We have been talking about doing a night passage for ages and think it is finally time to give it a go. We need the night hours for our Coastal Skipper log anyway and the Palma to Cabrera run seems like a manageable first attempt — roughly 25 miles so maybe 5-6 hours at our usual pace.
The plan is to leave Palma around midnight, arrive at Cabrera at dawn, and then have the whole day to explore the national park. We have been practising our nav lights identification from the RYA book but seeing them for real is going to be completely different I imagine.
A few things we are unsure about:
- Do we need to pre-book the Cabrera mooring buoy even if we arrive at 6am? We have heard the park rangers are quite strict.
- Is there much commercial traffic on that route overnight? Big ships coming in and out of Palma?
- Any particular hazards to watch for? We will obviously have AIS and radar on but first-time nerves are real.
We would really appreciate any advice from those of you who have done overnight passages here. Tom is quietly excited, Lisa is quietly terrified. The usual dynamic.
Tom and Lisa, great plan — Palma to Cabrera at night is actually one of the best first night passages you could pick. The route is straightforward, there are no offshore hazards, and you arrive at one of the most beautiful places in the Balearics at sunrise. I have done it many times.
A few things from experience:
First, yes you absolutely must pre-book the Cabrera mooring buoy. Since it became a national park the rangers are very strict. You book through the GOIB website (Govern de les Illes Balears) and in August it books up weeks in advance, so do it now if you have not already. Arriving without a reservation means they will turn you away, no matter how early you get there.
For traffic — the main shipping lane into Palma runs roughly north-south to the west of your course. You will see the big ferries from Barcelona and Valencia coming in, and cargo ships heading for the commercial port. Keep your AIS on and stay east of their usual track. Most of the commercial traffic follows a predictable pattern — the Barcelona ferry usually arrives around 6am. At night you will spot them easily by their lights long before they are close.
The only real hazard is the Isla de Na Foradada and the shallow patches around the northeastern approach to Cabrera. Keep to the main channel and follow the leading lights in. The water is deep right up to the island so depth is not really an issue on the passage itself.
Leaving at midnight is sensible. You should have flat calm conditions for the first part and then the pre-dawn offshore breeze might give you a lovely sail for the last hour. Bring warm layers — it gets surprisingly cool on the water at 3am even in August.
Good advice from Carlos on the pre-booking — the Cabrera permit system catches people out every year. One thing I would add on the practical side of night sailing that took me a while to learn properly.
Red light discipline in the cockpit makes a huge difference. Your night vision takes about 20-30 minutes to fully develop and a single glance at a bright phone screen destroys it instantly. I taped red film over my cockpit instruments and keep a red-light head torch for chart work. The plotter should be on night mode with brightness turned right down. Tell any crew not on watch to use red light below as well — someone popping their head up from a bright cabin will blind the helmsperson for minutes.
On the watch system for a short passage like this, I would not bother with formal watches. Have one of you helming and the other on lookout and navigation, swapping every hour or so. Five hours is short enough that you do not need sleep, but do make sure you are both well rested before departure. A nap in the afternoon before a midnight departure is well worth it.
The arrival at Cabrera at dawn is genuinely magical — one of the best things you can do on a boat around here. Enjoy it.
This whole thread is making me want to try a night passage so badly. James, quick question — when you say red light discipline, does that mean literally everything below has to be switched to red? My phone screen would be the worst offender I think. Is there an app or filter that actually works for that?
Sophie, good question. On the iPhone there is a built-in accessibility setting called Colour Filters — you can set it to a red tint and then assign it to a triple-click shortcut so you can toggle it on and off quickly. Works brilliantly. On Android I think there are a few apps that do the same thing but I have not used them myself.
The other thing I would say is try to avoid looking at the phone at all if you can help it. Even with a red filter the screen is still bright relative to a dark cockpit. I keep mine face down in a pocket and only check it if I genuinely need to. The plotter at the helm station with its red night mode is enough for most of the passage. You get used to sailing by feel and sound after a while and honestly that is one of the best parts of night sailing.
Tom and Lisa, I take crews on this exact passage a few times each season and it is a wonderful first night sail. Carlos and James have covered the key points so I will just add a couple of things from the instructing side.
Watch allocation is important even on a short passage. For two of you I would suggest one hour on, one hour off. It sounds like a lot of swapping but the person off watch genuinely needs to rest, not just sit in the cockpit chatting — go below, close your eyes, even if you do not sleep. You will be surprised how tiring night sailing is, especially the concentration of tracking lights and maintaining a lookout in the dark. Fatigue creeps up on you around 03:00-04:00 and that is exactly when you need to be sharp for the Cabrera approach.
Also — and this is a small thing but it matters — eat properly before you leave and have easy snacks ready for the passage. Sandwiches, fruit, chocolate, nothing that needs preparation. Trying to use the galley at night on passage is a recipe for seasickness and burned fingers.
This whole thread is bookmarked for when I am brave enough to try it! I cannot even imagine sailing in the dark right now — I still get a bit confused about which side is port and which is starboard when the instructor asks me quickly. But the idea of arriving at Cabrera at sunrise sounds absolutely magical.
James, your tip about the red phone screen is really useful. I would definitely be the person who ruins everyone’s night vision by checking WhatsApp.
James, the triple-click red filter trick on iPhone is a game changer — I just set it up and it works perfectly. My whole screen goes deep red and you can still read everything. Already testing it in my flat with the lights off pretending I am on watch, which my flatmate thinks is absolutely mad.
Has anyone here actually used those clip-on red lens things for headtorches? I saw some on Amazon but was not sure if they are worth it or if the phone filter and a bit of discipline is enough.
Sophie, the clip-on red lenses work fine. I have a Petzl Actik with the red filter and it does the job. Honestly though, the built-in red LED mode that most decent headtorches have these days is good enough for chart work and moving around the cockpit. The clip-on filters are better if you need a brighter beam for going forward to check lines or whatever, because the red LEDs tend to be quite dim.
The main thing is just committing to it. Your night vision takes about twenty minutes to fully develop and one glance at a white phone screen resets the clock.
One more thing on this since we are coming up on the best window for it — the moon is waning now so by late next week you will have properly dark skies for the passage if you go around midnight. Sounds scarier but it is actually better for learning because you really have to rely on instruments and nav lights rather than half-seeing things in the moonlight and guessing.
Also worth knowing: the commercial ferry from Palma to Ibiza runs overnight and crosses south of your route. Keep an eye on AIS for it. Big ship, well lit, unmissable — but the first time you see a ferry lit up at night on the water it can be disorienting working out its aspect and distance.
Katrin, the moon tip is really interesting — I would never have thought about that. Is there a good app for checking moon phases or do you just use a normal calendar? Adding it to my ever-growing list of things I need to learn before I am allowed near a boat in the dark!
Anna, any decent weather app will show you moon phases — Windy does it, PredictWind does it, even the built-in Apple weather if you scroll down. But honestly the simplest thing is just to look at the sky the night before and you get a pretty good idea.
The real reason Katrin mentions it is that a full moon sounds nice but actually plays tricks on you. Everything has this silvery half-light and you think you can see things clearly when actually you cannot — rocks look like waves, waves look like boats. On a properly dark night you trust your instruments and your nav lights and nothing else, which is the correct way to do it.