Sailing in the Mediterranean can mean boisterous winds to no wind to everything in between.

I was struggling to pick up the channel markers as the late afternoon sea breeze freshened to twenty-five knots. I knew where we were. I had a harbor chart and a guidebook. I was prepared, really. But where were those miserable channel markers? I was trying not to show my mounting anxiety as I scanned the horizon with binoculars. "Daddy, we’re getting too close, should we tack?" My 11-year old daughter Nari was at the helm, dutifully steering the course as we rocketed toward coast. She had sense enough to be scared. On the other hand, my 9-year old daughter Nikki had her Polly Pockets spread out in the cockpit and despite the fact that the little plastic figures kept careening about like drunks at a disco, she seemed to be conducting some kind of fashion show. "Daddy knows what he’s doing," she said, admonished her older sister without looking up, "just chill." I winked at Nari and secretly hoped Nikki was right.

My two young daughters had replaced the full crew that helped me deliver Quetzal, my Kaufman 47 cutter, across the Atlantic the month before. Our plan was to spend the summer exploring the western Mediterranean. We hoped to get as far as Italy but we had no set-in-stone agenda. The girls had to return to school in September and I had to have the boat in the Canary Islands in early December for the return leg of my Atlantic Circle. As I mentioned in my last article, Atlantic Circle: Part One the North Atlantic weather patterns are perfectly suited for this year long circular cruise. An early June arrival in Portugal left me with at least five months to tarry in and around the Med, a sweet reward for crossing the pond.

We left Vilamoura along Portugal’s sun baked Algarve coast and made our way east. We were in no rush to reach Gibraltar and spent a couple of days holed up on the Rio Guadiana, the border between Spain and Portugal, riding out blustery conditions and comparing Spanish and Portuguese mariscos. The winds we had longed for while crossing the Atlantic were lurking instead along the bottom of the Iberian Peninsula. Our next landfall was Chimpiona near the mouth of Spain’s great river, the artery of Andalusia, the muddy Guadeliquiver. And I was sweating bricks.

When we passed the ten-fathom line and things got worse. The seas churned and a nasty wave plopped aboard, drowning the fashion show, spooking the girls and making me wonder if I was a totally irresponsible parent. Although the wind was dead astern I was reluctant to drop the main, in case we had to claw our way off the coast. I had a preventer rigged forward and led aft to the cockpit but still fretting about jibing. The marina entrance paralleled the coast just, and I mean just, beyond the surf line, it was no more than 50 yards offshore. I finally spied the dull green approach mark, alas; it was where it was supposed to be, just a tad on the small side and I let the girls know what I thought of the Spanish Coast Guard. I explained to Nari that as soon as we passed the mark, she had to make a hard turn to starboard and that I’d sheet in the main, roll in the headsail and start the engine as we passed the breakwall and found the lee. "Don’t worry about the sails flogging babe, everything will be fine."

"Okay Daddy," she said, her voice weak as she tried to sound brave. "Just tell me when to turn." The breaking waves were racing up the beach as we passed the mark. Nari manhandled wheel, Nikki and I sprang into action and presto, we were suddenly in calm waters. As we made our way do the dock I realized that my beautiful oldest daughter had become a sailor.

The Atlantic coast of Spain beyond the Pillars of Hercules is a wonderfully less trampled cruising ground. We visited Cadiz, Puerto Santa Maria, Sancti Petri and Barbate before clearing into Gibraltar. The girls were relieved to hear English again but after a week we were ready to leave the overcrowded, paved over rock astern. Despite dire warnings from a xenophobic American in a steel fortress of a boat, we headed for Morocco. We made landfall at Marina Smir, a handsome new development just thirty miles southwest of Gibraltar. In the evening local families strolled about the marina and we soon had an entire family aboard.

Sailing with kids can be challenging and rewarding. These cruising kids seem to find the lifestyle suits them.

Sailing with children is challenging at times, especially as single parent, and that may qualify as the understatement of the day. But kids also open doors that would otherwise be difficult to unlock. Our new friends invited us to their homes in the nearby medina of Tetouan and we experienced a slice of Moroccan life I would have missed without them. After a week in Morocco we angled across the Mediterranean to the large marina complex of Almerimar. Nari stood her first solo night watch during this quiet 150-mile crossing.

We used Almerimar as a base and traveled widely by rent a car and the girls fell in love with Spain. By the time they had to return we had meandered just a few miles further east, to the sun baked port of Aguadulce, but Italy was still 800 miles away. After delivering the girls back to the States, I returned with a few friends in mid September. This is an ideal time to sail in the Med. The weather is settled, the winds have returned, the temperatures have cooled, and all the tourists have gone home. We headed offshore and made our way to island of Majorca. After a brief visit to my old haunts, I lived in Majorca for a couple of years in the late 80s, we pressed on for Sardinia, and then on to Porto de Roma near Ostia, the nearest harbor to Rome.

This was an ideal base for exploring Italy, and the girls skipped a couple of weeks of school to fly back over and tour Italy in early October. It was October 20 by the time I began working my way back toward Gibraltar, and this proved to be a bit too late. With another crew of friends, I retraced my route out to Sardinia. We called in at the swanky, super yacht marina at Porto Cervo on the Costa Smeralda. The place smells of money but our off-season arrival made it a bit more affordable. We also visited the more humble fishing village of Palau on the north coast. We continued on to Majorca, anchoring in the still quaint harbor of Puerto Colom. The forecast called for twenty knot headwinds when cleared Majorca. Our objective was sail directly to Gibraltar, five-hundred miles away, but we didn’t get close.

For three days were hammered by southwest winds. Winds gusted to forty knots and were steady around thirty. I had forgotten how nasty Mediterranean seas can be but quickly remembered as we battle for every inch. We finally made landfall in Almerimar. My crew was forced to abandon ship, held hostage by plane and work schedules. I waited for calmer conditions, another sign that I am either getting wiser or more likely just older, and continued on to the giant concrete marina at Torremolinas near Malaga.

This 2,000-mile Mediterranean Circuit was a bit hasty, the downside of a completing the Atlantic Circle in a single year. A better recipe would add another year to the mix. This would allow you to make a leisurely sail into the Med without having to return the same season. I met several cruisers who were based in Porto de Roma for the winter and had extensive plans to travel overland. In fact, one couple had struck a deal with Europecar for a three-month rental that was quite affordable. The following spring they were planning to head to Greece before making their way back to the Atlantic.

My friend Steve Maseda joined me in Torremolinas the day after Thanksgiving. Conventional wisdom and the pilot charts suggested that this was a bit late in the season and good old conventional wisdom was right again. We rode a hard, cold and unlikely easterly through the Straits, surviving a collision with an unseen object. Off the coast of Africa the winds went south and then southwest and Quetzal was obliged to beat toward Tenerife, our destination in the Canary Islands. The following day, we encountered our only Atlantic gale during either crossing and hove to for six hours when the staysail blew out. We made landfall six days out of Torremolinas.

The route carried the author across the Atlantic, to the Mediterranean and back to the familiar waters of the Caribbean.

The new Marina del Atlantico is located in the heart of bustling Santa Cruz de Tenerife and is an ideal spot for a quick turnaround. We met our four new crewmembers, provisioned, fueled up and shoved off again in less than 36 hours! We canned the diesel when we cleared the breakwater and didn’t engage the transmission again for 17 days! The passage from the Canaries south and west across to the Caribbean is a dream passage. Although sometimes it takes days or even weeks to find the northeast trades, we were lucky, they turned up right on schedule and didn’t abandon us until we tacked into English Harbor 17 days later.

Day after day we ran before the warm wind. When the winds were gusting above 20 knots, we sailed with just a poled out 150% genoa, ripping along at 7 or 8 knots with very little stress. When the winds dropped below 20, we often hoisted the main and rode the wind wing and wing. This system requires stout preventers and results in a lot of wear and tear on the main, but it dampens the rolling and adds horsepower. When the winds dipped below 12 knots or so, we raised the cruising chute. We did whatever we needed to do to keep the boat moving at near 7 knots and our efforts were rewarded. Our 17-day passage translated into a 7.2 knot average.

We made landfall at English Harbor on the south side of Antigua, the place were every sailor should end at least one transatlantic passage. We moored stern to the quay at Nelson’s Dockyard and stumbled ashore to a bar just a few feet from the transom. Kicking back a few cold ones, I gaze out at my stout boat and toasted her handsome lines. She had made her way across the Atlantic and back in a single season and done it in style. And there is no reason why you can’t do the same thing. Cheers.