the last time — the instinctive glance back at shore lines, fenders, electrical connections, weather, and neighbouring boats, as though one final look might somehow reveal anything missed.

And yet beneath all the practical detail sat something quieter: the simple fact that after months of fighting merely to begin this voyage, leaving her behind, even briefly, carried a faint sense of reluctance.

Part of that reluctance came from how quickly RaRa had already begun to feel transformed. Only weeks earlier she had still carried the lingering identity of purchase, paperwork, and preparation. Now she had crossed open water, taken punishment, taught lessons, revealed faults, and rewarded patience. She had already begun to feel less like a recently bought boat and more like something understood through experience, which made walking away, even temporarily, feel unexpectedly personal.

But family has its own gravity, and this pause carried a reason that no weather window or passage plan could reasonably outweigh. We were flying home for our son Jago’s eighteenth birthday, and that fact gave the interruption a significance entirely beyond logistics. Eighteen is not simply another birthday quietly marked between journeys; it carries the unmistakable feeling of time moving in larger ways, of childhood properly giving way to adulthood, and of moments that deserve presence no matter what else may be unfolding elsewhere.

The contrast between worlds felt almost abrupt. Only hours earlier the conversation had been about drive belts, mast work, scanner alarms, and weather windows westward; now it shifted toward flights, timings, and the curious compression required when one life must briefly fold into another before reopening again days later.

Perhaps that is part of what long owner-led deliveries truly are: not clean expeditions separated neatly from life ashore, but a continual negotiation between the two. Boats move, but the rest of life continues moving too, and sometimes the voyage must make room for both.

Even so, as we prepared to leave Palermo, the unfinished route west remained present in thought almost constantly. The pause did not diminish it. If anything, stepping away sharpened it further. Ahead still lay the long western Mediterranean, the eventual turn toward Gibraltar, the Atlantic edge, Portugal, Biscay, France, and finally home waters that still felt very distant despite all that had already been covered.

For now, though, RaRa remained quietly in Palermo, secured, waiting, carrying within her both the work already done and the miles still ahead. And perhaps that was the strangest feeling of all: that although we were leaving her temporarily, part of the mind had already remained aboard.

Chapter Seven — Returning to RaRa

Time at home, though brief, quickly began to exert its usual quiet influence. Work that had been left waiting naturally reclaimed attention, domestic tasks that had seemed entirely irrelevant while offshore suddenly felt unavoidable again, and for a few days it became almost alarmingly easy to slip back into ordinary life. The contrast itself was striking: only days earlier we had been crossing open water under conflicting forecasts, measuring wave period against judgement, and now the calm routines of the New Forest seemed to suggest that perhaps the sea had already happened some time ago rather than only recently.

Yet that illusion did not last long. After four days both Rachel and I began to notice something neither of us had quite expected: a distinct sense of missing RaRa herself. It was not merely that the voyage remained unfinished, nor simply that Palermo still held practical work waiting to be done, but something more personal and slightly strange — the sense that we were absent from something that had already become emotionally familiar. It felt faintly ridiculous to admit aloud that we missed an inanimate object with such force, yet that was precisely how it seemed: less like leaving property and more like leaving behind a companion that had already acquired character through shared effort.

Flights were eventually booked for the 26th, and when we arrived into Palermo at 10:21 local time, the weather immediately reminded us that the Mediterranean rarely allows a return without fresh negotiation. Winds were already in excess of thirty-five knots, strong enough that a call to the marina requesting additional mooring lines felt prudent before we had even reached the boat, and to their credit the marina staff obliged without fuss.

The day had begun with practical intentions. We had imagined arriving early enough to regain momentum quickly, perhaps even recover some of the maintenance time already mentally allocated to the days ahead. Instead, modern borders imposed their own delay. Passport control swallowed nearly two hours, a strangely slow and impersonal process made more noticeable perhaps because recent years seem to have taught every country to look slightly more suspiciously at movement than before. Standing in queues under bright airport lighting, tired before even reaching the marina, it was difficult not to feel how sharply the world now carries its own uncertainty.

By the time we finally secured a taxi and reached the marina, the earlier energy had largely dissolved into simple fatigue. We were genuinely delighted to be back aboard — that first moment stepping onto the pontoon and seeing RaRa again carried an absurdly warm familiarity — yet the intended productivity of the day had already evaporated. Hunger, travel weariness, and that curious mental dullness that follows airports made practical work suddenly feel unrealistic.

So instead, rather sensibly at first, we decided to head into Palermo for food and something to drink.

The city, however, quickly reminded us that sensible intentions there often take on a life of their own. Two double espressos seemed a good idea at the time, until it became clear that evening chill, caffeine, and later alcohol were combining in ways that rendered even short bus journeys unexpectedly unreliable. More than once we found ourselves able to manage only a few stops before the need for a comfort break became unavoidable, a logistical weakness made faintly absurd by Palermo’s buses, which already appeared to operate according to principles known only to Palermo itself.

Dinner itself justified the effort entirely. Roman pizza and spaghetti con vongole arrived exactly when needed, restoring enough spirit that for a while the evening regained direction. Yet afterwards, standing once again at a bus stop, watching forty-five minutes pass while buses appeared only in theory, it gradually became obvious that the return would not happen as planned.

And so the evening dissolved into something unexpectedly comic: long walks broken by cafés, repeated stops for facilities, more beer than originally intended, and the growing realisation that Palermo had once again quietly decided our movements rather than us. By the time we finally reached RaRa again, we were shattered, faintly ridiculous, slightly over-caffeinated, mildly tipsy, and entirely without energy for anything beyond sleep. It felt, in its own way, like a perfect return.

Chapter Eight — Wind Against the Marina

The following morning announced itself long before dawn. At four in the morning the sound of heavy rain striking the cabin roof and gusts pressing through the rigging stirred us both awake, yet rather than feeling intrusive it carried something unexpectedly comforting about it. There is a particular intimacy to being aboard during weather when there is nowhere else you need to be — the enclosed warmth of the cabin, the muffled force outside, and the quiet knowledge that for once the sea is someone else’s concern beyond the breakwater.

For a while we simply stayed there, warm, listening, content in that half-sleeping stillness that rain aboard seems to encourage. It was one of those moments where no one feels any urgency to begin the day because the weather itself appears to justify postponement.

Of course, aboard, postponement rarely survives long. Rachel generally tolerates my reluctance to move for a certain amount of time, but there comes a point — often signalled less romantically by my increasingly unreliable early-morning digestion — when staying horizontal ceases to be realistic for either of us. It has quietly become one of those truths of boat life that never appears in sailing books: however beautiful the rain may sound on the cabin roof, domestic reality always arrives eventually, and rarely with elegance.

Once up, the usual ritual took over. Coffee for one of us, tea for the other, both taken quietly while minds moved ahead of conversation and began arranging the day’s work before a word had properly been spoken.

Friday belonged largely to sourcing what the boat still needed. The blower fault had already made clear that improvisation would only go so far, and much of the day disappeared between chandlers, electrical counters, and marine suppliers in search of the correct blower unit together with radar fittings, electrical ancillaries, AIS components, and the remaining pieces needed for the data hub installation. Sunday closures already sat in the mind, and there was a quiet determination not to discover one missing connector only after shops had shut.

By evening the blower had finally been secured, along with radar fixings and the handful of minor electrical items that looked insignificant in the bag but would later prove decisive once tools were out.

Dinner that evening at the marina felt entirely earned. Seafood platters arrived with glasses of Etna Bianco, and after a day spent walking suppliers rather than turning screws, an early night seemed less restraint than sensible preparation.

Saturday carried a completely different energy because now repair could begin properly.

Before much movement had begun around the marina, I set about making the replacement radar drive belt using a thermal weld, carefully forming by hand what only days earlier had existed as theory into something tangible enough to trust inside the dome itself. There is always a quiet hesitation when fabricating a critical component aboard rather than fitting something bought, because success offers no reassurance beyond your own judgement, yet once shaped correctly the belt settled into place with an immediate sense that it was likely to do exactly what was required.

Only after that came one of those smaller tasks whose emotional weight proved larger than expected. Using a latex rubbing wheel, we removed the final traces of the old Salty Dog decals, slowly lifting away the last visible remnants of her former identity until at last RaRa stood cleanly under her own name alone. It was cosmetic work, certainly, but names aboard matter more than most things ashore, and with those final marks gone she somehow appeared fully settled into her new life in a way paperwork alone had never quite achieved.

From there the day gathered momentum naturally. While Rachel turned her attention to the radar unit itself, patiently cleaning the internals and lifting away every trace of accumulated salt and grime before reassembly, I climbed into the engine well to fit the newly sourced blower. Like so many electrical jobs aboard, what appears simple from outside rarely remains simple once connectors, awkward access, and wiring begin asserting themselves, and fitting it properly demanded rather more patience than the blower itself perhaps deserved.

Yet when power was finally restored and the unit came immediately to life, the satisfaction was unmistakable, because another uncertainty quietly disappeared from the boat in a single moment.

The final task returned us aloft. My old climbing harness, which had once been painfully tight, now fitted again with reasonable comfort — an unexpected advantage of recent weight loss, though I suspect Palermo’s public transport system deserves at least partial credit for that, given how much of the previous evenings had ultimately involved walking considerable distances after buses that either failed to appear entirely or arrived according to rules known only to Palermo itself.

Once again Rachel took the strain below, steadily raising me aloft using halyard and winch with the calm reliability that such work quietly depends upon. By then the whole operation felt notably easier than before, perhaps because uncertainty had largely been replaced by familiarity.

With the radar dome lifted back into place, secured carefully, and all connections checked again, there followed that small pause every repair eventually demands: power applied, system waking, attention fixed entirely on whether effort will justify itself.

This time it did so immediately. The radar returned exactly as hoped, alive again without hesitation, and with it came the kind of relief that only matters properly when the fault itself has carried real weight in the mind. Offshore, malfunction is never merely inconvenience. It sits quietly beneath every later decision, touching confidence, safety, and peace of mind in ways often larger than the fault itself.

By evening, that sense of release had become something larger than satisfaction alone. Between the blower running properly, the radar restored, the old decals finally gone, and the boat feeling cleaner and sharper in every direction, it seemed obvious that the day had amounted to far more than maintenance.

Rachel and I had restored not simply individual systems aboard RaRa, but something of the ease with which the next sea could now be approached.

The weather, however, still refused cooperation. Palermo would hold us a little longer, though by now that no longer felt frustrating. The remaining days could still be used well: AIS installation, data hub integration, minor electrical finishing, cosmetic corrections, cleaning, polishing — all the quieter work that gradually turns a functioning boat into one genuinely prepared.

And beyond that waiting remained something larger still: the long westward crossing across the Tyrrhenian Sea toward Sardinia, now feeling less like uncertainty and more like something steadily approaching for which both boat and crew were increasingly ready.

Chapter Nine — The Sea Answers Quickly

Thursday 2nd April began not with departure but with waiting, which by then already felt suitably Mediterranean in character. We had moved from Marina di Villa Igiea into Palermo’s main harbour to take fuel, intending to leave directly afterwards, and what should have been a simple stop became our last obvious opportunity to fill the water tanks — one I declined, still preferring less weight in the bows with heavier conditions expected west of Palermo, a decision Rachel regarded immediately as one likely to prove inconvenient later. The attendant then disappeared into what the residents of Sicily seemed to regard not as lunch, but as a full three-hour interruption to ordinary momentum. By the time fuel was complete and lines slipped, it was already around 1600, late enough that departure carried a slight sense of compromise before the sea had yet offered its own opinion.

It answered quickly.

Almost immediately the motion became uncomfortable: twenty-seven knots, over three metres, cresting tops, and a sea unsettled enough to remove any temptation to pretend it was manageable simply because leaving remained emotionally attractive. There was very little discussion before turning back. Some decisions aboard require weighing competing views; others arrive so clearly that words become unnecessary. Within an hour we were re-entering Palermo.

There was no sense of defeat in it, only recognition. Later, using PredictWind’s forecast replay, we could see more clearly what had actually been there: roughly two metres of wind sea sitting over a larger south-westerly swell reaching four to five metres. It explained perfectly why the sea had felt so immediately wrong.

Part of the desire to leave, however carefully restrained, came from what waited further west. By the seventh we hoped to reach Alghero, where an old friend, Neil Durrant, was due to meet us — one of the small group with whom we had crossed the English Channel to Cherbourg and back by rigid inflatable, a feat of equal parts daring and camaraderie undertaken in boats of only five and a half to six metres and remembered ever since under the entirely self-awarded title of The Channel Buoys. Alongside Neil, that small fraternity also included Ryan Purdie, Ben Maguire, Jago, Rachel and myself, each of us carrying some shared maritime history that remained firmly earned in memory.

Yet if Palermo had taught us anything by then, it was that wanting to leave and being right to leave are rarely the same thing.

We were never trying to prove toughness; only trying to stay equal to the privilege of being there.

The following departure, on Good Friday, felt entirely different. Palermo released us under conditions that required attention but no argument, and within the first hours it became quietly obvious that turning back the previous day had been entirely correct.

By then much aboard felt subtly altered. The blower ran properly, the radar turned exactly as hoped, and even the simple sound of the boat under way carried a different quality now that so much recent uncertainty had been replaced by work completed with our own hands. Palermo had delayed us, certainly, but it had also changed the boat in ways difficult to measure and immediately obvious once offshore again.

Rachel and I had reached another small conclusion aboard: the sea nearly always wants its pound of flesh, but usually offers a bargain in how it takes it. Speed or comfort — one of them would sooner or later be surrendered, and recognising that often simplified decisions more honestly than forecasts ever did.

We had not bought a quarter-of-a-million-pound cruising catamaran in order to endure unnecessary discomfort simply for the satisfaction of arriving marginally sooner.

The first night remained lumpy while coastal influence still held us, though offshore the motion improved steadily as deeper water took control. Forecast error remained familiar, this time more in wind angle than strength. When the angle settled more favourably than predicted, we raised full main and bore west-south-west, taking eighteen knots apparent at roughly seventy to eighty degrees and allowing the boat to move far more freely than expected.

By night my stomach reminded me that improving seas do not always arrive before queasiness has already established itself. My own remedy remains scientifically questionable but personally reliable: one beer if necessary, two if conditions and responsibility allow.

It was shortly afterwards that I made what seemed at the time an excellent decision and in retrospect perhaps less so.

While Rachel went below, I placed the empty beer bottle loose on deck and hid myself in the unused starboard hull, convinced that the scene would suggest, briefly at least, that I had gone over the side.

When she emerged and found only the bottle moving, panic arrived exactly as intended, followed shortly afterwards by fury when she discovered me hidden and very pleased with myself. The fury lasted only seconds before collapsing into laughter so complete that neither of us could properly sustain indignation for long.

During the night we also finally resolved the tracking page properly, thanks to efficient email support from Marleen at PredictWind in New Zealand, calmly solving the issue from the opposite side of the world while we moved west through darkness. It reinforced something both of us had already accepted: PredictWind, the DataHub, and Starlink had become so central to how we now operated offshore that doing without them no longer felt like seamanship, merely unnecessary self-denial.

The following day brought small visitors aboard. Common chiffchaff arrived repeatedly, often in pairs, appearing from nowhere far offshore. One eventually landed on my shoulder as though the arrangement required no permission from either of us.

Overnight we settled into two-hour watches along southern Sardinia, staying twenty to thirty miles offshore in deeper water and clear of the live firing range off Capo Spartivento. Traffic near Cagliari kept both of us occupied, though channel 16 provided its own absurdity: hours of whistling, meowing, barking and what sounded remarkably like someone imitating a pig, behaviour that left me completely perplexed. By then Rachel’s earlier warning had become difficult to dismiss, because offshore the practical consequence of my careful trim management had arrived exactly as predicted: our washing water had run out completely.

It was during that same night, with dawn gathering, that I found myself thinking how much had quietly changed already. For some time, whenever anyone referred to me as skipper, I had carried a faint sense of impostor syndrome behind the title, as though the word properly belonged to people with heavier qualifications or longer histories than mine. Yet sea miles, repairs, restraint, mistakes, and repeated decisions honestly made under way had begun supplying a legitimacy certificates alone never quite explain.

That thought, arriving unexpectedly in the half-light, brought with it another: my father.

He had died on the tenth of November the previous year, and although many things had shaped the decision to return home when we did — family, unfinished obligations, the delay to the boat sale — his death had perhaps sharpened all of it more than I had admitted fully at the time. Offshore, however, thoughts arrive without much invitation, and there he was again with the morning.

The thought itself carried no heaviness. Quite the opposite. He had been one of our strongest supporters in all of this, deeply proud in the quiet way many fathers of his generation often are, communicating far more through interest and attention than through any need to declare it directly.

As the first light strengthened, I found myself thinking too about how many sunrises are granted before one notices they are not endless, and with that came a small private resolve to value more carefully those still left — especially the ones shared with Rachel, offshore, where dawn seems always to arrive with unusual clarity.

Morning coffee aboard tasted particularly good.

That peace was interrupted rather abruptly when Rachel woke me not gently for sunrise, but screaming like a banshee. I came on deck expecting catastrophe only to discover that the emergency amounted to the plotter still being in night mode and Rachel being unable to increase the screen brightness. My response, still fuelled by adrenaline, was briefly less patient than ideal.

Later, of course, we laughed. Rachel suggested this might simply be karma for both the earlier prank and my decision not to fill the water tanks.

By then we had rounded south-west Sardinia and passed Isola del Toro — Bull Island — where dolphins appeared briefly alongside. Beyond it the sea changed entirely: bright sunshine, flat water, and no meaningful wind. We unashamedly made no attempt to raise sail, accepting without debate that straight-line progress under engine suited both the conditions and our priorities far better than pretending otherwise.

Rather than waste such conditions, we abandoned Carloforte and altered instead into Cala Domestica to refuel under anchor.

Despite the name, there was nothing remotely domestic about it. Steep cliffs enclosed bright still water and the whole bay felt almost indecently beautiful for somewhere chosen largely for diesel.

We transferred fuel, swam, ate on deck, and for a while the voyage ceased entirely to resemble effort.

It was there that Rachel and I first properly admitted aloud that returning home to begin the charter business no longer felt quite as certain as it once had. Nothing had been decided, but Cala Domestica had a way of making practical plans seem less fixed than they had only days earlier.

We had loved the Mediterranean far more deeply than either of us had expected.

By the time Alghero received us, the first requirement ashore proved not celebration but plumbing. Having run the water supply completely dry, the pump had unsurprisingly lost prime, and what followed became a lengthy exercise in venting air from every tap aboard, coaxing pressure back into the system over nearly two hours, interrupted at one point by twenty litres of hot water directly over me before a decisive intervention with the winch handle finally persuaded the pump to cooperate. Even then the galley remained stubbornly reduced to a steady dribble — a result Rachel regarded as entirely consistent with the wisdom of my earlier decision.

The marina offered another familiar irony: once again, a berth but no functioning shower block, renovation having rendered the facilities unusable. So after days of rationing water because I had wanted the bows light, we both ended up showering on deck using the boat’s own shower instead.

Alghero itself felt ancient, imposing and quietly charming, a vast and welcome contrast to Palermo. Rachel and I were already planning what had become our now mandatory arrival ritual: a boozy lunch somewhere ashore, partly celebration, partly recovery, and partly an excuse to sit still long enough to decide what we really thought about wherever we had just arrived. This time, however, the conversation had acquired a different weight. Cala Domestica had unsettled something in both of us, and over food and wine we found ourselves speaking more seriously than before about whether returning home simply to begin the charter business was still the certainty it had once seemed, or whether what we now wanted was something closer to becoming full-time nautical nomads…

Chapter Ten — A Kind Sea of Turtles and Dolphins

Neil’s beaming smile arrived before he did, visible across the marina before he was close enough to step aboard, and Rachel and I were genuinely delighted to see him. A year earlier we had crossed the English Channel with him to Cherbourg, one of those adventures that acquires its own character almost immediately and then remains fixed in memory for reasons larger than distance alone. We had taken to him at once. Neil belongs unmistakably to that rare category of person who seems able to locate genuine jubilation in almost any circumstance. Even four cold and thoroughly wet hours in a force five on the return leg from Cherbourg had failed to dent his enthusiasm in the slightest. Naturally, we were pleased to have him aboard for the Sardinia to Balearics crossing: excellent company ashore, possessed of exactly the kind of indomitable good humour that long passages tend to reward.

By the time bags were aboard and the first greetings properly settled, the atmosphere on RaRa had altered immediately in the way boats always do when another familiar person arrives: new conversation, old stories resurfacing, and that subtle lift in mood that comes when a passage begins to feel shared in a slightly different way.

Neil was travel-weary by the time he had unpacked, and although we had left supper options open, it quickly became clear that eating aboard was both the least strenuous and most convivial choice. Conversation moved easily through memories of Cherbourg and Saint-Vaast before drifting, as it inevitably would, towards the crossing ahead and the Balearics waiting further west.

By then the wine was flowing and laughter steadily less restrained, and I found myself retelling an exchange from earlier that day, shortly before Neil’s arrival. It was Easter weekend in Sardinia, and throughout our time there the celebratory sound of local youths letting off bangers had echoed intermittently through the town. With Rachel’s birthday the following day, acquiring some of my own had seemed an entirely reasonable ambition, though if I was honest, birthday theatrics were not quite the only reason the idea appealed…

It was that ambition that had led me to stop and question a group of local boys who were enthusiastically setting them off themselves in one of Alghero’s side streets. Since they clearly possessed both supply and enthusiasm, they seemed the obvious people to ask. Their directions, delivered with complete confidence, pointed me towards a tobacconist where they assured me I could acquire some myself, accompanied by the helpful suggestion that I greet the proprietor with fancula — which they assured me meant peace, in the sense of a friendly greeting, though in reality translates rather more closely to an instruction to go forth and multiply. And in spite of that knowledge, I left them with numerous loud and enthusiastic renditions of fancula of my own, simply to enjoy the mischievous delight it so obviously brought them.

Rachel’s birthday arrived as Neil’s first — and, as it happened, only full day in Sardinia, and from the outset our ambition was simple enough: indulge Rachel’s every whim without resistance. That began rather earlier than Neil might ideally have chosen, when I woke him at 07:30 and we assembled for what could only be described as a deliberately restrained breakfast of tea, coffee and juice, restraint which lasted only until the Bloody Marys appeared and quietly established that the day would not be governed by moderation.

Conversation remained light and easy before we moved ashore again for brunch at Mirador Mare, chosen as much for its magnificent view as for any particular culinary ambition. Afterwards we returned briefly to the boat so that Neil and I could each submit ourselves to unavoidable work-related video calls, a faint intrusion of ordinary life into what otherwise felt increasingly detached from it.

By early afternoon we were walking again towards the port, where Rachel decided we should take the little tourist train — the Trenino Catalano — an excursion that delighted her largely because my own discomfort with overt tourism remains, for reasons I cannot entirely justify, almost theatrical. Eighteen minutes later we were deposited almost exactly where we had started, which only added to the absurdity and somehow made the whole exercise entirely worthwhile.

The old town itself, however, required no justification at all. Alghero in the afternoon sun felt both ancient and effortlessly alive, and we drifted through it without much urgency, stopping for slices of pizza, cold beers, and eventually gelato of sufficient quality to make further movement temporarily feel unnecessary.

By around four o’clock we were hot, pleasantly squiffy, and increasingly aware that the boat offered the only sensible refuge. On returning to RaRa, largely for Rachel’s amusement and to shed the accumulated heat from my body, I dived straight from the bows into the harbour water before all three of us surrendered to a late afternoon siesta.

When we woke again around 18:30, supper had already been decided: Nautilus, where seafood seemed the only acceptable direction and lobster quickly confirmed the wisdom of that decision, accompanied by an excellent local white wine that ensured the evening maintained exactly the tone the day had established.

Throughout the day another conversation had been running in parallel: a steadily increasing effort to persuade Grace — a friend of ours — that joining us in Palma and staying aboard until Ibiza or Alicante was not merely sensible, but by then increasingly inevitable. By dinner, helped perhaps by good food, wine, and collective optimism, she had agreed.

By the time we returned to the boat, pleasantly tired and still faintly buoyant from the day, attention had already begun shifting quietly towards the passage ahead.

Thursday 9th April began earlier than intended. Although alarms had been set later, all three of us were awake well before them, excitement proving more effective than any clock. Engine checks were completed, safety routines repeated, fuel taken, water replenished — a task I approached this time with appropriate humility. I had no intention of repeating the earlier lesson in offshore scarcity.

We left the fuel dock at around 10:00, almost an hour earlier than planned, which gifted us something departure rarely offers: time enough to enjoy where we were leaving rather than merely leave it. Rather than turn immediately west, we first edged north-west along the coast towards Capo Caccia, its vast cliff face rising sheer from the sea, crowned by the elevated lighthouse which seemed to stand almost improbably high above the water.

The conditions were balmy, the sea almost indulgent, and as we rounded the headland we passed Neptune’s Cave, where tourist boats threaded themselves into the cave entrance with impressive precision. Above, the steep stone staircase cut dramatically into the cliff face climbed towards the lighthouse, tourists moving slowly along it in full view against the rock. It was impossible not to pause and admire it. We congratulated one another quietly and took a moment simply to absorb the scale and beauty of the place before turning properly west and beginning the long line towards Palma.

05:15 that morning had already given warning enough. We had checked and then checked again the weather, and for the first time since planning the crossing every forecast appeared unusually aligned: light winds almost throughout, suggesting a largely motoring passage west. That agreement itself felt suspiciously generous of the sea.

Yet the generosity came with a condition. A mistral — the hard, cold north-westerly that descends through southern France into the western Mediterranean and often arrives with little patience for anyone still exposed — was building and due to reach the Balearics barely twelve hours after our planned mid-morning arrival in Palma on the eleventh.

It left very little room for indulgence. The sea, for once, seemed to be asking no immediate price, but only on condition that we accepted its timetable exactly.

Once offshore, the forecast proved entirely accurate. The wind remained so light that we made no attempt whatsoever to raise sail, accepting immediately that this would be a motoring passage, and for once that felt less like compromise than privilege.

Towards the onset of nautical twilight we were visited by a magnificent mature loggerhead turtle. The creature appeared almost as curious about us as we were about it, raising its head several times and seeming, unmistakably, to look directly at us. There are moments at sea when conversation simply stops because everyone aboard recognises instinctively that something rare is happening; this was one of them.

Spirits already high, Neil then began preparing what proved to be an exceptional ragù, made from fresh ingredients gathered in the markets of Alghero before departure. Food at sea has always seemed to carry an importance beyond ordinary appetite, perhaps because every proper meal offshore contains not only cooking, but planning, timing, balance, and effort that began long before the pan is ever lit.

We ate as darkness settled and for the first time adopted structured four-hour watches properly, a system that immediately felt civilised compared with the more improvised arrangements Rachel and I had relied upon previously.

As the moon climbed from the sea, green light began appearing along both hulls — long luminous trails streaming aft, with occasional brighter emerald bursts swirling in the prop wash. Bioluminescence had visited us before, but never with quite this clarity, and for long stretches it became almost hypnotic to watch.

As had already become habit, watch or no watch, dawn brought everyone back on deck. Friday morning’s sunrise arrived with such colour and intensity that words inevitably fail long before the sky does justice to itself. Rachel produced cheese toasties for all three of us, a small act of domestic brilliance that felt unexpectedly luxurious offshore.

By midday the warmth had turned properly hot, and for the first time since leaving Greece we found ourselves stretched in genuine comfort under sustained Mediterranean sun, no jackets, no layers, only light, warmth and a crew increasingly aware that this crossing was becoming something unusually kind.

By around four in the afternoon another loggerhead appeared, smaller this time but equally welcome. By then it had already become clear that this was one of those passages that kept offering more than expected. Three further turtles followed, then a family pod of Risso’s dolphins, and later numerous encounters with pods of striped dolphins whose energy bordered on theatrical, spending long spells playing in the bow wave before vanishing only to reappear again moments later.

Shortly before dusk we passed the thousand-mile mark of our voyage. One thousand nautical miles completed; roughly one third of the way home. It deserved recognition, and we gave it exactly that.

As evening deepened, land was called ahead: Menorca emerging low and faint in the distance. Around the same time I spotted small tuna feeding and breaking cleanly clear of the surface. Autopilot was disengaged immediately, course altered, and the Rapala put to work with fresh optimism. Yet again, nothing took. After a thousand miles of trying, I had begun half-seriously to suspect that the Mediterranean might simply contain fewer obliging fish than reputation suggests.

It had been Neil’s first proper offshore watch, and the lucky bugger had, through a wholly unnecessary but highly amusing appeal to artificial intelligence, been randomly awarded the first and undeniably best shift: eight until midnight. To avoid any suggestion of bias, Rachel and I entered ourselves under the absurd fishing nicknames we had been using for years, while Neil — newly inducted aboard in Sardinia — was promptly awarded one of his own. He became Captain Red Leg, after managing to burn one leg with extraordinary precision while sitting cross-legged in the full Sardinian sun outside an Alghero restaurant. Rachel entered as Captain Mackerel Minge, while I remained Captain Cod’s Cock. The result placed Neil first, myself second, and Rachel on what we had already begun calling the dawn patrol.

He had, it must be said, proved himself entirely equal to it. During the night, as I had asked, Neil had attempted to knock on my cabin door for reassurance over an AIS target moving north. I heard none of it, and rather than persist or wake the whole boat unnecessarily, he simply used his own judgement, reducing RaRa’s speed enough to open safe sea room and avoid any close passing situation. It was entirely the correct decision, taken calmly and confidently, and exactly the sort of independent judgement worth encouraging aboard. Neil had handled it well and, more importantly, had clearly gained confidence in doing so.

These commendable actions were only very slightly diminished by the fact that, earlier in the same watch, he had managed to struggle with his lifejacket sufficiently to pull the inflation toggle by mistake, frightening himself rather more than the situation warranted. When I came on watch and he delivered this news, I laughed so hard I nearly forgot to take over properly.

In the tiredness that the midnight-to-four watch inevitably brings, my mind drifted towards what was becoming an increasingly believable fantasy: that our brief tribute at Neptune’s Cave had in fact been rewarded.

It seemed faintly possible, in that hour when darkness begins loosening its grip but dawn has not yet fully declared itself, that the god of the sea himself had chosen to look kindly on this crossing — a quiet acknowledgement perhaps, for the respect we had paid earlier beneath those cliffs.

I found myself increasingly convinced that this would become remembered as one of our finest passages.

Rachel relieved my watch slightly later than agreed. I was not especially tired and had spent part of the final hour quietly recording our journal, so had deliberately allowed her an extra hour in bed. We completed the usual handover properly, and before disappearing below I pointed out something I had noticed earlier on the AIS target list that immediately lifted both our spirits again.

Our newly installed PredictWind DataHub records user-submitted cetacean sightings, and during my watch I had discovered that less than two hundred hours earlier four sightings of sperm whales had been logged in roughly the same waters we were now crossing. We were both instantly animated by it, asking each other with genuine hope whether this extraordinary passage might yet deliver one more gift. If the crossing so far was anything to judge by, it no longer felt remotely impossible.

First light arrived as we rounded the final headland, the lighthouse at Far des Cap Blanc standing clear ahead while Palma began slowly asserting itself across the bay, large enough at first to feel slightly unreal after two nights offshore. Lines were prepared early, fenders hung, boat hook laid ready, and the quiet offshore rhythm gave way once again to the practical business of arrival.

We entered Real Club Náutico de Palma under perfect conditions, the marina itself vast beyond anything we had yet encountered on the passage — a thousand berths, exceptional facilities, and certainly the largest marina I had entered in thirty years of boating. The marina team met us ahead of the berth and guided us in, making the final manoeuvre straightforward, helped further by the additional pair of hands Neil provided.

By 08:30 RaRa was tied securely alongside, engines silent, all three of us tired enough to feel suddenly weightless, and already holding cold beers before the sense of arrival had fully settled. Formalities were completed, more beer followed, then a brief siesta before we enthusiastically sought out a properly spicy meal, all three of us by then aware how much we had been missing heat in our food. That was not to diminish Mediterranean cooking, which had been exceptional throughout, only to recognise that since Palermo this was the first place where that particular craving felt properly possible. Sleep came early afterwards and heavily — easily the best night any of us had managed in three.

The following morning’s coffee was interrupted by the low pass of a helicopter, the sort of sound that immediately alters the mood of any marina. Curiosity drew me to look out, where a damaged yacht was being escorted slowly into harbour by both helicopter and coastguard launch, sails hanging in tatters and whatever confidence had existed aboard clearly gone.

Bar conversation later supplied the story in full. The crew had chartered the yacht for a regatta; for most of them it had been their first real sailing experience, and they had deliberately taken the boat out into a force eight mistral — the very same mistral we had watched, respected, and timed our own crossing carefully to avoid. Barely twenty-four hours after our arrival, it had already claimed its first casualty.

The three of us spoke quietly afterwards about how fortunate it was that nobody had been hurt, but also about the fear that had remained plainly visible on the faces of the returning crew, and the extraordinary irresponsibility of choosing to sail knowingly into conditions that offered no useful lesson beyond the obvious one: that the sea so rarely rewards bravado simply because it is intentional.

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