January · Mid winter
The Western Passage
Palma de Mallorca → Valletta, Malta
- Dates
- January
- Duration
- 7 nights · ≈ 560 Nm
- Yacht
- Imladris
- On board
- Up to 8 guests in 4 suites
This is where it starts. Palma behind you, cool winter air, and a sea that opens up the moment you clear the bay.
You board late in the afternoon, when Palma turns gold. By dinner the anchor is down off Cabrera and the only sound is water against the hulls.
Then the passage stretches east. Southern Sardinia, the dark cone of Pantelleria, days that blur into one long, easy rhythm of sailing, swimming, eating on deck and sleeping better than you have in months.
It ends in Valletta, with the yacht lying under honey coloured bastions and the whole city smelling of stone and salt.
Waypoints
- Palma de Mallorca, where you step aboard
- Cabrera archipelago
- Southern Sardinia
- Pantelleria
- Valletta, Malta, where you step ashore
Included on this leg
- · Your own captain and crew, nobody else on board
- · A chef who cooks around you, not around a menu card
- · Tender, paddleboards and dive gear ready at all times
- · Provisioning and every shoreside detail taken care of
What you take home
Three moments from this leg.
A first night at Cabrera
An hour out of Palma the world goes quiet. The anchor drops in a marine park where nothing is built, dinner comes up on deck, and the water is so still you can hear the crew laughing on the bow.
Two days of pure sailing
Once Sardinia is behind you the yacht settles onto one long tack. Nobody looks at a phone. You read, you sleep in the shade of the mainsail, you swim when the captain slows the boat down for no reason other than the water looking too good to pass.
Valletta from the water
Arriving under those honey coloured bastions at dusk, with your own boat under your feet, is the kind of thing people plan whole lives around. Here it is simply Thursday evening.
“The first leg is the one where people finally stop checking the time. By day three nobody asks what the plan is any more.”
Sven, captain of Imladris
Sea, wind and light
What it feels like out there.
Perfect for a first passage. Plenty of sailing, but never far from a calm anchorage, and the shortest hops of the four legs.
- Sea
- Open water, long easy swell, sheltered anchorages every night
- Wind
- Steady winter westerlies, mostly behind you
- Water
- Bracing and glass clear, wetsuits on board
- Light
- Low golden winter sun, long soft evenings
The rhythm of the passage
What this 7-night passage actually looks like.
- January
Palma de Mallorca
Board in the late afternoon, sail out of the bay, and eat your first dinner on deck as the light goes.
- January
Cabrera and open sea
A protected marine park, water so clear it looks fake, then the first proper stretch of sailing east.
- January
Southern Sardinia
Quiet coves, lunch ashore if you feel like it, and the swim platform down all afternoon.
- January
Pantelleria
Black volcanic rock, hot springs, and a night passage with more stars than you remember existing.
- January
Valletta
Arrival under the bastions, a last long dinner on board, ashore in the morning.
The yacht
Imladris
A 24 metre performance sailing catamaran, fast, quiet and built for long water. A Lagoon Seventy 8, refitted for real expedition miles. Captain, chef, stewardess and deckhand. Four people who live for this coast. Cruising 10 to 14 knots under sail, with a silent electric tender for everything else.
- Length
- 24 metres
- Beam
- 11 metres
- Guests
- 8 in 4 suites
- Crew
- 4 permanent
Accommodation
4 en-suite suites, up to 8 guests, one single group on board
- An owner's suite with a king bed, its own lounge and windows the width of the hull
- Three double suites, each with a private bathroom and a rain shower
- Air conditioning, blackout blinds and cotton linen you will not want to leave
- The crew sleep forward, so the whole guest deck belongs to you
This leg on the chart
January
Palma de Mallorca to Valletta
February
Valletta to Alexandria
March
Alexandria to the Red Sea
March to April
Red Sea to AMAALA
The waitlist
This leg is full. The waitlist is open.
Every suite on this leg is taken. Leave your email and if plans change before departure, you hear it before anyone else. One personal email, nothing more.
- Dates
- January
- Yacht
- Imladris
- Accommodation
- 4 en-suite suites, up to 8 guests, one single group on board
Next leg
The Eastern Crossing