Monastir to Cartagena

Hi everyone,

Yesterday we arrived in Cartagena, Spain after a 6 day passage from Monastir, Tunisia.  We now have 90 days in the Schengen area before departing across the Atlantic.

Our nearly 3 month stay in Monastir was great.  Being there over the summer it was hot, sometimes very hot.  We enjoyed Monastir itself and also touring Sousse, Mahdia, Carthage and Tozeur in the Sahara.  The Tunisian people are doing it tough but were always friendly.

Final Tunisian Sunset

Our strategy was to take the first reasonable weather window as we approached our 3 month Tunisian visa expiry and our Schengen re-entry date.  Happily one came along a week before the visa expired and a direct passage to Cartagena would have us arriving on our Schengen re-entry date.

The weather window wasn't ideal but it was OK.  We'd have a nice SSE wind to reach north from Monastir to Cap Bon.  The wind would then die and go around to a light W breeze which we'd have to motor through.  We'd motor to get far enough W to ride the western side of a Mistral N wind coming down from France.  We'd sail out of the Mistral into light airs and have to motor until an E wind along the African coast took us home.  There are a set of GRIB weather files below.

Here are the plots...

Overall Track

Arrival Track

Graphs

And here are the vital stats for the passage…

    • Distances/Speeds

        • Route Distance = 710nm

        • Logged Distance = 749nm (log now calibrated via SignalK!)

        • GPS Distance = 752nm

        • Duration = 6d5h (149 hours)

        • Average speed over ground = 5 kt

        • Minimum boat speed = 3 kt

        • Maximum boat speed = 8 kt

    • Weather

        • Minimum wind speed = 0 kt

        • Average wind speed = 8 kt

        • Maximum wind speed = gusts to 31 kt

        • Apparent wind angle range = 0 to 150

        • Seas up to 2m

        • Swell up to 1.5m

        • Everything from calm & sunny to squally and rainy!

    • Engine

        • Total = 67 hours (45% of passage)

Departure from Tunisia involves Garde Nationale, Police and Customs authorities.  We first had to arrange a departure time with the Garde Nationale, at least 24 hours in advance.  On the day of departure we then had to visit the police and customs to have our passports stamped.  Customs retained the passports until the Guard National was ready to escort us out,  Then customs came aboard to check our equipment list and look for stowaways immediately before we sailed.  On departure we were escorted by a Guarde Nationale RIB to the 12nm territorial limit.  It took all morning to complete the process, finally departing at noon on Sunday 3rd October.

Departing with escort

We had a great sail north along the Tunisian coast.  Beyond Cap Bon the breeze and fetch made it a rapid but rolly ride.  We zipped across the traffic lanes before gybing west.  In the following PredictWind GRIBs the green dot shows our approximate location at the time.

3 October - nice SSE breeze to start

On Saturday the wind gradually died until at 1445 the engine went on.  It stayed on for 42 hours.  We had to push the engine hard at 2000 rpm to get through an unexpected left-over W swell of 1.5m.  Twasn't much fun.  So glad we spent three sessions in the marina water scrubbing the hull and our Brunton's AutoProp clean.

Eventually the swell subsided and the motoring became easier.  We pushed W to ensure the coming Mistral would be on our beam and not on the nose!  On Monday night a large thunderstorm passed from S to N with enormous bolts of lightning around us.  Happily none touched down close but it's never a relaxing experience!

5 October - light W winds S of Sardinia

Sunset over a silky sea

The Mistral came in as predicted and we had a great beam reach from SW of Sardinia to S of Minorca.  The leading edge of the Mistral had squally conditions and we were caught out by one of them.  A rapid yankee furl and mainsail reef sorted that out, with a free freshwater wash thrown in for both of us.

7 October - riding the W side of the Mistral

Squalls disappearing to leeward

As we reached out of the Mistral the wind gradually faded until eventually we were motoring again.  Along the way an owl flew by and inspected us - what it was doing in the middle of the Med only it can say, it did look a little confused.  We transferred 40 litres of diesel from jerries to the main tanks since the two days of hard motoring had used most of the roughly 120 litres in our tanks.

At sunset on Thursday Nicki saw the green flash.  We've now seen it several times each.  We motored for most of Thursday night, but this time at a much less frantic 1500 rpm across an almost smooth sea.

Tiny hitchhiker

On Friday morning we had a dolphin escort.  It's always a highlight when they come along to play.  The night sky was amazing throughout the passage.  There was a tiny sliver of waning moon on Monday morning and another tiny sliver of new moon on Friday evening.  Otherwise no moon at all.  Jupiter and Saturn were very bright.  We saw a couple of satellites and a number of shooting stars.  The app GoSkyWatch reminded us of the constellations.

Sailing West

Friday afternoon gave us 'champagne sailing' conditions.  It reminded us of trade winds sailing in the South Atlantic.  Nice to know the Med can occasionally deliver perfect sailing.  As they say the Med is often 'motoring between storms', but once in a while there _is_ great sailing.

By Friday night we were closing the North African coast, taking advantage of the predicted breeze there.  When we found ourselves getting into the shipping lanes and close to some offshore platforms we gybed north towards Cartagena.

8 October - riding the wind on the African coast

On Saturday the wind died as we sailed WNW.  Eventually the motor came on again and we donked along at 1500 rpm to Cartagena.

Dodging traffic on approach to Cartagena

Entering Cartagena port

On arrival in Yacht Port Cartagena the marinaro guided us to our pen where we Med Moored (with 'slime lines' not anchor), perhaps for the final time.  We're getting pretty good at the manoeuvring required.

Today (Sunday) we spent the early morning cleaning up the boat.  The headsail sheets were stiff enough with salt for a 2m length to stand upright.  Then we visited the office and found no Covid tests were required for crews of boats under 25m.  We expect to have our passports stamped by Customs tomorrow morning when their office will be open.

We'll be spending a week or more here in Cartagena.  We have several packages en route to us here.  Next stop is likely to be the 250nm to La Linea (close to Gibraltar).  From there it'll be onward to Madeira which will be shorter than this passage!