Sometimes the night is so dark you cannot tell the sea from the sky. The sound of the wind rushing through the rigging is eclipsed by the hulls charging through the water. The running lights illuminate the whitewater streaming off the stern of the boat in two parallel wakes, leading back to where we have been. Aside from the numbers and lines on the instruments updating every second, the only sense of where we are is through feel. When she has the bone in her teeth, KODA sails on rails, eating miles at more than twice the pace of single hulled boats of a similar length. When we are lucky enough to have a following swell she sits back on her haunches and accelerates, surfing for up to a minute at a time.

We have had plenty of miles at sea recently. Crossing from Greece to Italy was over 800 miles. Then another 200 to Sardinia, and 300 more to La Grande Motte, in France, where we had an appointment to get a final round of boat work done before we head west, across the Atlantic.

From Favignana we sailed to Sardinia, a 24 hour sail in excellent conditions. We spent several days working our way up the Costa Esmeralda, which I had no idea about. Interspaced between the Yosemite scale limestone walls are little beaches tucked into draws. Sea stacks stand off the coast and the water is as blue as it gets. The only stain on the otherwise peerless landscape is the number of tourists, arriving daily by boat. Since we are also tourists, we can’t be too grumpy about it, but each day as they leave back to their port of origin, we breath a sigh of relief, since we live here for the night, and are usually alone. It’s easy for the snobbery to take hold when we travel with our boat and can easily access places other people have to struggle to reach.

Heading north we sail by Porto Pervero, where the Rolex Maxi Cup is happening, and we pass close by the fleet, made up of the fastest, most expensive yachts around. We anchored again in Porto Pollo, where we were in February, and settled in. We planned to stay around a week. Things were a little different. This time the anchorage had numerous other boats in it, and during the day the kiters, foilers and windsurfers filled the two neighboring bays. That is what we came for, and each day the wind picked up mid morning. We had a great time foiling, as Porto Pollo is one of the best wind spots in Europe. We are both still progressing so quickly that each session is a new discovery. I started working on tacks, and Kate was connecting gybes across the huge bay.

It also turned out that we would meet some friends here. Amy and Patrick, aboard Wayfinder, came and anchored next to us for the night. We had crossed the Pacific with Amy as crew on Umoya, and she and her husband had just taken delivery of their new Outremer 52, the big brother to our boat. They stayed one night, and then pointed back north, towards Corsica.

We also met up with Lorenzo and Alberto. Lorenzo owns Vertical Sailing Tours, and we met him on Kalymnos, in Greece, where he was leading a trip. This time he was in Sardinia, doing a few more trips, but first he and his friend Alberto were crewing on one of the Maxi boats. Alberto is a good wingfoiler, and they came up to Porto Pollo to foil. We had a couple nice days hanging out with them, and enjoying aperitivos and delicious dinners. They knew everyone around the kiting area, and it is always fun to be shown around by the locals.

Eventually we found our weather window and had to go. It was marginal, but we decided we needed to make it work in order to be in La Grande Motte on schedule. What followed was 300 miles of entirely up wind sailing. When the wind was strong, that wasn’t so bad, just a little bumpy. But heading into our first night at sea the wind died, and we drifted at 2-4 knots all night. This persisted for most of the next day as well, with a thin drizzle falling, and thunder squalls passing nearby. We were reluctant to motor, as we didn’t have all that much fuel left, having last visited a fuel dock in June. In the evening of the second day the wind filled in, and we began making progress again, sighting French land near Saint Tropez. In the morning we were boarded by French Customs and they put a nice big ding in one of our transoms with their large RIB. After a search and careful look at our documents, we were permitted to continue on. The sailing remained pretty good, and we passed KORU, Jeff Bezos’ floating 137meter monstrosity. I’m pretty sure our boat is more fun to sail.

We arrived in La Grande Motte at 5am and anchored over by Port Caramague. Sleeping late, we woke up and moved into the marina at La Grande Motte.

At first we had many errands to run, and the prospect of eating in Montpellier was exciting. We ran around and bought new foil gear. Then we got a message from Amy and Patrick. They were returning to La Grande Motte from Corsica, and could use a hand crewing Wayfinder back up the coast from Nice area. A few days later we jumped on a train and made our way to Saint Rafael, a small town on the French Riviera. We spent the night aboard, and then set sail in the morning. We had different conditions, sailing under gennaker the whole way, and only spent one night at sea. Being on the 52 was a fun experience. It is a different boat! Much bigger and more spacious with far more amenities. We had fun visiting with Amy and Patrick, and were soon in La Grande Motte again.

It was a Friday when KODA was hauled out of the water. We spent the weekend on the hard, which is a shitty way to live on a sailboat. You can’t really use your water, and you are suspended 15 feet up in the air above a dirty dusty boat yard. We made plans to leave the boat in the capable hands of the Outremer after service guys, and get out of town.

On the train ride down to meet Wayfinder we sat across from an interesting older French woman. She recommended that we go to check out a bamboo botanical garden that was about an hour outside of Montpellier. We spent a day driving out there and walking around the very impressive campus. It was the old estate of a Frenchman who had some money, and decided he wanted to plant bamboo. There were other things besides bamboo, but mostly just hundreds of varieties of bamboo. Apparently it is the world reference for such things.

On Monday, after meeting with the warranty crew, we jumped in our rental car and drove to Chamonix. It had been just over a year since we left and it was fun to be back. The mountains were dusted with the first snow, and the mornings were crisp. We stayed in an absurdly fancy hotel (that was very affordable in the off season) and went for a walk. We spent a day at the spa, and ate at all our favorite spots- Chateau Fattiers, Poco Loco, and Cool Cats Hot Dogs. We were only there for three nights, but it was enough to remind us how much we like it in Chamonix. Maybe one day we will regularly spend time there, once we are done sailing. If we finish sailing.

Returning to La Grande Motte, we scrambled to complete our last chores, and provision the boat. The guys finished their last jobs, and we bought 100 liters of diesel. We had to make it to Menorca in fewer than 35 hours. After that a rather strong Mistral was forecast, with winds up to 68 knots forecast, along with 5 meter waves. We don’t particularly want to be part of that… As I write this we are around 75 miles out, with 14 hours left before the wind hits. We are motoring in barely any wind, hoping that we get some soon, so we can go faster. Hopefully we make it before the storm rolls in…

Also we caught a Mahi, our first fish on KODA. We tossed him back as he wasn’t really big enough to eat.