Winter has found its way to the southern coast of Sardinia.

[ccohanlon@merveilles.town]

Winter has found its way to the southern coast of Sardinia. Last night, the temperature dropped to 8ºC and this morning we wake to grim skies, heavy rain, and a mistral gusting 25 knots across the deck. A thin layer of condensation coats all the hatches, portlights and deckhead linings, and our bedding and clothes feel damp.

Living aboard a small boat — Wrack is just 9.75 metres long — can be challenging in any season but in these conditions, without an adequate heater and dehumidifier, it can be downright unpleasant. My wife's and my first experience together of winter afloat was on the south coast of England, three years ago, when we and Wrack were embarrassingly unprepared for weeks of rain, wind, and frost while tethered to a pontoon on a tidal river that dried to black mud at low water. But the worst was a succession of hurricane-force storms we endured in Cherbourg, the following year (it didn't help that our toilet, water pumps, and electrical system failed at the peak of one of them). Luckily, a friend helped us retreat to a small flat in Tangier, in Morocco, almost as windy but much drier and warmer.

We had been hoping to move ashore for winter, this year. But the last third of 2025 has proven to be dispiriting and hard. Initially hopeful about resolving our immigration issues, with optimistic responses to temporary residency submissions to Turkey and Italy, the final refusals were disappointing. Then came my heart attack in Rome in September, a few weeks later, and soon after my discharge from hospital, Wrack's reliable Swedish diesel engine died. We had no money for parts so it has had to remain unrepaired. Continuing health care has eaten up whatever money we have managed to beg or borrow.

C'est la guerre, I guess.