I seem to have overlooked Isola Rossa in my last blog. A pleasant enough town, a few shops, bars and restaurants. But we seem to end up having dinner at 10pm most nights. This is great when we are in Spain, and can have a siesta, but I have to confess, after a day’s sailing and all that fresh air, even I am getting a bit too tired at that time to enjoy food.
We decided to eat ashore as we were so tired, and ended up in a large, busy restaurant. Service was quick, and for once I wasn’t complaining. Richard had fabulous local mussels and clams, and I could only look on in envy over the top of my slightly bland tuna tartare. But he is generous, and shared with me. For main course, we had a strange pasta – long grains, about 5cm in length, but solid with a barley twist; delicious with a pesto sauce and prawns. Italian food is rather messy; you have to get down and dirty with the seafood.
The next morning, we bought two more cushions. We are definitely on a roll here, and soon MB is going to look like the soft furnishings department at John Lewis. We popped back to the boat via the marina office to let them know that we had decided to depart, as we had asked them the previous night if they had a berth for us for a second night.
We left via the fuel pontoon, where Roberto, the charming fuel man (but they all are) chatted to Richard about the lack of Brits out here, and we explained about the five-day quarantine. He also though Brexit was a puzzle as it made things more complicated than easier. [Ed, tell us about it] We have seen very few boats flying the Red Ensign, but have just seen a couple in the last day.
We were now heading for the north of Sardinia, and through the Straits of Bonifacio to the Maddalena Archipelago. [Ed, Alix forgot to say we saw more dolphins on the way] It’s a national park, and you have to buy a permit to sail here. It is a favourite holiday destination for Italians and French / Corsicans, with stunning powder white beaches and turquoise seas. It was interesting sailing through the Straits with Corsica on our left, and Sardinia on our right.
We had a cracking sail across from Porto Isola Rossa. Whilst we still had a swell, the wind was in a comfortable direction, and we whizzed along.
We had decided not to enter the park that evening, and we tried to find a sheltered bay in which to anchor. The one we had earmarked (using the Navily app) turned out to be rather exposed, so instead headed down into a long inlet on the north coast of Sardinia, Porto Pozzo, to drop anchor. It was extremely sheltered from the prevailing wind, and we settled down to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine in the cockpit.
Richard read while I topped and tailed green beans for a salad. Small speedboats and RIBs kept hurtling passed us, and we saw lots of enormous gas-guzzling gin palaces with private staff on board who would probably top and tail the green beans for you.
Later on, we came below to book our tickets for the national park. Richard booked, and received an email saying he had to use PagoPA, which is the Italian digital payment service for the public sector. We hunted how to do this, could we download an app, did we need to phone the central number… Eventually, I looked again at the email, and found that if you page down, there was an option to pay by credit card.
This morning, we had another “first”. Our dinghy has been lashed to the fore deck since leaving Alghero, and this morning we lowered it into the water to flub ashore to buy more beer for the captain. We have elected to have an electric motor, rather than a 4-stroke diesel outboard. It means we don’t have to carry fuel on board, nor find a petrol station for refills, which are often well out of town. These engines are also extremely heavy, whereas I can easily pass the sections of the electric motor to Richard. It was a successful little trip, both in terms of the dinghy and motor, and the beers.
Whilst ashore, we realised that there were two enormous rental places for speedboats, hence all the traffic. And as we bobbed out of the Porto Pozzo inlet, late morning, all we could see was boats. Huge gas guzzlers, large yachts, speedboats, dinghies, small sailing boats. You name it, if it floated, it was out there. It was worse than trying to get to the Isle of Wight in Cowes week, or a regatta weekend. As we really weren’t going very far, we kept the engine on, and weaved our way in and out of the traffic. The ‘Not The Nine O’Clock News’ sketch applies to boats as well as cars: designed by computers, built by robots, driven by Italians.
We were just chugging around to our evening anchor, when a large gin-palace appeared on our starboard stern. “Holy Moly”, said Richard. “Have you seen what’s behind us?” We looked around, and very kindly they were pointing out that we had picked up a fishing marker ball/flag, and it was wrapped around our port side rudder and trailing about 50m of line in the water. Whoops.
We thanked them kindly. Fortunately, the rufty-tufty skipper lowered the bathing platform, lay out on it (as the yacht motored slowly along), and with the aid of a ship’s safety knife (not a Leatherman this time), was able to cut the fishing buoy free. [Ed, never have a knife far out of reach on a yacht. You just never know…]
And here we are, at anchor, along with lots of other ships. Now our dinghy and motor work, perhaps we will get invited for cocktails?
