After we abandoned our delivery Palma – Cagliari on the 15th we spend two nights on a mooring buoy in Porto Colom.

The weather was hazy, fully clouded and hot between the mountains of Mallorca, but there was a 20-25 knots blowing from the SE. The worst you can have in that area because when we woke up the next morning we were horrified about the look of Toy Club.

All the work we had done cleaning in Palma was thrown out of the window as she now was covered with a thick layer of sahara sand..

We got straight to work (my crew Heather is truly amazing!) and managed to make her reasonably presentable again, or rather: livable…

At midday we needed to leave the mooring buoy and we decided to find an anchorage after we fuelled up. Unfortunately this seemed impossible with the prevailing wind (and mainly) wave direction.

We were left with 2 choices: sail all the way around the corner in the general direction of Palma or simply head out and ‘go for it’ towards Cagliari.

We choose the latter.

I have to say: it became one of the weirdest deliveries in my career. I saw 1m sailing boats which upon investigation turned out to be fishing pots. A dove tried for hours (!!) to land on the luff of the jib. Then exhaustingly fell down on deck and realised that was a much better resting place..

The swell and waves were literally all over the place making the sea a true washing machine. Our speed varied between 4.0 and 7.0 knots depending on which wave hit us.

The worst of it though was the sahara sand particles.. Our eyes were on fire and our throats felt like sand paper resulting in a killing headache.

We put the screens up at the top deck helmstation to give us some protection but nonetheless our bodies, hair and clothes look like we went hiking in the desert rather than sailing across the Mediterranean Sea. Where are the masks when you need them!

The next morning at first daylight it was not a suprise to see the boat completely covered in an orange carpet (again). Consequently our cabins, sheets, the saloon area, all outside pillows.. everything is a mess. We will have our work cut out for us when we reach the ‘other side’.

We have approx. half a day to turn the boat around from delivery to cruising mode before the guests come onboard. Challenge accepted. I mean, sleep is highly overrated.. haha

On a brighter note: we had the pleasure of a dragon fly joining us almost the entire trip. At one point it was caught in the beam of the nav. station red light and I grabbed it to toss it back to freedom. Only later I realised I might possibly have killed it because I threw it towards the water. I strangely felt bad about that.

When I went to bed after my watch I put my head on my pillow for a well deserved 2,5 hour sleep. Usually I bring 2 crew on deliveries but when it is ‘only’ 50 hours, doing it double-handed is not too bad (4hrs on / 4hrs off during the day and 3 on / 3 off at night). But I do regret it at times when the alarm goes off!

Just when I was about to doze off I heard this weird sound and then something hit my face. I nearly had a heart attack! Soon I realised it was the dragonfly whom I thought I killed.

But what will truly make your day:

I bought new shorts just before we left and thought: “that is cute with the ‘A’ on it”. Never thought for one second that dots could be so crucial.

When you see it you can’t ever unsee it …

Cheers! We made it!