Storm!

Following our four day stop in Bonifacio where Chris bought a new sail for his board we came back to Sardinia, to a bay called Liscia which is popular for windsurfing and it looked well protected from the northwesterlies. It was a fantastic sail for a couple of hours, a broad reach, and making over 7 knots at times. Then things got a bit heavy and with only a few miles to go we decided to get the main down and sail into Liscia under jib. Typically the wind then died from a force 6 to virtually nothing and we had to motor! The pilot suggests the depths there are much more shallow than we found and we ended up anchored in nearly 15 metres of water.

We knew there was a forecast for a bit of a blow the following night, maybe up to an 8 in the Straits, but had a very peaceful first night and stayed on so Chris could have a go with his board, we doubted whether whatever was blowing through the Straits would find its way into this bay. We really struggled to get it rigged but he finally had a go. Unfortunately our efforts were not really good enough and so I went out in the dinghy to retrieve him and he began to tweak the tension on the battens. Things got worse when he dropped one of the batten tensioning screws! No more windsurfing until it can be replaced! Then, Thursday night...

STORM FORCE WIND!

We dragged anchor early, about 2030, and put out a second. Chris even got our third ready and we discussed what we'd do if the 2nd dragged. Several other yachts joined us, arriving in the dark! One dragged anchor and had to re-anchor virtually constantly all night. Our 2nd held and we took it in turns to sit on the tiller to keep the boat into the wind and limit the sheering. The wind reached 56 knots (over 100 kmph - Severe Storm force 11) occassionally and we often felt relieved when it dropped to 30ish! It was steadily in the 40s which is force 9 (strong gale) most of the night. Can you believe it! Fortunately the fetch was short so the waves weren't huge although the spray being blown off them was something to behold. The boat was covered in salt! We were dressed in our wet weather gear and life jackets, (just in case!) something I was not expecting to have to do in July in Sardinia. It rained, horizontally, at times and there was lightning flashing around. We did see a shooting star. You can probably guess what I wished!

The night seemed endless and we got very little sleep. We were glad we had put the bimini away and that Chris had taken the outboard off the dinghy, which had half filled with water. Chris pulled the drain bung out which helped that problem and the only other casualty was the portside dodger, which broke free and had to be tied back on. Easily mended though. As dawn broke I convinced myself it would improve but actually seeing the waves and spray was worse! It carried on all Friday, not quite so bad, but our wind indicator gave up and we didn't know the actual speeds. In fact, it had not actually given up but somehow, during our frantic night while we had been pressing the backlight button which also acts as a re calibration facility if held down a certain length of time, we had accidentally re calibrated the instrument to m/s instead of knots. We now know that the average we were seeing through the day, around 15 m/s works out at around 29 knots, with gusts to 24 m/s almost 50 knots!

Before

and

After

By the evening I was feeling very low. During the first night I hadn't really had time to think about it. I was just dealing with the situation. I couldn't believe it was still blowing around a force 6/7. Late on Friday night we finally went below for some sleep, it was more like being unconscious though, I felt that tired. With the anchor watch on, the wind on the decline we felt it wasn't so necessary to stop the sheering around. After all, the anchor had held in 56 knots!

We didn't wake up until about 10am on Saturday, to find that the other yachts had left. We stayed put because it was still around force 5 all day and we didn't fancy the waves out of the bay. That is a big advantage of doing this long term. We don't feel it is so necessary to push on in all weathers. We imagined that if you had chosen mid-July as your week to charter a yacht here you would not expect such weather, for such a sustained period of time. My main hope now is that this was the last of the "storms" for the summer and that we'll be able to cruise in more stable and settled weather for a while!