THE START TO A NEW CRUISING SEASON 2012
Hello to you all again
Having left New Zealand on 16th March we stopped
off in Brisbane for the weekend staying with Alec’s brother Richard and his
wife ‘Kayleen. Then it was on to Dubai where we spent time with Brigitte
and Dan, caught up with friends, then flew on to Malta, then ferry to Sicily to
re-join SHAMAL on 4th April.
We have had a slow start to this cruising season. In
fact as I start this email we are still in Marina di Ragusa in southern Sicily
where we left SHAMAL at the end of the last sailing season. We have been
told April is a little early to head on out as the weather is still very
unsettled, and yes they are right about that. The sun is out at the
moment, but big black clouds are passing over with rain, it is still only
between 18-22deg dropping to about 10-13deg at night, sometimes cooler.
And the winds seem to blow every day getting up to 30kts at times. BUT all is
well and we are making progress at getting SHAMAL in order to leave here –
hopefully by the end of the month. We arrived back to find all was well
with her – stilled tied up with no damage from the winter storms that passed
through. Unlike one of the Marinas up the coast from here and across in
Malta where boats were lost in the Marinas when mooring lines broke as 2mt
swells crashed in. We did have some fine black volcanic ash on board from
Mt. Etna, which is only about 50 miles away.
