56 miles in 10 hours.
We had watched weather carefully anticipating this trip. Although it is a short trip, the Sicily Channel between Italy and Malta is a storm track through which big winds and seas are funneled. We had gale force winds on three sides of us – west, north, and east – but there was a clear corridor to get to Malta. We took the opportunity.
We left very early with sunrise, and our trip was uneventful. We motorsailed for eight of the ten hours underway. We did see a few ships, and we were without our AIS, but none of them caused any concern.
We needed to go to the main island of Malta to get our AIS replacement part, but we wanted to see the northernmost island – Gozo – before going to Malta. We had also heard that checking in with the officials is much easier on Gozo than in Valetta on Malta. We are both weary of the check-in and check-out processes, so we take the easy route whenever it is available.
We arrived before sundown, and we had plenty of daylight to get settled. This was a boring passage, but we have been in the Med long enough to appreciate boring rather than eventful.