To Isola Bureli, 9-12 May 2023

I finished the previous post with the forecast for the area with gusts of up to 40 knots. This very windy weather lasted for 3 days and forced us to stay in the port of La Maddalena. La Maddalena is the capital of the island of La Maddalena, one of the seven islands in the La Maddalena archipelago.

The harbour of La Malladena, very decent a relatively cheap (35€ per night in May for Belisama, 100€ in July)

But being stranded in La Maddalena was not painful, because the town has a lot to offer...

The town is very colourful indeed, with lots of winding, narrow, lively pedestrian streets going up and down. Nothing very special to visit, but a lot of good feelings to wander around. We did not venture out too much as there is no public transport to explore the island (you would need to hire a car). But there are plenty of nice places to enjoy.

The sea does not look so impressive at first sight, but the wind was so strong that some of the trees in pots that decorate the streets were blown over, and it was difficult to walk on the upper streets of the island because of the strong gusts of wind.

The wind rose below, which decorates one of the houses, is interesting because the west is placed at the top of the rose with the ponente wind. This is probably because west winds are the dominant winds in the area?

Finally, on the 12th of May, despite still strong (Ponente) headwinds, we made it out of the harbour. Fully dressed in our Helly Hansen overalls, which cost a fraction of any alternative on the market for sailors (thanks to Fanch's Cybèle 17 tip), we were a bit conspicuous in the harbour as the wind was still strong. With a headwind of 11 to 13 m/s, we made it with a trinquette and two reefs on the mainsail. Then we turned north and got a side wind that took us to our destination a few miles away at 7 knots/hour. 

Below you can see where we anchored on the island of Burela, north of the La Maddalena archipelago. Unfortunately, the wind remained quite strong until late in the evening, preventing us from swimming or even paddling ashore in such turquoise waters.

Let's see what happens on Windy in the coming days! As winds are strong and favourable in the coming days, we decided to head south tomorrow morning, in the rain, for a 50-mile ride to Ottiolu, on the east coast of Sardegna. Then, on Sunday, we will head to Arbatax, before engaging in the 175 nm crossing to Palermo to get the next crew, which is about 36 hour ride!

Quite busy in the next days, but we will keep you posted and make our best to welcome crews on due dates on the way to Croatia...