We left Barcelona early March and made our way over to the Balearic islands. In between some teaching and examining jobs in Mallorca we managed a short break to explore Ibiza town and the glorious bay of Espalmador, Formentara, before finally sailing east at the end of April. Our first stop was the tiny island of Cabrera, just south of Mallorca, where we got permission to stay. From there we had a good crossing to Sardinia but were immediately weather bound in Carloforte, a small town on an island off the south west coast for a few days. At least the ice creams were good! We befriended an English skipper of a motor cruiser who asked us to help crew his boat to Malta. The leather sofas, luxurious bedroom suite and television were all very tempting but we decided to head on to Sicily as planned stopping in Cagliari on the way. We cruised the north coast of Sicily stopping for one expensive night in Palermo. We anchored off the picturesque town of Cefalu and then sailed north to explore the Aeolian islands. We enjoyed a therapeutic mud bath on Vulcano and even managed to climb to the top of the steaming crater. Then on to Lipari and saw its marvellous archaeological museum with its fantastic collection of ancient Greek terracotta theatrical masks and vases. We hired a jeep on Salina to explore the island where Il Postino was filmed. Finally on to Stromboli, stopping for one night at Panarea on the way, where we could just make out the eruptions behind dense cloud. Although we saw the orange flashes and glow of the hot lava through the veil, we did not get the picture postcard fireworks that we had hoped. We did, however, get lots of pumice which was floating in the sea and the boat got covered in fine black sand so we ended up with very smooth bodies and a very dirty boat! We then sailed back to Sicily and despite all the horror stories there was no wind and we motored through the Straits of Messina! We anchored off the picturesque but extremely touristy town of Taormina but the 3rd century BC Greek theatre was worth looking at with views out over the bay and smouldering Etna. We then made our way round the heel of Italy to Brindisi and then crossed the Adriatic to Dubrovnik and spent the summer months cruising in Croatia. The weather was extremely hot with only the occasional fronts and electrical storms going through which were all short lived. We enjoyed exploring many of the numerous islands. It is a lovely country with lots of history and very warm people who, thankfully, nearly all speak English as we found Croat almost impossible!
We finally left Croatia in September and decided to make our way back to Palma for the winter thanks to the lure of some teaching and examining work. This time we crossed over to Pescara and slowly made our way down the untouristy east coast of Italy before crossing over to Siracusa on Sicily where we enjoyed exploring the fabulous Greek and Roman ruins. We then made our way west along the south coast of Sicily stopping at Porto Empedocle where we got the bus to Agrigento to see the magnificent temples. We eventually arrived in Trapani late in a force 8 gale and managed to secure ourselves to the commercial quay. We sat out the storm for a couple of days and then set sail for Cagliari, Sardinia and then on to Carloforte. We remained on the town quay for nearly two weeks waiting for a suitable weather window to allow us to set sail for Palma. Gale after gale came in. We had a work deadline to meet so we finally set off in not ideal conditions. We had the wind on the nose all the way and instead of a two day trip it took three! We spent the winter in RCN Palma and really enjoyed getting to know the city.
