Sailing from Sardinia was the complete opposite of sailing from Sicily. After the sun went down and after the first night of light wind and fluttering sails, I had had enough of everything! I put away all the sails and decided to wait for the wind. I lie down until twelve and move around the boat from the cockpit to the cockpit, from the cockpit to the cockpit, and then across the deck until I get tired. Waiting for the wind is already overwhelming me, and I am also annoyed by the spoiler, which is so low on such boats that it hits the smallest wave – as if beating the waves with a board, with the boat constantly shaking. This sound is already getting on my nerves at anchorages, especially where there is a lot of traffic with those little boats that make the smallest waves, but just right for this annoying sound and vibration. On the high seas, it’s all the more annoying: the barge bounces from side to side and from bow to stern. It becomes unbearable, I anticipate each blow in advance, which gets on my nerves even more, so I start the engine and the boat starts to glide calmly on the flat sea level. The wind is out of nowhere, but according to the forecast it should be. Fortunately, the fuel consumption is so low that after a whole day of driving, hardly anything is noticed on the tank meter. The sea has calmed down completely and as the wind shows there will be no nice weather yet. What to do now? Am I waiting for the wind in the middle of the sea? I decided to have the engine running while waiting to move forward at least a little. This wait lasted two days until the last 70 nm before Mallorca when the mistral blew, which I cheered as the Sahara rain. For two days I lay on the boat, listening to the roar of the engine and the bent axles. After two days, you get so used to the sound of the engine that you are not sure if your heart may not stop when you stop the engine, as they have been together for 48 hours. This voyage was like a kind of vacation on which I listened to the melodies of the famous Volvo engine while lying down and pouring oil
I arrive for the SW part of the island, where I decide to drop anchor. The wind blows somehow with the S, so I anchor at anchor next to three other sailboats and one motor yacht. It’s already six o’clock in the evening and I’m not even thinking about inflating my boat and going ashore. I check the weather forecast, which shows no change, so I head to bed without worry. Around five in the morning, the wind turns unannounced and the waves at the anchorage become more and more wild. I don’t really like the view from the cabin, as I can see the coast very close and I never liked it. I start the engine and prepare to raise the anchor, finding that everything will be anything but easy. As the wind turned, and with it the barge, my anchor chain wound around some rock so that I was anchored somehow in a V-shape and raising the anchor would not be easy. I set the autopilot and engine so that I practically don’t move anywhere, I just drive in place in a constant direction, so I pick up the anchor chain only with the anchor winch and thus move towards the point where the chain got stuck behind the rock. I stand in the middle of the boat with two remotes in my hand to steer the boat and wind the chain. All in all, it looks like some kind of two-remote fight in a video game. When I get to the point where the chain is stuck, the shock of the wave happily pulls away and the wave that hit the boat tries to get it out of the right direction, but I quickly fix the autopilot in the opposite direction by 40 degrees and the boat is in the right position again. against the waves. When the whole chain is wound, the anchor does not want to get stuck in the correct position due to jumping on the waves, so I crawl on the bow and put it under the cover of the winch and chain. The moment I stand on the bow of the boat, I find myself at the waist in a wave, and the very next moment 3 m high above the wave. I carefully crawl back into the cockpit, correct my course, and pound against the waves and wind for more than 30 minutes, moving almost nothing. While Ivana and I are trying to leave the anchorage, I notice that water is coming from the front cabin right through all the drawers where I had all the power tools stored. I toss all the pillows and quickly find the place where the water is coming from. In the room where the chain is stored, a plastic pipe for electrical wiring has burst and because the bow is constantly under water, a lot of water is leaking into the boat. I’m trying to solve this problem in all this bouncing. I start pumping water from the boat as I already have it almost to my ankles. I sail towards the larger bay in which Majorca’s capital Palma de Majorca lies and continue to motor until the boat suddenly stops. The engine is idling, and the waves are pushing the boat towards the lighthouse, which marks the beginning of the bay. What now? There is still a little wind, so I open the genoa to somehow start at least moving away from the lighthouse, but the wind is far from enough to be able to sail normally on these waves, the sail is hitting and after three minutes the wind is gone.
I turn the genoa, the waves bounce me hard, the boat jumps up and down, the spoiler hits the water again like a huge wooden plow, it bursts that something, the boat shakes to shake all the attachments. If I don’t want to end up on the rocks under the lighthouse, I have to do something! I could put an auxiliary engine on the backstairs, of course the stairs still need to be mounted and by this time I would already be on the rocks. And even if I succeeded, the engine wouldn’t help me much with these waves. I could throw an anchor, but the waves would most likely break my winch. And I’m already in the air, with a knife in my hand and a mask on my head and underpants on. In an instant, I made up my mind: in 15 seconds, I took off my clothes, took my mask and knife, and jumped into the water to inspect the motor shaft to see if any rope had wound around it. That’s exactly what it was: a short fishing floating pvc rope was wound around the shaft. It will need to be cut off and the axle pushed back into the transmission. Very simply, if this is not happening under a boat jumping on the waves so that once high in the air is the bow, then the stern, the boat with its weight could hit me on the head and kill me. And as I rise to the surface of the water for air, I watch how far it is to the shore. After each dive, the rocks grew larger, and the sound of thundering waves crashing into the sharp rocks under the lighthouse became more and more threatening. After three dives, I finally manage to cut the rope. I push the axle back into the gearbox with all my might and hope that the fuse is not lost somewhere at the entrance to the gearbox, which is very happy to happen.
Well, I managed that too! Everything exactly as I had imagined, but I had no idea how to get back to the boat. The boat is getting closer to the shore, I can already see the bottom under my feet, depth about 10 m, and the stern of the boat jumps so high that the feat will catch the ladder, hold on tight and hold when the boat throws the stern into the air. I knew I only had one chance, because if I failed on the first try, I would definitely break down and the boat would be thrown ashore. I grip the ladder tightly, the stern flies high into the air, and it sweeps me into the cockpit. Somehow I miss the boom and all the other bars and land in the cockpit with only a small bump. I start the engine, push the throttle lever forward, and see the swirling water behind me. It worked! Now I’m just asking: no surprises with a new rope, because if there is one, there is probably another one very close !? I curse the ropes and the fishermen.
But the problems are not over. Through VHF they tell me that all the marinas are completely occupied and that the places for me unfortunately do not have. I, on the other hand, with water in the boat, soaked appliances, which I have to wash with fresh water and dry if I want anything else to work. I sail towards the marina, towards the masts, at the end of the bay I see two more masts. Probably some pier there that can be safely moored? Well, I still sail into the port of Palma and park at a gas station with a long pier. Miss, I throw the rope and tie the boat. While I wanted to stop the boat, I pushed backwards and in this way pushed the axle five out of the engine so that the boat could not be moved anywhere except with a rope to the end of the pier. This way I secured three days of marina where I would be able to dry all things and put the boat back in order. I walk around the marina and find that it is divided into several smaller marinas. I ask for a free place in each, but the place is nowhere to be found. I go back to the gas station, say I haven’t found a place anywhere, in any marina, and that I’ll have to stay on this pier for at least a day until I fix the boat. The mariner approaches me, I explain the situation to him, and he kindly replies that there is no problem, I should only report to the captain’s office with my documents by 7 o’clock in the evening, and that’s it. I take a break. How nice it is when you finally come across a reasonable and kind person with all the problems.
I throw everything off the boat and disassemble everything. I place the pillows on the boat to dry, although there isn’t much sun, but there is wind and they will dry quickly. Electrical appliances lie on the pier, books are dried on the fence and next to them is a toaster. The boat looks like 10 m of gypsy settlement, and I am happy to have taken it away only with a pumpkin. The next day, I take a look at a stranded double-decker that was thrown ashore by the sea almost exactly in front of Santa Maria Cathedral. Crowds of people gather around her and most enthusiastically try to climb onto the deck from where their photo would be fantastic. Friends send me a picture from the anchorage where I was anchored yesterday. They painted a motor yacht that ended up on the beach. Once again, I breathe a sigh of relief that I have safely passed this difficult ordeal. I then stayed in the marina of Palma de Majorca for another 14 days. We shared the cost with Tony, a Swiss adventurer from the Artemist boat. The crew quarreled and Toni moved to my boat, and I took the time to explore the capital and the island.