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THE MEDITERRANEAN AWAITS
Written by Bob Osborn, SV Pandora
 Brenda and I have been sailing together since high school in the 1970s, so it takes something fairly significant to feel like genuinely new territory. This spring, I think we've found it.
By the time you read this, we'll be aboard Pandora, heading out of Almerimar on Spain's Costa del Sol, working our way east across the western Mediterranean - Cartagena, the Balearics, Corsica, Sardinia - before hauling out for the summer in early June. We'll rejoin her in September for two more months that will include more of Sardinia, a stop in Tunis for a reset to avoid the dreaded VAT, and then leaving her for the winter in southern Sicily. After this season? Likely farther east for a few more years of Med exploring.
How did we get here? Over the years our travels have taken us down the US east coast, the Bahamas, Cuba, the eastern Caribbean down to Trinidad, and last summer across the Atlantic. After more than a decade of Caribbean cruising, the last 9 seasons in the company of the Dawgs in the Eastern Caribbean, Brenda made it clear that “next” needed to happen. One of her suggestions, only slightly in jest, was that we sell Pandora, buy a Beetle Cat, and she would sit on the deck of the Essex Yacht Club with a glass of wine and watch me sail back and forth on the river. Oh boy. Brenda, how about the Med? Fortunately, she agreed.
 Many of you know how the first chapter of this story unfolded: I sailed Pandora across last summer as part of the inaugural Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores - Mike on Exodus will be leading the rally from Bermuda this year, and there is plenty of fun planned.
After a wonderful month cruising the Azores Islands with Brenda, she headed to Scotland while I continued south to Gibraltar on what I'll diplomatically call an "eventful" passage through the orca zone off Portugal. I made Gibraltar, pressed on, and hauled Pandora in Almería for the season, where Brenda rejoined me for some land exploration around Spain.
If you're sitting on the fence about the Azores rally, let me say this plainly: do it. The Atlantic crossing is manageable - Chris Parker describes the passage as very similar to the run from Hampton to Antigua, just longer. Horta is a terrific landfall, and the islands are beautiful in ways that are genuinely hard to describe until you're there. For us, it was the gateway to everything that comes next.
 Our spring route runs April and May. Cartagena first - one of the finest natural harbors in the Mediterranean, layered with more history than a short visit can absorb - then out to the Balearics: Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Formentera. From there we cross to Corsica and Sardinia, two islands with reputations among Mediterranean sailors that are hard to live up to. We're looking forward to finding out for ourselves.
We plan to share our adventures and both Brenda and I will both be writing regularly. On my blog at www.sailpandora.com, I'll be covering the sailing side of things - passages, weather, what breaks and how we fix it, the people we meet along the way. Brenda writes at www.argoknot.com, where her focus is the fiber arts traditions she encounters wherever we go. Of course, I will continue to write for the SDSA newsletter as well.
We sometimes experience the same trip in very different ways, which I think makes the two blogs worth reading together. All in all, our goal will be to help readers get a feel for what these, new to us, cruising grounds are like.
As always, I'm looking for insight from those who have gone before. There's a lot of ground to cover and I'm very much in the learning phase on Mediterranean cruising. Reach out - I’d love to hear from you: [email protected].
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We knew we wanted to explore the western Caribbean, but aboard Lorena, we’ve learned not to plan too far ahead. At 43 years old, she keeps us humble - there’s always the question of what might need fixing next. So we take it one step at a time. Still, she has proven herself a capable and trustworthy partner. Leaving Hampton in November and working our way to Trinidad by early January, the familiar rhythm of the Eastern Caribbean - five seasons for Brian, two for Cathy - began to give way to something less predictable, and far more adventurous.
MEET THE DAWGS: Diane and Carl Simon, Sonas
