Having spent another night at anchor in high winds on Isola La Maddalena, it was time to get back to the mainland so that Yvonne and Caron could get to Olbia for their flight to the UK. The wind was due to get even higher so we decided that we should make tracks straight after breakfast. We had an exhilarating sail from the islands to Palau with gusts of 38 knots (a near gale on the Beaufort Scale). We picked up a mooring buoy just outside of Palau marina and then went ashore for some shopping therapy, ice cream and a final meal together.

Palau is a small town that is geared towards the tourist trade in a nice way with plenty of interesting shops, ice cream parlours and restaurants. We wandered around for a couple of hours and then had an early dinner as Yvonne and Caron had to catch the bus at 0800.

It continued to be very windy overnight so we were glad we were on a mooring buoy although we noticed this morning that one of our lines that was attached to the ring on top of the buoy had chaffed through. Luckily, we had attached a second one as a safety measure before we went ashore yesterday. This morning we attached another line through a piece of plastic tubing to stop the same thing happening again.

We were going to take the ferry to Maddalena this morning but the wind has picked up again to over 30 knots so we are not inclined to leave the boat! We have turned the wind generator off as we are now at full capacity as it was charging at over 10amps.

Pictures of Caron and Yvonne sailing, the view from the back of the boat and Palau from the boat.