Ep 100 A Death at Sea - Doublehanded Passage to Malta

After four days waiting out the weather in Mykonos (Greece), we finally head off southwest and west toward Malta, the first major leg of a trip that eventually extends all the way to the Caribbean.

But within hours we receive a chilling Pan Pan (distress call) notifying us and others of a tragedy in the making. A diver has become entangled in fishing nets, and as we discover later, has died. This is a nightmare shared by sailors worldwide, the realization that nets have wrapped around your prop and you have no alternative but to dive to cut them free. Being too far away to respond, we continue on, shaken and saddened to be sure.

By dusk, we’ve reached the southern tip of the Peloponnese, the three fingers of land that jut from the bottom of the Greek mainland. We’re amazed to discover that under the strong winds we’d encountered all day we had actually covered a full third of the Aegean Sea!

Shipping was heavy in the narrow traffic separation zone between Greece and the island of Kythira, and Wendy was on high alert during her moonlight watch. She held Talisman tight to the edge of the zone while tankers, freighters, and even cruise ships passed silently by.

From there it was sailing in all its glory, from light and variable winds that barely kept us moving, to marvelous beam reaches under full and reefed sails that made short work of hundreds of miles. After three days of incredible conditions through surprisingly smooth water, Malta appeared in the mists of a beautiful dawn. The hour or more of waiting for permission to enter didn’t rate well enough to include in the episode, but boy was it worth it. Malta stands as one of the architectural and military wonders of the Mediterranean, and should be a bucket-list destination for any cruiser worldwide.

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