[brunoo]

Hi everybody, I'm organising a trip on a sail boat with few friends and I was wondering if anybody have experienced to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Greece/Italy/Croatia or so.... to Africa and back, how long it might take? And any other useful tips are welcomed..

Thanks!

Bruno

 

[MarkofSeaLife]

Iv'e zigged and zagged across most of it.
As a rule say 120 nms per day.

 

[miatapaul]

Iv'e zigged and zagged across most of it.
As a rule say 120 nms per day.

Keep in mind this is going to be for a 24 hours, not a sun up to sun down. So you will need to have competent watch keepers. If you are doing this with non sailors and want to keep it to daylight hours 70 Nautical Miles would be pushing it hard. Also can depend on the boat, bigger boats should be able to cover a bit more, smaller less.

 

[OldEagle]

I would give careful consideration to exactly where in Africa you intend to touch. The situation in parts of the Mediterranean & North Africa have deteriorated substantially in the past few years, and the experience of cruisers who have not been there very recently could be misleading:
"Last weekend, smugglers wielding Kalashnikovs fought the Italian coast guard rescue boat to wrestle back a smuggler ship after the human cargo had been rescued and the boat seized. They hauled the boat back towards Libya, presumably to fill it up again."
Libya is no man's land. For a trip south from Greece/Italy/Croatia that sounds like where you would be heading. Western Med--enclosed by Sardinia/France/Spain/Algeria/northern Tunisia may be OK, and eastern Med--Greece/Turkey/Cyprus/Egypt may be a little less so, but south central Med could be an opportunity to star in the next ISIS video.

 

[chuck5499]

Well i can only tell you what we did last summer. We left Port Yasmine Hammamet Tunisia and sailed to Sardinia, over to Rome, down to Messina Straits, across to Albania, up to Montenegro and on to Croatia, over to Venice, down the eastern Italian coast to Sciliy and over to Malta and back to Tunisia via Lampedusa and it took 6 months.

If all you are going to do is sail and see nothing then depends on weather and miles you can make a day. If you want to see things then it will take a while. You can probably only really be underway from May to Oct.

What do you want to do? That is the real question? If you want to experience the Med it will take more than a couple of months. We are in year 3.

By the way this coming summer we are leaving Tunisia and head to Sciliy, Albania, Greece and end up in Turkey for the winter.

And do not forget that there are 2 winds in the Med, too much and too little so you will be motoring a bit.

 

[celenoglu]

Sailing to/from Africa to/from Europe/Asia Minor might take 12 hours to 3-4 days. The distances do vary. Although there are some interesting places to visit, I would rather keep away from Africa. Bahsis, bribery, theft, gun assults are very common in some of the countries. You should better visit the northern part of the Mediteranean.

 

[chuck5499]

Sailing to/from Africa to/from Europe/Asia Minor might take 12 hours to 3-4 days. The distances do vary. Although there are some interesting places to visit, I would rather keep away from Africa. Bahsis, bribery, theft, gun assults are very common in some of the countries. You should better visit the northern part of the Mediteranean.

Disagree with the North Africa. This is our 2nd winter in Tunisia and there is no theft, graft, gun assults, ect here. The same for Morocco. But of course Libya is a bit of a mess and probably should be avoided and Algeria may be a bit iffy but may be doable. We have friends now in Egypt. No issues.

We feel safer here than in Miami Florida.

 

[brunoo]

Thank you all, the idea/challenge was to cross the Mediterranean Sea, and therefore we are free to choose the best starting point from Europe to get to N.Africa and back.
Also is there any particular seasons to avoid?(weather etc...)

 

[MarkofSeaLife]

Thank you all, the idea/challenge was to cross the Mediterranean Sea, and therefore we are free to choose the best starting point from Europe to get to N.Africa and back.
Also is there any particular seasons to avoid?(weather etc...)

Yes, avoid cold weather, winter, storms, machine guns, illegal immigrants.

There are no safe countries in North Africa. Tunisia last night had an ISIS attack.

Tunisia militants kill four police in checkpoint attack
TUNIS Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:11am EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/18/us-tunisia-security-idUSKBN0LM07920150218

 

[OldEagle]

I think part of the problem with trying to assess risks in a sailing cruise to North Africa is that the situation there is very dynamic, changing very rapidly, and almost uniformly changing a very bad direction. Past experiences are likely to be a very poor guide. Today, Tunisia (despite the news above) and Morocco are still relatively safe--but that could change quickly--Egypt and Algeria a bit less so, and Libya lethal. The threat from Libya is moving off shore, and Libya makes up a huge swath of the southern Med coast. The original poster was proposing a voyage south from the environs of the Adriatic--and that way lies Libya.

 

[AdamLein]

Sicily to Tunisia is only 80 nm, Pantelleria under 40...

 

[brunoo]

Is Sicily- Tunisia ok, with all the smuggling in the region? Might be dangerous, 80nm sounds very close..

 

[chuck5499]

Yes, avoid cold weather, winter, storms, machine guns, illegal immigrants.

There are no safe countries in North Africa. Tunisia last night had an ISIS attack.

The winter is not very sailable. Probably good sailing from May 1 to Nov 1.

As for Tunisia the bad guys did attack a police in the mountains far to the west and on the Libya border. Had the same issue last year. We traveled close to that region last year just after a similar issue. The army hunted down the bad guys and dispatched them.

A lot safer than Trinidad where we could not leave the marina at night and they had 1 killing a night and when my son who is a usmc and i went to port a prince in the daytime were warned by shop owners to be very careful as it was dangerous, or Guatemala City where the people made sure we never left the zone the embassys were in as any time of day or night there were drive by shoots, or Philadelphia where i had worked and had to go into an industrial section that was extemely dangerous, or east st louis where i was doing a consulting job and got locked into the hotel at night or - i can continue this for a long time. by the way the police also got rid of several bad guys the other day as they have no tolerance for them or gangs unlike some countries.