Life On Sail

  51.9 NM in 11h28 at 4.5 knot speed but it was mostly engine all this time. We arrive again at Procida island and once again we won't be able to visit the beautiful colorful town of Corricella. Wrong Calculus, I thought this one was our 200th sailing but it's not!

  We reached 31.8 NM in 7h33 min at 4.2 knot average. Rainy sailing, and very boring.

  we did reach 10,9 NM in 3h at 3.7 knots. No wind at all. Only engine against a lot of swell.

  Huge waves when we came out of the port. It was a rainy day. we reached 38,5 NM in 8h32 mn at 4.5 knot average. We were to moor here two nights as there is no wind tomorrow. But the swell is strong despite being in a secluded bay! Let's see how it goes tomorrow.

  52.9 NM in 10h15 at 5.2 knot speed. We alternated between no wind and too strong wind gusts. The side swell and the heavy rain made it even worse. We ll stay two nights in order to wait for the wind to subside.

  I think it's the strongest winds we went though so far, gusts at 34 knots and 20 knots maintained a very long periods during our passage between Italy's boot tip and Sicily. Huge swell as well by the end. We reached 45.3 NM in 8h48min at 5.2 knot pace. We're staying couple of nights to shelter from the windstorm. We've been to Tropea late summer and this time of the year, the town is totally empty, all shops closed.

Making a Youtube video from scratch is not easy. And I have to say I have lost the motivation for it.  It takes a lot of time and you are not even sure someone will watch it.  My goal was to create one long episode per month.  And so far, I only reached 10 episodes, although it's been now 11 months into the sabbatical.  Here below are the ones that totally flopped.  One only got 312 views as of now...  This one is fine, as it was rather fast to create and I actually had pleasure editing it. However, for the "TOP 10 Galeres" and the "6 months review", it took so much time to create and edit, I poured all my heart in, for just a bit more than 1000 views each.  It think these back to back flops in October had me demotivated.   But I still released one more video, "5 reason not to live aboard" that I think could be the last if I can't summon more strength in me to create 2 more... However, that  last one had a good viewing, 4000 views so far...

  Budget overview: First month of year 2026, and finally, we are spending less! We splurged during the Xmas holidays with our family over, lived in hotels and went to restaurants almost every day.  So January was the sobering-up month. On our way back towards France, being stuck in ports for days because of the strong wind, ports in Greece were free most of the time.  And there were almost no restaurants in the small Greek coastal cities we passed by.  We spent a total of 1371 euros, which is by far our lower monthly spent by far.  January spending details: We mainly spent on French taxes, for owning the boat, it was something like 200 euros.  And the rest was mainly food.  January vs Budget: We officially overspent vs Budget after the December holiday craze.  We still have 2 months to go, one to successfully return to France.  And another one to successfully renovate the boat to sell it.  So far there is only 3376 euros left for these...

  We sailed 85.2 nautical miles in 18 hours and 19 minutes averaging 4.7 knots. It was another long night at sea and we didn’t even arrive at our destination. Instead, we found ourselves in a charming marina in Occhio with a breathtaking view of Mount Etna and incredibly welcoming people. It was pure serendipity!

  We left at 4:30 pm. We were supposed to have a head wind against us so we planned a 20h journey to reach Calabria but the wind changed, we had strong side wind and close hauled, and maintained 20 knot wind speed. So we reached destination in 15h13 for 66.4 NM at 4.4 knot average. We didn't have wind for part of the passage. Arrived too early to get into the marina but didn't wait too long before everyone came to help us dock!

  On the way to Greece, it took us 12 hours to cross the Italian boot. We were graced by great wind. On the way back, Nico planned 20h instead. So we woke up at 4 am to make it happen. Turns out we were again lucky with the wind, we made it in 13h30 for 72,2 NM at 5,3 average.

  A short sailing day turned into our 2nd longest one as we continued our journey straight from Corfu to Italy. It took us 23h30 with 113 NM with tacking. Averaged 4.8 knoats after the night sailing brought us 20 knot sustained close hauled wind.

 Back to Corfu, we'll be stuck here 2 days because of the strong wind.  Unfortunately, just like last time, it's raining non stop.  We arrived 4h ahead of the planned 15h journey! We're lucky. We reached 57,8 NM in 10h50 with a 5.3 knot cruising speed. No tacking. Pretty smooth despite the swell and rain. One of our last stop before we leave Greece.

  We reached 40.8 Nm in 9h20 at 4,4 knots average. It was supposed to be windless but we were lucky some parts of the passage. And it was also sunny which we didn't expect given the wet start of the day! No rainbows today!

  46.4 NM in 10h43 min at 4.2 average. We got a thunderstorm, rain and even hailstone on the way. We were to go to Ithaki but decided not to as the weather will be dreadful the full week.

  We started at 4 am to be sure to arrive before night. And we did, after 71.6 NM and 13:13 hours at 5.4 knot cruising average. We got good 26 knot wind gusts upping our speed to 8.2 knots. But we did have some passage with no wind at all, alternating between sail and engine. We'll be sheltering here for 3 nights.