Passage to Sardinia

18 April 2024 – Cape Malfatano, Sardinia, Italy

After leaving Valletta, we sailed to Gozo, the northern island of Malta. We had planned to spend the night in Blue Lagoon, a beautiful anchorage with bright aqua water, but it was super crowded with ferries and tour boats zipping by within feet of the boat, so we only ended up staying there for a few hours. We then sailed a few miles to another anchorage on Gozo called Dwerja, which is a small bay surrounded by tall cliffs.

It seemed like it was pretty remote, but we were able to take the dinghy around the next headland and through a tunnel that the water had eroded in the cliff face to a little cove with docks.

Ocean side of cave tunnel – Dwerja, Gozo, Malta

Harbour side of cave tunnel – Dwerja, Gozo, Malta

From Dwerja, after taking the dinghy through the cave to the port hidden beyond it, we took a taxi to see the megalithic temple of Ġgantija, the oldest freestanding structure in the world, built around 3500 BCE. It looks pretty similar to the other megalithic temples we visited on Malta, made of massive sandstone blocks, some of which have a spiral design carved into them.

As the weather became less favourable for the next few days, we headed back to Valletta to wait for a good day to cross to Sicily. My mom and I went to the archaeological museum, which houses a lot of the artefacts originally found in the megalithic temples. I found it really interesting to see the little stone statues depicting people from thousands of years ago. The museum also had the original copies of stone blocks with designs carved into them, as well as the base of giant statues, of which only the feet and the bottom of skirts are remaining.

We had originally planned to sail the sixty-two miles to Licata on Sicily then stop for a few days and wait for good weather to continue to Sardinia, but once we arrived we decided to only stay there long enough to walk the dog and buy pizza before making the most of the favourable weather and continuing sailing. Besides, the “anchorage” where we put the boat to avoid having to pay for the marina was basically just an indentation along the coastline completely open to the swell. It was so wavy that we decided we would be more comfortable at sea anyway.

After sailing all night, we made another pit stop in the southwestern corner of Sicily, Mazara Del Vallo, to walk the dog and get breakfast. It was another hundred and seventy miles to Cala Carbonara in Sardinia and we arrived there uneventfully the following afternoon then went directly to the beach. It was warm and sunny, with beautiful scenery and a white sand beach, so we crashed there for the rest of the afternoon before Jonas and my mom paddled around in the kayak and paddle board.

The wind was forecasted to blow strongly from the northwest and Cala Carbonara wasn’t sheltered enough, so the next day we sailed to another bay, Cape Malfatano. Most of this journey was fine; the wind was blowing at about twenty knots and we were making eight knots on a close reach while most of the sea was blocked by Sardinia. The very last section involved rounding a point to enter into the bay, which meant that the wind was now directly in front of us and blowing up to thirty-five knots. We only had three miles to go but it was a struggle. We eventually got there by tacking up wind with a boost from the engine and arrived safely but a bit damp from the waves we took over the bow. Anchoring also took a while, as after we had put the anchor down we realized there were four foot rocks that we could swing into so we had to re-anchor twice in strong winds before we were clear of them.

Cape Malfatano is a beautiful place, and we will be spending a few days here to wait for the wind to pass. There are no houses, only a few camper vans, and a lot of well-kept trails. We walked to the Martello tower on the headland yesterday and almost got blown away.

San Pietro

Malta

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