Sunday 19th Sept – in Mahon, Menorca getting ready to leave tomorrow evening for Sicily. So a day of cleaning the boat and doing a few jobs. David, Andy and Ian are joining me for the trip to Sicily while Helen is going to Malta for a week and then on to the UK to deal with the changeover of tenant on a small apartment we let out in London. As the changeover is on 30th Sept/1st Oct, one of us has to deal with that and the other has to continue the delivery trip on the boat to Malta - I think Helen drew the short straw!

It’s been great to have so many friends who have helped us sail ALMA from the UK to the Med this summer. We’ve greatly enjoyed everyone’s company and in addition it’s made it much easier for us and allowed us to have a much more restful journey. So many thanks to all of you who have sailed with us this summer and we hope you’ll join us again next year!

So as soon as Andy and Ian arrive tomorrow on Easy Jet from London (David is already here for the weekend with Tricia) we’ll set off provided the weather is OK. Journey to Sicily (Trapani in NW corner) is over 400 miles so if we can average 5 knots the trip should take about 4 days and we should get into port Friday evening – at latest hope we arrive by Sat morning as Andy and David are booked to fly back to UK on Sat afternoon – tight schedule. However if we are making fast progress and if weather looks like holding we might have a very brief stop in southern Sardinia as the route to Sicily passes very close to the southern tip of Sardinia. If not, we’ll need to go back to Sardinia in future as I believe it’s a lovely area to sail in with some lovely anchorages/ports and a Swiss chap on the boat next to us here has lent me his pilot books for Sardinia and Sicily and lots of info on places to visit. So if we’ve got the books (and charts) we should go!