From Netherlands to Italy - a short report

[max59]

Hi all,
as promised, after a 34 days trip from Monnickendam The Netherlands to Trieste Italy, I'm here to thank you all for the help and advices and to leave a short report of the trip.
We have been quite unlucky with the weather to say the truth.
We have left Monnickendam April the 8th to Ijmuiden. As In the North Sea the SW was blowing 25-30 kn with some wave, we followed an inland route through canals called Stand Mast Route. An interesting and very nice solution not to lay in the Ijmuiden marina for days, but very time consuming as after three days we exited in the North Sea only 60 nm from Ijmuiden.
With a decent weather we have cross during the night the Ostenda harbour ship lane with the help and supervision of the harbours Pilots boat that was there to manage the traffic. In Calais we have tried to refuel but the marina was closed for 5 hours because the tide. So we sailed toward Dover, with one hour stop because the French Custom in the middle of the canal.
After refuelling we crossed the Channel towards Alderney as we wanted to cross in the daylight as our chartplotter and AIS transceiver was not working properly thanks to a "very poor" installation by a Netherland's "technician" that has affected also the VHF transmissions.
The end of this leg was planned to be in Brest, but as we saw by the grib file downloaded during the dinner that a quite deep low was approaching, in order to escape at least the body of the front if not the tail, we sailed immediately toward Spain. During the night and the day after we had NW from 25 till 38 kn with some swell from NE, in the middle some quiet, but in the evening the wind rounded to SE 20-28 kn and in the end SW 25-30 kn.
Our cross ended in Camarinas Marina a very nice, cheap, and well protected marina with restaurant, services and diesel, few miles from N of Finisterre. The people is very friendly, the area very nice and, if you stop there, don’t miss the Santa Virgen de la Barca Sanctuary on the opposite point near Muxia.
There we have stopped for three days as the front was hitting the coast of Spain.
From Camarinas our legs have been Gibraltar, Valencia, Palma, Cagliari, Brindisi, Trieste.
Out of the wind the main problem we have had to front has been the cold (the Webasto has been serviced by a Netherland’s “technician” before to leave, but after some days stop to work) that was terrible in the north, quite hard in Spain and Portugal, normal for the season in the Med and a memory in Adriatic.
We have sailed Aurora, an Hallberg Rasy 36 MkII, launched in 2001, with great satisfaction and comfort, running his Volvo Penta for 500 hours. The prop was a new Jprop 19” pitch 9 and has pushed the boat without any problem. The crew was three or two persons.
What I have learne from this first experience out of the Med is that the Sea is the same everywhere if you apporach him with respect and wiseness, that I can still stand 2 hours of watch and 2 of sleep for days, that refuelling is not so easy elsewhere and not to trust in The Netherlands “technicians”.
This is just an apetizer, but if anybody what to know more has just to ask.
Ciao.
Max.