It’s been another few days of serious saling since we said goodbye to our parents on the gorgeous Isla d’Elba and headed north towards mainland Italy. This is the Portofino / Rapallo area where Europe’s rich and famous come to play, and it’s a fascinating experience to be here rubbing shoulders with them. “Exchanging glances” is probably more accurate than “rubbing shoulders”, but whatever, the point is that if we weren’t creative we could quickly blow a big hole in our budget being this far up north. But we’ve learned how things work here in the Med, and we know that where the harbor boundary ends, so does their right to charge us the expensive mooring fees. So while the big boys pay hundreds or thousands of euros per night to moore about a tenth of a mile away, here we sit on our anchor just beyond the harbor limits. Many budget sailors avoid these northern parts of the Med and our advice to them is to become more assertive about claiming their space on the anchor and to just do it. Forget about what anchorages are marked on the maps, forget about what the pilot books say… just find a sheltered spot, drop the anchor, back down on it to test the holding, and enjoy your free lodging because it’s 100% legal (we think) and nobody’s gonna say a thing.

We’re lucky to have our Italian friends Lisa and Mara here to show us around the place because they make us feel like locals instead of tourists. Yesterday it was Portifino and Rapallo, and today we’re off to see Cinque Terre. We could easily spend a couple weeks here exploring and photographing this incredible part of the Italian coast, but unfortunately that will have to wait until next time. We’re running out of time in this Mediterranean summer, and on Sunday morning we need to head west for the French Riviera, which luckily is less than a day’s sail from here. We can’t wait to “exchange glances” on Sunday night with our elite mega-yachtie neighbors in Monaco and St. Tropez who will be moored on the other side of the harbor boundary from us. And if the feeling isn’t mutual, well, frankly we don’t care.

Well, here we are again in the middle of one of our sailing rampages where we move huge distances over a few days to get to another part of the med. This time our decision to sprint north about 400 miles was driven mainly by the unusually good 20+ knot winds which have been blowing steadily to the north for the past few days. When we saw this in the weather forecast it was like being offered a free ride to northern Italy… and a free ride to northern Italy is something nobody should ever decline.

When we left Malta a few days ago, northern Sardinia (a big island to the west of Italy) was our destination. To break up the long passage we stopped for two nights in Trapani, Sicily, then hopped on the back of a big wind system yesterday morning for the 220 mile ride to Sardinia. This is the type of sailing we dream about. With 25 knot winds pushing us from the rear quarter, we cruised out of Trapani and crossed 180 miles over the next 24 hours, a new personal record. We also hit a top speed of 16.3 knots (17 mph) of boat speed, which is also a personal best, and we believe the fastest this boat has ever gone (although Gibby may correct us on that).

As we finish up this leg, with Sardinia now emerging from the haze on our port (left) side, we can’t help but notice that again we’ve seen not a single other sailing boat the entire way here. It seems the pace of our program, and the distances we are now covering probably puts us in a small group of the most aggressive cruisers in the med. Most yachties out here spend several months in each country, so it takes them years to see it all, while others blast across the southern route without seeing the most interesting parts tucked up in the north. We start to wonder if Tamarisk might see more of the Med this year than any other cruising yacht.

The greatest thing about these longer passages is the confidence we build from them. Before we started this trip in April, we had such little experience on the open water (neither of us had ever done an overnight passage) that the idea of a circumnavigation seemed a distant dream. That is no longer the case – we are starting to feel in control of this mission and understand that we can deal with the challenges when they arise and learn what we need to along the way. It would have been a mistake to wait until we were “ready”. We only have one life, and we’re glad we didn’t waste too much of it “getting ready”.