The Victoria Shadow Association

Making landfall at Alghero

 

We soon discovered that we had arrived in Sardinia at the height of the Italian’s peak holiday season and both the harbour and town of Alghero seemed to be packed to capacity. The harbour does not have a single marina but a series of pontoons leased to different concessions. We had been advised that the “Ser Mar” pontoons were the best for visitors, run by the helpful Frederico and the only place in the harbour with toilets and showers. We were therefore extremely disappointed to find that the toilet and shower block had been closed by the authorities about 2 weeks before due to what seemed to be a planning dispute. It was therefore a very expensive 40€ a night for a pontoon berth with no facilities. However having spent the previous 2 weeks either at anchor or on mooring buoys it was useful to be ashore and able to catch up on shopping, laundry, boat maintenance and cleaning, so we decided to stay 3 nights before moving further north. Alghero also has an interesting old town which was worth a visit. It felt strange to be in a new country after over 3 months in Spain and we certainly need to brush up on our elementary Italian if we are going to make ourselves understood!  From Alghero we headed just a few miles north to Porto Conte, a large bay sheltered by huge cliffs and one of a number of areas of Sardinia to have been declared a marine reserve to protect the natural environment. We anchored in the picturesque Cala del Bollo. From here we walked along the coast and down the 657 steps of the “mountain goat staircase” to reach the spectacular Neptune’s Grotto, a series of large underground caves which have been open to the public since 1950’s. It was well worth the effort, although climbing back up the 657 steps in temperatures over 30 degrees was quite a challenge!  Unfortunately we found the anchorage wasn’t as peaceful as we had hoped due to the nightly entertainment provided for a nearby hotel. This reached a crescendo on the night of a major festival on 15 August when we were treated to music until 4am followed by a visit from three very drunk naked young Italian men in a rubber dinghy in search of beer and parties!! They left, sadly disappointed ……….  The next day we were therefore ready to move on in search of more peaceful places when we discovered we had a leak from our fuel tank. We had filled up with fuel in Alghero but due to a blockage in the breather pipe which normally warns us that the tank is full, we managed to overfill it. We then found that quite a lot of diesel had leaked into the moulding that surrounds the tank, and had to siphon out about 7 litres of diesel. Fortunately the moulding did not drain in to the bilge. Simon then removed a small cover from the top of the tank to find it was still full to overflowing and we had to siphon out a further 12 or so litres to bring the leak under control. However it has continued to weep from a seam at the bottom of the tank and we think that the overfilling must have caused a small hole in what is nearly a 20 year old tank. We remained at anchor at Porto Conte for a couple more nights to monitor the leak in case it was necessary to return to Alghero for urgent repairs but decided it was weeping at a rate which we could control by regular mopping up and hope that repair or replacement of the tank is a job that can be tackled over the winter. On a hot and still Sunday morning we left Porto Conte and headed 30 miles further north up the west coast of Sardinia. The wind remained a light north westerly for much of the time and we were forced to motor most of the way to the Fornelli Passage.

 

This is a very narrow channel between the north west corner of Sardinia and the Isola Asinara. Passing through it saves about 20 miles compared to rounding the north of the island but presents an interesting pilotage challenge as the channel has depths of only 3 metres in some places and careful attention must be paid to following the leading marks to ensure one doesn’t run aground in the shallows either side of the passage. Luckily it was a flat calm day and we motored safely through with a careful eye on the yacht in front of us, the depth gauge and the chart plotter!  From here we motored a further 10 miles up to the Rada della Real, a large bay on the Isola Asinara which is also a marine reserve and where a large number of mooring buoys have been laid for visiting yachts. The wind had freshened by now to a blustery force 5 but unhelpfully right on the nose so on arrival we were pleased to secure a vacant buoy, albeit at a rather pricey 30€ a night.

Isola Asinara

 

The Isola Asinara has an interesting history, having previously been a leper colony, First World War prisoner of war camp and later a high security prison for those convicted of organised crime. Now the buildings are empty and the island has a slightly eerie, abandoned feel despite its beautiful setting. It also has a native species of tiny albino donkey which made their presence felt by braying through the night! We found it a strange, fascinating place to visit.  The following morning we motor sailed across the bay to Castelsardo. Sardinia has a turbulent history, having been invaded many times over the centuries by the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs and the Spanish before finally becoming part of Italy in the 18th century. Consequently many of its strategically placed ports have ancient fortified citadels and Castelsardo is one such town making it an interesting place to explore. After a couple of days here we left to head north towards the Maddalena Archipelago to meet Jo’s sister who was arriving in a few days time for a week’s holiday. It was our intention to sail about 30 miles that day up to an anchorage in the lee of Cabo Testa at the entrance to the Bonifacio Strait. However strong headwinds and the choppy sea they quickly whip up meant we were making very slow progress so in the early afternoon we decided we had struggled long enough and headed into an anchorage off the beach at Isola Rossa, about half way to our intended destination. Swimming and sun bathing seemed a more attractive prospect than beating to windward for another 6 hours! However we did have to beat off the advances of a German catamaran who anchored just too close to us. The next morning we rose early and left the anchorage by 7.30am. Today the winds were lighter and we rounded Cabo Testa by 11am reaching Palau by lunch time.

 

Palau is the gateway to the Maddalena Islands which lie off the north east corner of Sardinia and we had hoped to get a berth somewhere here to enable us to collect a hire car that we had already booked and meet Jo’s sister, Libby at the airport. However it is a very popular holiday destination and the area was heaving with all manner of boats – ferries, yachts and motor boats both large and small. The harbour was packed to capacity and there was no space available. We anchored overnight in a nearby bay and the next morning tried again to secure a berth. There was still no space in Palau but after some slightly frantic searching eventually obtained a mooring off a small yacht club just a few miles from Palau. This was a great relief as it enabled us to pick up our car and meet Libby the following day.

The harbour at Bonifacio

 

We had an enjoyable week together, visiting some of the lovely anchorages in the Maddalena Islands and Bonifacio in southern Corsica, just across the narrow Bonifacio Strait which divides the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. We were taken aback by how busy (and expensive) it was everywhere, much worse than the Solent on a summer weekend! Sailing in light winds was impossible in any of the narrower channels due to the constant wash from motor boats roaring by and during the day, all the anchorages were full to capacity. However, the Italians do not seem too keen on anchoring overnight, preferring to be tucked up in an expensive marina, so late in the afternoon the anchorages would begin emptying giving us several peaceful and pleasant nights in beautiful surroundings. The sea around Sardinia is crystal clear turquoise water and lovely for swimming and snorkelling.

Caladh moored in the Maddalena Islands

 

Bonifacio is well worth a visit for its spectacular setting. The small harbour is surrounded by high cliffs and approached through a very narrow channel, with the marina at its head. Above it towers the old fortified town, perched on the cliff tops from where there are extensive views towards Sardinia. It was also packed to capacity and initially it looked as if we would be turned away but by chance we met Neil, the son of Caladh’s previous owners who was skippering a large 62 foot catamaran and kindly persuaded one of the marinero’s that they could squeeze us in! For a tiny harbour, Bonifacio attracted a large number of super yachts and there was lots of people watching to be done, seeing how the other half live! However it was soon time to head further south towards Olbia, from where Libby would catch her plane home.

Bonifacio old town

 

We decided to spend the penultimate night anchored in the Golf of Marinella on the north east coast of Sardinia but as we entered the bay we were hit by a terrific storm with spectacular thunder and lightening, torrential rain and winds gusting up to 30 knots. Anchoring in these conditions was somewhat challenging but luckily the holding was good. It was also a bit of a shock as we hadn’t seen any rain for the previous 3 months! We reached Olbia the following day and eventually secured a berth in the yacht club with help on the telephone from our niece Emma who lives near Milan and speaks fluent Italian. She has kindly come to our rescue on several occasions since we arrived in Sardinia as very little English is spoken here and we have sometimes struggled to make ourselves understood.  Libby caught her plane the following morning and we spent a couple of days exploring Olbia, which we liked a lot. After the overcrowded holiday resorts in the Maddalena Archipelago it was good to be in a real town, where ordinary people lived and worked! Although the commercial harbour is not beautiful, the town has an attractive main street, good shops and appealing old buildings. Close by were also two interesting exhibitions to visit. There were replicas from the Terracotta Army on tour from China, which made us want to visit the real thing one day and also a fascinating exhibition about Leonardo da Vinci’s “machines”, complete with working models made from his own original drawings. Undoubtedly he was a man well ahead of his time.  From Olbia we sailed just a few miles south to the Isola Tavolara, a lovely island anchorage off a beautiful beach, sheltered by the huge rocky cliffs.  It was now the very end of August and we also began to notice the holiday crowds beginning to ease. After a pleasant couple of days swimming and taking it easy there we had a gentle 17 mile sail south in light easterly winds to the harbour of La Caletta, where we secured a berth in the yacht club. La Caletta is a small holiday resort on the east coast and after a couple of days here, we rose early and left about 8am to head further south. The previous night’s forecast had indicated there would be moderate northerly winds but when the Italian forecast came through on our Navtex about 9am it was forecasting winds of south-westerly force 7, becoming force 8 overnight! A south-westerly wind would mean a windward passage and as it would take at least 6 hours to reach the next safe harbour, we reluctantly decided the only prudent thing to do was turn round and go back to La Caletta. However very frustratingly the forecast strong winds never materialised that day but arrived the following morning!  After two more nights in La Caletta, the winds seemed to have eased so we decided to head south again. When we got out into the open sea it was breezier than it seemed in the marina, blowing force 4-5 but from the north so we put a reef in the main and began sailing south. The Italian forecast came through predicting a northerly force 7 but as it was from astern (that’s from behind for our non-sailing readers!) and therefore easier to continue than beat back into La Caletta, this time we decided to carry on. The wind rose to force 6 by lunchtime but eased a little in the afternoon to force 5 giving us a lively and fast downwind sail across the Golf of Oresei. This part of the coast has some of the most beautiful and unspoilt beaches in Sardinia but sadly the stiff onshore breeze meant that conditions were not suitable for anchoring and exploring ashore that day. As we closed the land and approached the port of Santa Maria Navresse the wind freshened again and the sea became very choppy, so dropping the sails and entering the marina was a bit lively but with the help of the marina staff we were soon safely tied up in a berth.  Here we met Julian and Liz on Golden Dawn who we had last seen in Almerimar some 3 months ago and spent an enjoyable evening catching up on each others news. We were planning to head from here to Sicily where we hoped to lay up for the winter but the price we had been quoted by the boatyard in Trapani was considerably more than we had hoped to pay. This, coupled with their policy that boat owners could not do their own maintenance work made it prohibitively expensive and we were somewhat at a loss as to where we might over-winter. Julian and Liz advised us that they were planning to leave their boat in a yard in Cagliari, the Sardinian capital which lies on the south coast. We therefore hired a car and drove down there, spoke to the boatyard owner and much to our relief, secured winter storage for about the same price as we had paid in Portugal last year and half the price we had been quoted by the yard in Sicily.  All in all a great success, although hiring the car proved an interesting experience. We travelled to Cagliari, a journey of about 160 kilometres each way, on the Oriental Sarda road which traverses the mountainous east coast of Sardinia. It is a spectacular but very windy road although it has been improved in a number of places with wider, faster stretches. However the driving of the locals is some of the worst we have ever encountered – very fast and very impatient with no regard for speed limits and frequent overtaking despite blind bends and “no overtaking” signs. The passenger was a nervous wreck by the time we reached Cagliari, particularly as the driver discovered the hire car was quite nippy and decided to imagine he was Jenson Button!! Nevertheless we made it safely there and back and, having hired the car for two days decided to spend the second day exploring the mountain roads and villages inland from the marina. We had a lovely morning enjoying the spectacular scenery but it was cut short about midday when the fan belt came off the car on a remote mountain road and we had to call out the breakdown truck! We had been watching a herd of goats scramble up a steep hillside beside the road, setting off an avalanche of small stones and we think we may have picked up a stone which caused the belt to come off. The breakdown vehicle arrived about an hour and a half later and we were loaded onto the back of the truck and told we would be taken back to Tortolli from where we hired the car, a distance of some 20 kilometres. However, the truck had only 3 seats in its cabin and with the two breakdown staff there were four of us. Jo therefore had to sit on Simon’s knee (aarrghh!!) all the way back as we snaked our way down the mountain road, not comfortable for either of us! The clutch on the breakdown truck sounded and smelt like it could burn out at any moment making gear selection a noisy, hit and miss affair, so it was with some relief that we reached Tortolli! Some four weeks later we are still trying to negotiate a refund for the lost day’s car hire………

 

Despite this we enjoyed a pleasant week at Santa Maria Navresse. The marina is friendly and helpful and in a spectacular setting below steeply wooded hills. It is a pleasant small town and there are lovely walks along the surrounding cliffs. From here we headed 30 miles further south to Porto Corallo and after a calm and uneventful passage, arrived just ahead of a torrential thunder storm. This was to be the beginning of 2-3 weeks of unsettled weather, with spectacular electrical storms and torrential rain almost daily. Sadly we heard that Golden Dawn, who had headed north to the Maddalena Islands and were at anchor, had been struck by lightening during one of these storms and lost much of her electrical equipment, although thankfully Julian and Liz were safe.

Stormy weather near Porto Corallo

 

Porto Corallo has a fairly new marina with many of its facilities yet to be completed and it is in the back of beyond! All the facilities in the nearby holiday village seemed to have closed for the season, even though it was only mid September and the bus service had finished for the year, so we had to hire bicycles and cycle 7 kilometres to the nearest shops and 10 kilometres to the only internet point in the area! It was therefore with some relief that we headed further south towards Villasimius on the south eastern tip of Sardinia. It was a calm still day and we had to motor for much of the 25 mile passage, before the sea breeze filled in and we beat around Capo Carbonara and into Villasimius. This is another fairly new marina in a lovely setting with a backdrop of mountains, rocky headlands and islands and white sand beaches. The nearby Noteri lagoon attracts flocks of migrating flamingos and the small town of Villasimius, about 3 kilometres from the marina, is bustling with a good range of shops and facilities. We spent a very enjoyable week here before heading to the Marina del Sole in Cagliari, just 15 miles along the coast, to begin laying up for the winter.

 

Cabo Carbonara		Flamingos at Villasimius

 

Cagliari is a busy city and port, with much of historical interest, including a Roman amphitheatre, a huge archaeological museum and an impressive walled bastion surrounding the old town high above the city. The marina is a small, family run business and has a small liveaboard population as well as a number of people like us who have come to prepare their boats for the winter. It is therefore a sociable place to stay and we spent a busy week, washing, cleaning and tidying up Caladh after the long season.  Jo’s mother then arrived for a land based holiday and we returned to Villasimius, this time staying in a small villa near the beach for an enjoyable 10 days relaxation before heading back to Cagliari to finish laying up the boat for the winter.

The waterfront at Cagliari

 

We have sailed about 1500 miles this season, an almost identical distance to the previous year. Although we didn’t reach our intended destination of Greece, we feel it was sensible to spend more time exploring the places we visited rather than try to cover unrealistic distances and see little along the way. It has been a varied season. We enjoyed the Atlantic coast of Spain and visited some fascinating places, Cadiz, Seville, Granada and the Sierra Nevada mountains. We were disappointed by Gibraltar and found much of the natural beauty of the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca has been spoilt by ugly over-development. The highpoint of the summer was our month in the Balearics which are surprisingly unspoilt and a lovely cruising ground with many safe, natural harbours and a beautiful coastline. We have mixed feelings about Sardinia. It is undoubtedly a very beautiful island, particularly the south east coast, but it was unfortunate that we arrived in the peak holiday season. We found sailing in August unpleasantly crowded and ridiculously overpriced as well as finding many of the local people neither welcoming nor helpful and sometimes arrogant and rude. There seems to be no culture of customer service here, with a few notable exceptions.  Despite some unseasonable weather, we have enjoyed September and October more and have stayed in some lovely places. Over the summer we also enjoyed the company of the crews of a number of other yachts, including Jacana, Libertine, Golden Dawn, Mystical, Xavantes and Gipsy Rose. Next season we plan to head south to Sicily and Malta before hopefully reaching the Ionian Islands of Greece at last.    Simon and Jo