Articles about the region 'Western Mediterranean'

Extraordinary first day, and a bit too exciting frankly so I'm looking forward to the quiet dull days. Our send off from Palma was amazing, there must have been forty people on the dock cheering as we threw the lines: Fantastico! Grazie a tutti! Leaving port we were able to enjoy a special lunch of fresh pappardelle pasta with shaved tartufo bianco- buonissima!! We eat well on Feelin'...

Tomorrow we begin our circumnavigation of the world (wow! did I really just type that??). As with any large undertaking, you have to break it up into smaller pieces. Our first 'piece' is the passage from the island of Mallorca, Spain to the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. The distance is about 1,100 nm and should take us about 6 days to complete.

As I sit here and begin to write this post, I am reminded of the busy days before Tracy and I launched to fly an airplane around the world in 2008. Like then, now is a time for reflection on the choice; the dangers and risks as well as the anticipated fun and wonderful experiences. That circumnavigation was filled with both excitement and wonder as well as life-threatening situations.

Stealing away for a quiet moment has been pretty much impossible for Giamma these past weeks. I think he's looking forward to the departure more than any of us, and the first thing he wants to do once we leave shore is turn off his phone, "I would like to close it inside a box, stick it down in the hold and not look at it again."

Carmen is down in the galley processing and vacuum sealing a huge stock of Italian coffee beans, while Pitiou is up on deck testing the winches he just finished rebuilding, it's the music of the day, what's become our normal routine, everyone driving towards the same goal; the big departure. The marina here at STP Palma is humming with activity as dozens of crews prepare their boats...

In preparation for our upcoming circumnavigation SY Feelin' Good underwent a three month refit in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. She was re-launched on 15-Nov-2014 and will depart for the Canaries and westward by the first of December.

As a follow-up to my article of the FBB Sailor satellite system (from Inmarsat). I wanted to let you know that I went ahead at the last minute and had the FBB 150 system installed as a backup to the vSat system in Cape Town. Yes, I chickened out depending on the Iridium phone for our primary weather-gathering device for our passage from the South Atlantic up to Cape Verde where I...