At a Glance

• Route Ahead: Anywhere that doesn’t cost over €150 a night.
• Crew onboard this past week: Charlotte, Sakke, and our guest crew Kate (loves to get her VMG just right).
• Decision making: Prioritising peaceful sleep and good cheese over an island crossing bragging rights

We have decided to shift our route somewhat signifcantlyish

Instead of doing a crossing to the Balearic islands we’ve decided to keep sailing up the coast, head to the Costa Brava, the French Riviera and Corsica before hopping over to Sardinia to meet Sakkes sister and fam.

So “Why?” seems to be the common question our friends and family are asking us.

As a few of you might know, we actually asked a few friends which route they would pick, majority actually said they would hug the coast, except maybe Charlotte’s sister, we are unsure of her reasoning. Many of you said it seems there will be a lot more to see and do, family members and a couple of concerned friends also said it seemed safer. All of these reasons are true and played a part in our decision making.

1. The weather and sheltering from it

We had actually picked a pretty solid weather day to do the crossing from Denia to Formentera and were prepared to go, we even had our additonal crew member (Shout out to professional sailor Kate) and stocked up on food.

Then we checked the weather for the days following our crossing and found the islands were going to be hit with strong winds, big swell and thunderstorms. The worst part is that it was forecasted to be changing direction every hour, making it impossible to spend the night entirely protected in one anchorage.

As we have learnt from experience, being in a big swell on anchor makes your life pretty unbearable after a short while, even making a cup of tea becomes some massive undertaking. We have also been watching reels come up on our FYP’s all summer of storms hitting the Balearic islands. I think its safe to say we would have been hit with a fair bit of bad weather at this time of year if we were going to spend a month and a half there.

At this point, you’re probably thinking, surely the weather is also going to be bad on the coast, which brings me to point number 2.

2. Cost

It is well known that these islands are expensive, however, what was unknown to us was just how expensive marinas in particular are.

Honestly we’re not big marina fans, we actually sort of despise going to them, we have only been to 3 since leaving Cartagena on August 1st. They are loud, docking is a kerfuffle, you can’t swim and you’re paying 40-60 euros to essentially tie your boat to a pontoon (our opinion of marinas may change when winter approaches).

That being said, when there’s a thunderstorm, swell you can’t hide from, touch wood something semi-serious breaks or someone gets ill, it’s nice having the option there if needed. However, when doing some research into Balearic marina prices, we were shocked to learn that tieing your boat to a pontoon in that part of Spain will set you back hundreds (we saw anything from 150-450euros) for one night. I am not exaggerating, it would be cheaper to get a hotel which sort of defeats the whole rent free /mortage free boat life we’ve got going on. It definitely doesn’t help that September is stil classed as high season in most marinas.

3. The big one - Bureaucracy

It has recently dawned on us that we are coming to the end of our alloted 90 days in Spain (we get 90 days in each EU country before we need to legally register, different to the popular 90/180 rule thanks to Sakke’s Finnishness). While we think we are actually still legal Spanish reisdents from when we lived here four years ago and that no one is probably checking anyway, it is nicer to just have peace of mind and try and stick to the rule.

Part B of bureaucracy, and probably the most important part, is that Sakke is actually without a valid passport right now, don’t judge us until you’ve lived aboard for an extended period of time, paperwork is a nightmare. Anyway, the only way he can renew his passport is by going to Finland or visiting a Finnish embassy.

As Charlotte isn’t too keen on staying in a marina (see point above for why we hate marinas) while Sakke jets off to Finland for a week or maybe even more, his plan is to visit the embassy in Barcelona. Needless to say, that would have been tricky to do from one of the islands.

Anyway, those are the main points if you were curious about our change of plans! If you weren’t, I hope you’ve had an entertaining read anyway. We’re both quite looking forward to eating copious amount of French cheese and the pretty anchorage sites around Toulon, Saint Tropez and Antibes. We might even do a night in the surprisingly resonably priced Monaco marina for the bants.

Stayed tuned while we mosey on up the coast at the leisurely pace of people with no deadlines or timeframes.

Charlotte & Sakke
11:00 UTC
Position 38° 52.817' N, 000° 05.695' E