La Savina - here we come!

Due to very strong winds we will sail nonstop from Palermo to La Savina at the island of Formentera, bypassing our planned stop at Cagliari, Sardinia. It will be a rather challenging trip. Only one cooked meal per day until Friday night or Saturday morning. We are now preparing Pixel by securing all lose item inside as well as on deck.

Yesterday I made the 7 km long trip on foot to the old town of Palermo tohether with my shift mates Eva and Tore. Also Stefan joined us for the walk.

Our marina is located NW of the commercial harbour and the area just outside the marina is best to avoid at nighttime for personal safety reasons. In Palermo we had great espresso and sandwiches and could also meet some local residents with two or four legs.  The smaller ones had left their visiting cards all over the sidewalks - forcing us to do "the Palermo slalom" in order to stay smellfre

23%

Yesterday we arrived at our safe harbour in Palermo together with our three sister ships. Yesterday's sailing was excellent with speeds of up to 8.4 Kn. We have now completed 23% of the distance to Las Palmas. Total distance is 2400 Nm (4440 km) and we have so far covered 560 Nm (1036 km).

After a great dinner on freshly caught swordfish it was nice to return to Pixel and my small cabin and go to sleep while passively listening to the noise of the increasing wind.

Crossing Golfo di Patti ...

... between Sicily and Isola di Vulcano, visible behind Staffan at the helm. He is wearing all his safety equipment after having been on duty since 6 AM.

We expect to arrive in Palermo at sunset today after sailing 44 hours nonstop.

Latern repair en route ...

... without fear of heights on our moving and rolling ship - master climber is our commander Micke.

Meanwhile at main deck: Staffan at the wheel operating Pixel for the first time with both main sail  and genaker in the right position.

8 knots..

... with mainsail and genaker. Wind from North and wind of 7.5 Ms. Last night we made a brief refueling and ice cream stop in Santa Maria de Lueca, Italy.

We are now sailing as fast as possible to our safe harbour in Palermo, Sicily. Around midnight or early morning hour we will pass thru the Messina strait. Depending on the weather we will stay one or two days in Palermo to wait out the expected bad weather.

Friday afternoon ...

... and slight adjustment of our routing. We plan to follow the Italian coast line all the way down to the heel of Italy and hopefully we will reach Messina on Saturday evening. Great weather today, sunny,  +23 C and and a wind of 5.5 ms. It was  bit tricky for me to keep Pixel on the right course on my first try this afternoon.

Earlier today it was calm enough to bring out  a deck of cards on deck (Annika and Eva) while Tore was keeping watch for obstacles in front of us. Rice cooking under full sails is a challenge.

Early morning...

...after 25 hours at sea after leaving the island of Vis. We work in three hour shifts on a rolling schedule: 3 hours active duty, 3 hours on stand by followed by 3 hours of rest. If everything is OK we can rest a bit during stand by.

In order to stay fit and happy we have our sun aerobics teacher Annika.