The summer season got off in early May to a great start. 5 glorious days in Villasimius where we said a final goodbye to long term travel companions Tony and Pat as they headed SE towards Sicily and Greece and we headed North to the Maddalenas. Out of the hustle of July/August it's hard to think of a more beautiful anchorage than that outside the marina on the western anchorage at Villasimius. With it's miles of sandy beaches, massive granite and basalt rocks, pretty holiday homes and majestic mountains.....a lovely spot.
We finally moved on to Cala Pira a very pretty anchorage where we had the beach to ourselves much to Jazz's delight as we could play football and he could paddle in the water to his hearts delight. Heading north Arbatax is a useful if uninspiring stop but we stayed free in the anchorage, so cheap at least. We next headed for Calasetta again not the most beautiful spot but free on the hammerhead and we were able to shelter for 3 days from a Mistrale. We also met our lovely German friends Hartmut and Dorothee plus friend Walter in their fabulous Ovni 55, Centaurus. Never thought I would fall for an aluminium boat but this one off is a beauty and sails like a witch....as we would soon discover.
After 3 days holed up next to each other and having been invited to join them for a meal at an agritourismo restaurant, we had started to get all the information you want that Rod Heikell leaves out of the Pilot books. Where else you can stay free...Olbia old commercial quay.....where you can get water.....Ottiolu 1-3 when all at lunch.....where are just beautiful spots not to miss....Coda Cavallo where you can enjoy aperitivi overlooking Isola Tavolare and one of the most fabulous views in the Med, Porto Brandinghi, Cala di Volpe, Villamarina on Isola San Stefano with it's huge abandoned granite statue.
It was the spring for strong winds as after a days sailing from La Caletta we ended up having to spend another 3 days in Olbia sheltering from the next onslaught....but that was after we had raced Centaurus around Isola Tavolare doing up to 9.3 knots...we did lead for a while as the photo above indicates...but no chance against this speed machine who on just genoa must have been doing up to 12 knots before we all decided to wind in the sails when it gusted up to 40 knots and head for safety.
We finally had to say goodbye to Centaurus and crew as they headed back to Olbia. We spent another 3 weeks travelling along the North coast of Sardegna, partly to meet our friend Valeria in Stintino and partly to have circuited the island (all but 25 miles from Stintino to Porto Conte where we had landed the October previously). The north coast past Capo Testa had little to recommend it. No safe anchorages, miserable stop at Castelsardo, despite it's promising resemblance to Edinburgh from a distance. Turned out to be too touristy, full of miserable people including the Frenchman who threw our lines in the water when we tried to moor next to him in a 33 knot blow! Stintino a pretty spot and was lovely to see Valeria who rewarded our efforts in explaining the virtues of Sardegna to her new Irish travel agents, with a wonderful fish meal lots of massive prawns, fish cakes, squid etc followed by a large sea bass cooked in salt.....so sweet and tender!
We rushed back to Santa Teresa di Gallura in another blow exhausted but relieved to feel back 'home'. By the end of June Corsica beckoned. We hear the west coast is the best, but we were meeting friends in Elba on 5th July so a quick saunter through some highlights included a trip to the fairytale looking entrance to Bonifacio. Lovely town if the experience rather spoiled by the disco until 3.00am. Porto Vecchio 24 miles up the eastern coast is an amazingly large harbour....like a large Spanish Ria. N.B. Explore more on next visit! We had a wonderful anchorage at St. Ciprianu, with it's silky sandy beach. However we started to be more conscious of the different atmosphere from the down to earth Sards and the rather more haughty or disinterested approach of some of the Corsicans.
After another couple of stops...we didn't want to start speaking French again...and couldn't use our internet access.....we arrived in Porto Azzurro on Elba. It's another massive harbour and as scenic as you could wish. We popped across to Tuscany...as you do...to pick up David and Yvonne from the mainland as they'd flown into Pisa. The next morning we sailed the brief distance back to Portoferraio the capital of Elba and the heart of Napoleon's stronghold when he was exiled here prior to his escape and attempt to regain power at the Battle of Waterloo. It's a stunning spot except that it's no good showing the Ormeggiatore Rod Heikell's assertion that it's a town quay and should be free when they are trying to extract €80 from you! The anchorage is almost a mile from a safe landing spot, hence we only spent one night there which was a pity. David and Yvonne treated us to a lovely meal having checked on the internet for a real non -touristy restaurant. It was a super meal and we enjoyed wandering around the street stalls which sold some lovely locally made jewelry and housewares.
The next day we visited Napoleon's house La Molina and enjoyed wandering around the streets. He only lived on the island for 10 months but put in place a large amount of public works to improve the city. Obviously quite effective as it's now pretty unchanged since his time here. I guess there are a few more restaurants and tabacchi though! We moved on to Marciana Marina where we also managed to anchor in the harbour. Lovely little town. Elba is full of them. Some snorkeling and sailing later we dropped our friends back at Salivoli before heading back to Porto Azzurro. We did the round trip again a few days later for our Italian visitors Ellie and Giuseppe. We may only have had 30 hours together, but was a highlight of our summer! On our return trip to Elba, we did have a close encounter with the helicopter putting out forest fires!
Porto Azzurro is a great place to stop with it's massive anchorage, from which it's easy to get to the flower filled town. There is a prison on the hill...Logodouro....which has been there for hundreds of years and still houses a few Mafia big whigs. The town changed its name from Logodouro around the second world war to improve it's tourist image...which has obviously worked! The cliff top walks around the ancient walls of the jail now provide stunning views of this lovely indented coastline and a welcome and rare spot for Jazz to have a good run.
As we headed south to Giglio another of the Tuscan archipelago islands, we didn't know our problems were about to start! We had met a waiter in Brighton who on hearing of our trip said '"You must visit my island of Giglio. The sea is so clean you can see 40 feet to the bottom!"
We didn't try at 40' but we could certainly see the bottom of the anchorage at about 25'. However as we were about to drop anchor there was an awful smell of burning rubber. We dropped as quickly as safety would allow and watched in horror as we saw bits of rubber coming out into the water. It turned out to be the impeller which had broken all but one of it's blades. Martin quickly changed it but we weren't sure if this was the route problem or something had caused it to fail so catastrophically. We had been having an intermittent (the worst!) problems with our alternator not charging our batteries. Was there some electrical fault which had caused things to overheat?
We carried on to Gianuttri a small dot of rough rocks uninhabited except briefly in summer. The next morning the engine wasn't charging the batteries which were now getting towards 60% so needed charging. We headed to Civitavecchia on the mainland near Rome, where we thought it would be easy to find an electrical engineer. Within 5 mins of landing in the basin of Michelangelo...designed by him which has many of his original harbour walls still standing, an electrician was on our boat. Not the happy ending we hoped for however. The guy didn't want us to see what he was doing..we weren't too happy but were in a vulnerable situation with limited language skills and an urgent problem. Having disconnected our smart charger and changed the alternator and charged €380 the batteries were at least charging.
Two days late we were in Ponza.....another fairytale island. We spent a couple of nights at anchor, snorkeling and trying to calm down from our previous mishaps (a few extra I didn't want to bore you with!) The second morning we decided to sail around to the anchorage just outside the town of Ponza. The batteries were again not charging. Martin wanted to go back to Cagliari. I said no we have 2 guests arriving in Sicily in the next few weeks. In Ponza they wanted €100 a night. I had a feeling of deja vu. We dropped our lines on the quay and headed 200 miles west! 32 hours later we were at Villasimius and the next lunchtime back in Cagliari.
Martin and Gary took another look at the electrics but after no real success decided to call in he cavalry. Bruno recommended a friend, though he mostly worked on houses. Mario arrived and you knew you were in safe hands. He next called his friend Cesare who builds alternators for a living. With their sons they went through our whole electrical system. Having said we should kill the Lladro (thief) in Civitavecchia who replaced our 60 amp alternator with a 25amp model with the regulator removed and disconnected various wires that all had to be sorted.
N.B BEWARE GETTING AN REPAIRS DONE IN DARSENA MARINA CIVITAVECCHIA AND ANYWHERE ELSE YOU DON'T KNOW IN THE HOLIDAY SILLY SEASON!!!!!!
It really felt this time that we were coming home. Lovely to have friends around again and people you can trust even though the first 10 weeks away were great. We decided to buy a car as we are now on an annual contract and will only be away for relatively short periods from now.
The car gives a lot more flexibility for exploring Sardegna and seeing friends. Duncan Amy and Joe came for 8 days in August and we all had a great time, sailing to Nora for Ferragosta. The kids loved snorkeling over the ruins of the Roman harbour, seeing all the fish, watching the fabulous firework display in the anchorage that evening just yards from our boat, swimming at friend's house, seeing where Nana and Grandpa will be living next year, going to the beach, seeing the Nuraghi site at Barumini.
Being 'home' we've also been able to be a bit more pro-active with our flat sales. We now have sold, subject to contract, our small flat and have a bit more activity on the larger one. Our house plans are almost ready for the Comune. They keep asking for extras....now its a 3D model of the plans set in a photographic image of the landscape. Hopefully no more hoops to jump through!
In a week we'll be back to the Maddalenas for a while to meet Karen and Simon who've also had to divert from Sicily....many apologies. Still it will be easier to have some good sailing there in 5 days than would be possible in that time frame from Catania.
Anyone who wants to see more photos which illustrate the story can find them on www.picasaweb.google.com/hejira38
