Sabbatical3 Blog

We spent three week in Ponza waiting for sailing weather to cross the Tyrrhenian Sea back to Sardinia.  It was super hot the last week and there were lots of tourists on the island, but still a beautiful place to spend 3 weeks.  Here are some photos:

We are now in Tunisia.  We will try to get the blog up to date soon.

M. and L.

Ventotone, Italy : July 5^th to July 10^th, 2017

After leaving the town of Gaeta, on the mainland, we sailed 23 nm to the nearby island of Ventotone. Ventotone is one of the Pontine Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea. According to Wikipedia, the island is the remains of an ancient volcano. It is only 3 kilometers long and 800 meters at its widest. Despite its small size, and rather dry and rocky terrain, it is a magnificent place, and a very popular destination for tourists, including many fishermen and yachties. The anchorage is very open, sitting along the east side of the island, without any real indentation to afford shelter to boats. We were not sure we would be able to stay long, as that kind of anchorage tends to get very rolly. Luckily for us we had five days with very light winds, and all coming primarily from the west. This made the anchorage smooth and comfortable.

Ventotene is as far north as New York City. There is an ancient port at the base of the town that was carved out of the soft limestone by the Romans. It is very small with almost no turning room for any boats that venture in. It was absolutely jam-packed with fishing boats when we arrived. We had arrived just in time for their annual “Big Fish Competition”. For two or three days the fishermen competed, all leaving the harbor (and motoring right by our boat in the anchorage) in the morning and then racing in just before sunset. We counted at least 60 boats, but there could easily have been more. It was fun to see and we were sorry that we never got to see any of their catch, except one rather large Big Eye Tuna.

The water was clear and warm and we had some lovely swims off the boat. The bottom had some sand, but was primarily huge slabs of rock that looked as if they had been carved by hand and then somehow dumped there. Perhaps the rock that the Roman’s excavated to construct the harbor?

Besides the beautiful clear water for swimming there were places to walk, all with outstanding views of the sea and the nearby islands. The island closest to Ventotene is San Stefano, famous for its prison camp that was created under the orders of Mussolini. The prison is no longer used, but still stands atop the island, looking very bleak and forbidding. Beyond that (another 20 nm to the west) is the island of Ischia which was also visible.

We ran into some sailing friends as we headed to town for dinner one night. Dan Culpepper is an American sailor whom we had just met the week before at our 4th of July party in Gaeta. He was with his sister (Laurie) and the two of them were just stopping off in Ventotene on their way west. We had a lovely dinner with them at “La Terraza di Mimi”, a restaurant with beautiful views over the ocean and the nearby islands. It was a full moon that night (July 9th), and we had unbelievable views of the huge moon rising right over the horizon.

The strange thing about Ventotene was that during the day the anchorage was really filled with boats… dozens and dozens of them, but by evening, nearly every boat picked up anchor and left. We never could figure out where they were going and why they would be leaving at that time of night. The motor-boats could probably return to the mainland easy enough, but for the sailboats it was a 4 or 5 hour sail. So why not just stay put for the night? There was a marina at Ventotene in addition to the ancient port, but with rates of at least $100 a night, it is hard to understand why they would go there rather than stay in the comfortable free anchorage.

Ischia, Italy (July 10th to July 16th)

After five days in Ventotene the winds started coming up from the north and the east which meant we had to leave to seek safe anchorage elsewhere. We sailed to Ischia, another volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The eastern side of Ischia is only about 20 nm from Naples on the mainland, and 13 nm from the more famous island of Capri. As we sailed across the northern edge of Ischia we were amazed to see how green and forested and mountainous it was. Most of the islands we have been to in the Med are beautiful, but very dry and definitely not green. Ischia may not be as well-known as Capri, but some consider it to be more beautiful. I guess we will never know as Capri is an extraordinarily expensive island to bring your boat to and we decided not to go. There is little to no space for anchoring in Capri and so you are forced to go to a marina. Some friends of ours said that they were charged $350 a night and then in the middle of the night the marina cut off their electricity because they said they had not paid enough to keep it running all night!

On Ischia, however, there is more than enough room to anchor for many boats with good protection from most wind directions. There is also a large marina in the main harbor which is very popular.

We chose to anchor behind the Aragonese castle, last rebuilt in the 1500’s, which is on a small steep, rocky island connected by a causeway to Ischia, and is the most highly visible landmark around. This little islet and causeway makes for two excellent areas for anchoring, one north and one south of the causeway. Since the winds change so often around here, this was a very useful feature and we ended up spending half our time anchored north of the castle, and half south, depending on wind direction. The views of the castle are very beautiful both by day and night. The water is also very clean and clear, although the bottom is very grassy on the northern side which makes for somewhat uncertain holding. You can also tour the castle and it was well worth the visit. Besides the interesting architecture of the castle there are amazing views all around, extending to the mainland, Capri and even Pompeii.

Ischia is a very popular tourist destination due to its proximity to the mainland and there are hundreds of shops lining the main roads, with several long blocks restricted to pedestrian access only. There is a constant stream of ferries to and from multiple locations on the island. There is a very convenient bus service that takes you to the main port in Ischia town from which you can catch other buses that go all around the island. There were docks that we could tie our dinghy up to which made going into town very simple. We found an amazing restaurant about halfway between the castle and the port area, called Ristorante Da Bellezza. It was just perfect, a family run place with grandma cooking in the kitchen while her daughter served and her grandsons sat on the terrace, fishing. One day, as we sat on the terrace of the restaurant we looked across to Pompeii and saw thick smoke in the air. It looked as if the volcano was erupting. It turned out that forest fires were raging across the area, as well as up and down the whole coast of southern Italy. For a few days there was haze in the air and it looked as if the fires were causing a great deal of damage. They were certainly affecting the tourists who might have planned to go see Pompeii or visit Naples at that time.

The forest fires also affected our plans to continue south to Calabria and then cross over to northern and western Sicily. Sometime ago we had even booked a marina for 6 days in Tropea in Calabria. The risk of smoke from fires made it seem unwise to continue south along the Italian mainland. Friends sailing in Sicily reported dense smoke and evacuations. The marina was nice enough to cancel our reservation and we are now looking to cross the Tyrrhenian Sea and return to Sardinia, where there are no reports of forest fires.

One day we took a local bus which brought us all around the island. We got off about halfway around and checked out the anchorage in the south (S. Angelo). We had thought of moving our boat down there if the winds turned easterly, but we did not like what we saw. It did not seem like a very well protected anchorage, except from northerly winds. The town itself was modern and architecturally uninteresting and just way too touristy for our tastes, but we did manage to have a good lunch at a place with stupendous views of the ocean. The bus ride back to town was hair-raising. The road up from S. Angelo zig-zags steeply up a mountain and then back down again. Our bus was a full sized city bus and the roads were two-way. When another bus came around a corner from the other direction there simply was no room for the two to pass. The two drivers would play chicken a bit, and then one would have to back up until a slight clearing could be found. To make matters worse there were lots of cars squeezed along the sides of the road, making it even more difficult to find a clearance. After one particularly difficult back-up maneuver everyone on our bus started applauding the driver. Sometimes a big tour bus would appear, which was even bigger than the city buses and then it was really something to make room for passing. It was such a crazy ride. I don’t know how the drivers can do it all summer long.

After seeing the whole island we decided that the most beautiful part was right where we were anchored, under the castle.

On our last Saturday the entire anchorage was jammed with boats. We had really not seen so many boats anywhere up until this point. I guess mid-July is the beginning of the absolute busiest month here. Strangely enough though, by evening at least half of the boats disappeared again.

With winds forecast to come up strongly out of the northeast for the early morning hours of the 16th, we decided it was time to move again as neither the northern or southern anchorages we had been in would have been tenable. This time it was a very easy move… just 2 km away to the neighboring island of Procida. The anchorage was perfect for the conditions and we had a comfortable night there. When we pulled into the anchorage, just before dark, there were only 3 sailboats there. During the night we could hear the noise of marine diesels and anchor chains on windlass. Apparently, other sailors were not sufficiently attentive to the weather reports and got caught in the wrong anchorage when the wind shifted. When got up in the morning we were surrounded by 12 boats! That’s the first time we have seen such a dramatic change overnight.

L.

We left Gaeta, Italy on July 5th, after spending 19 days (June 16th to July 5th) at the “Base Nautica Flavio Gioia” Marina. It was both a wonderful town and a terrific marina. We had left our anchorage in Ponza on the morning of the 16th because we were concerned about a significant easterly storm that was predicted. The anchorage at Ponza is totally unprotected from the east and good protected anchorages are few and far between around here. We also needed to get to a marina so that we could start the process of ordering and installing a replacement halyard for our destroyed main halyard. The marina in Gaeta promised very good protection from the east (and all other directions). However, when we arrived we were directed to one of the two seasonal floating docks that are set up just in summer (when easterly storms are supposed to be finished). The seasonal docks are not protected by a seawall (breakwater) but are open to the east. All of the berths behind the seawall were occupied. We were extra careful in how we tied the boat up knowing that she might get knocked about for a few hours. We moved the boat far from the dock using double bow mooring lines, and then backed down hard with the motor so that our stern dock lines would reach the steel bollards on the dock. The easterly storm was predicted to be short –two or three hours of strong wind – not long enough to kick up a large surge. The prediction was wrong. Once the wind came up after 2 am early Sunday morning the wind howled for 12 hours and the wind generated surge made Sabbatical III bounce up and down so hard that it was impossible for us to put down our passerelle in order to get off the boat, and extremely uncomfortable onboard. We, along with the other boats on our dock were getting bounced up and down quite violently (and all of the boats were much bigger than ours) and we were afraid that our dock lines, or those of our neighbors would snap. The surge would push Sabbatical III violently towards the dock, making the dock lines sag, and then pull it violently away, making the dock lines snap against the steel bollards to which they were tied. The whole boat would shutter from the jolt. Just watching the enormous forces making the dock lines sag and snap back every 10 seconds made us wonder how much abuse they could take. If one or both snapped, Sabbatical III would likely come hard against a concrete dock or our neighbor.

It was such a strange experience because just thirty meters away from our dock the marina has a lovely bar and garden area (on solid land, not on a dock) and there were a few dozen people there, sunbathing, drinking, and having a lovely afternoon while we were getting battered around on the boat. By evening, however, the winds died down. Mark inspected our dock lines and one had frayed to the point that it would probably not have lasted another hour. (See photo of our dockline after the storm). The neighboring boat’s lines were in even worse shape. The marina said that they had never experienced a worse late season storm in their 50 years of operation. We had to replace our dock lines the next day as they were nearly chewed through. We were relieved to see that our neighbors did the same thing as their lines were also frayed to the core.

After the storm, we really enjoyed everything about both the marina and the town. There is a very helpful and friendly American born woman who works for the marina (Jayne Koehler). She was of great assistance to us in arranging things, particularly in finding a good rigger to help us replace our snapped mainsail halyard. Within a few days of our arrival Luigi (the rigger) arrived at our boat along with Jayne (to help with any translation problems). Luigi’s English was great, however, and Mark ordered new halyards for both the mainsail and the genoa. We then had a couple of weeks to wait for them to arrive and for Luigi to make time in his schedule to do the work.

We were also thrilled to learn through Jayne that we could get our propane cooking tanks filled in Gaeta. We had not been able to fill our tanks anywhere in Italy and had two completely empty propane tanks onboard, plus one with an unknown amount in it. We were afraid to use it up and had been relying on a cheap plug in electric burner for our limited cooking (good excuse for eating at restaurants all the time). Jayne even drove us and the tanks over to the station to get the tanks filled. Gaeta is probably one of the only places in Italy that can (and will) refill US propane tanks. This is because it was long the home port of the US 6th Fleet and was home to 4000 US Navy personnel. The US Navy personnel in Gaeta came with their BBQs and other propane appliances and the town’s propane supplier acquired the hardware to service them. The US Navy is mostly gone now (shifted to Naples), although the flagship of the Sixth Fleet is still homeported in Gaeta.

The marina is run by a brother and sister (Luca and Anna) who are super welcoming and friendly. On our second night in Gaeta we were excited to learn that Rod Heikell and his partner Lucinda were passing through the area and would be staying at the marina. Rod and Lucinda (Lu) are extremely famous among cruisers as they have written “the” cruising guides/ pilot books for all of the countries in the Med. Rod has been cruising the waters of Turkey, Greece, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal (others?) for nearly 40 years and everyone uses the Heikell books as reference. If sailors in the Med wanted to tell sailing friends where they were anchored recently, they might say “the place on page 354 of Heikell” or something of the sort. We were invited to an informal sundowner party at the marina to meet Rod and Lu. It was a lot of fun and we found them both to be very low-key, fun people.

The marina is situated nicely with easy access to strollable seaside quays that stretch both north and south for miles. We found one great seafood restaurant one kilometer north of the marina (Comeilmare) and another, more upscale restaurant about 2 km south (La Salute), so we always had a great destination point for our evening walks. If we wanted a closer-by cheap place to eat, there was the Pizzeria Rustica just across the street. The line often goes out the door but it goes quickly as all of the pizza is pre-made. There are at least a dozen varieties and the men behind the counter cut off any size hunk of as many pizza varieties as you want and pile onto a paper tray. One pays by weight. Cheap and delicious.

Just a block away from the marina there is Via del Independenza which is an absolutely charming old street with numerous fruit and vegetable shops, bakeries, butchers, and other useful shops. The nearest fruiteria was owned and run by Victoria (see photo) and her family. It is not really a store, just a little alleyway under a stone archway with crates of fresh fruits and vegies. Daily shopping expeditions were really fun. The town is also well known for its amazing fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese, which has become one of my favorite things in the world (add perfect Italian tomatoes, a touch of basil and a drop of olive oil). There is also a medieval part of town, just a fifteen minute walk away which has a huge fort and a very picturesque church, in addition to lots and lots of cute restaurants.

Gaeta also has a gorgeous beach that we enjoyed a few times during our stay. It’s a fifteen minute walk from the marina. The beach is at least a mile long with beautiful sand and dozens of beach clubs where everyone rents an umbrella and chairs. We estimated that there must have been more than 1,000 umbrellas on the beach!

Gaeta is a great place to while away a few weeks. In addition to being a delightful town in its own right, it is located about half-way between Rome and Pompeii and it is relatively easy and quick to take a train to both places (which we of course did). The trip to Pompeii involved switching trains in Naples which was kind of a shock to us….we have not been in a big Italian city for a long time, and we felt a bit like country bumpkins as we worked our way through the huge crowds at the Naples train station. We were re-directed incorrectly at least 3 times by various officials at the train station as we tried to find the train to Pompeii. We finally gave up and bought new tickets on what was clearly the most direct and most popular train there. We planned our trip to Pompeii so that we would arrive a little bit late in the day and thereby hopefully miss the big tourist crowds. It was still pretty crowded when we started our tour there (self-guided using Rick Stieve’s app) and super hot. By 5:00 p.m. though the crowds thinned out a bit, the temperatures cooled and we enjoyed wandering about the ancient ruins for another few hours. It was amazing how many Americans were there.

Taking the train to Rome was a piece of cake by comparison. There is a terrific bus pass that we bought in Gaeta (the B.I.R.G. pass for 14 euros) which covered all the costs of the bus from Gaeta to the train station in nearby Formia, the train to and from Rome, plus any buses or trams or trains we wanted to take within Rome itself. Trains run pretty much every hour between Formia and Rome, and the trip is roughly an hour and a half long. We spent a busy day in Rome with lots of time at the Jewish museum and beautiful old synagogue, plus a visit to the Pantheon, and several of the famous piazzas. Lots of tourists of course. It was a lot of fun and we were exhausted when we got back to the boat about midnight.

After two weeks in Gaeta the riggers were ready with our new halyards. Luigi and his co-worker spent a full 2.5 hours on the boat, with most of the time spent at the top of the mast. We do nearly all of our boat repairs ourselves, but this was one time when we were more than happy to pay someone else to do the hard work. We plan to replace the rest of the halyards on the boat (we have 7 in all), but that is a job that we can do ourselves at our leisure.

We met another American couple on a sailboat while in Gaeta (Robert and Christina from S/V Quest) and had a few social evenings with them and Jayne. Jayne even managed to arrange a 4th of July party which was attended by about 25 sailors, about half of them Americans. Lots of pizza from Pizzeria Rustica (the best pizza ever), lots of wine and beer, and even sparklers.
It was tempting to just stay on in Gaeta and would recommend it highly as a destination to both cruisers and tourists. We even met an American couple who used to sail, but when they got too old they sold their boat and now live in Gaeta full time, renting an apartment in the old part of town.

L.

It’s been four weeks now since we left Carloforte, Sardinia. We are currently at “Base Nautica Flavio Gioia”, a lovely little marina in the small city of Gaeta on the west coast of mainland Italy, about halfway between Rome and Naples. The town is quite a bit bigger than Carloforte, roughly 20,000 residents as opposed to Carloforte’s 5,000, but it is still small and charming and we are enjoying it so much that we have delayed our departure.

We left Carloforte on June 3 to anchor at the southern end of Isola San Pietro, the island where Carloforte is located. The next day (June 4) we sailed east along the southern part of Sardinia, and met up with our sailing friends Hajo and Julia from S/V Serafine, another Amel Super Maramu, in Porto Pino, one of our favorite anchorages in Sardinia. Porto Pino is great, but can be very uncomfortable if there is any swell coming from the south or southeast. After we arrived we had enough time there to enjoy a beautiful walk along the white sand beach with our friends, and to have dinner at a great seafood restaurant that we had enjoyed many times in the previous year, the Blue Marlin. Unfortunately, on our second night there, a very strong swell came into the anchorage just after sunset and after rocking and rolling uncomfortably at anchor all night, we decided we had to move on.

Our next destination (on June 6) on our trip east was the anchorage at Porto Giunco on the east side of Capo Carbonara, just at the most southeastern tip of Sardinia. We had a hitchhiker with us for the short (55 nm) trip… a fit Sicilian man named Salvatore. Salvatore is an interesting guy who likes to spend his vacations ocean kayaking in various places around Italy as well as traveling extensively around the world. He needed to get back to work in Palermo in a few days but was unwilling to paddle into the large swells that had suddenly arrived in southwestern Sardinia. Nor could he wait them out if he was going to get his kayak back to the ferry in Cagliari in time. So he paddled up to us and asked if we could tow his kayak (loaded with lots of very well packed supplies) and bring him onboard for the day’s trip. Once we moved away from the southwest corner of Sardinia the swells became less pronounced and we mixed sailing and motoring for the trip of about 10 hours. As soon as we dropped anchor in pretty Porto Giunco, Salvatore hopped off into his kayak and paddled off.

The next day we did our first big crossing of the year. A 200 nm sail across the Tyrrhenian Sea to Isola Ponza, a small island just off mainland Italy. 200 nautical miles is not a particularly long sail for us, but it was the first overnight sail of the season which is always a little anxiety producing, at least for me (L.). We also were aware that the Tyrrhennian Sea has a reputation for being rough so we were trying to cross with good conditions. The weather forecast looked perfect, with strong winds forecast, but from the right direction to get us where we wanted to go in a hurry. Winds were supposed to be moving around quite a bit, but were predicted to be coming primarily from the northwest, and we were headed northeast, which should have been perfect. The first several hours of the passage were great…. perfect wind and comfortable seas as the island of Sardinia blocked the potential swell for many hours. After an afternoon lull in the winds where we motored along comfortably with flat seas, a big, uncomfortable swell started building from the north, and the winds started picking up on the nose. Just before sunset, the winds finally switched around enough that we could set our sails again. Just after pulling out the mainsail, we heard a loud noise, and saw that the main halyard had snapped, and our mainsail was stuck while sliding down the mast. Mark had to go up on the deck and wrestle down the sail. It ordinarily would not have been too bad except that the boat rolled badly from side to side from the steep seas. Mark had to hang on tightly with one hand while trying to gather up the sail with the other, and got quite seasick working on deck. He had to cut away the various lashings of the sail since untying them was impossible with the roll. We managed to get the sail off (dry) and dragged the whole bulky mess down below and stuffed it into the forward cabin. Fortunately, Sabbatical III is a ketch so we could continue sailing with just the jib and mizzen. It was a long, uncomfortable night with very large seas and wind over 30 knots plus the added distraction of a continuous loud clanging sound as the now loose main sail furler (roller) constantly banged inside the mast. It was a pretty unnerving sound, but there was nothing to be done until morning. By mid-day (June 8) we had reached our anchorage in Ponza, and still rattling and clanging away, we dropped our anchor. Within an hour Mark had used the spinnaker halyard to rig up some spare lines inside the mast just to stop the clanging. After a few hours of sleep we were ready to start enjoying our time in Ponza.

Ponza turned out to be a delightful island. The town is small and cute, packed with all the things we love about Italy… great fruit and vegetable stands, wonderful coffee shops, good restaurants, nice walks, clean water for swimming and a pretty and quiet anchorage protected from swell from the west and north. We happened to arrive just at the beginning of the ten day long celebration in honor of the patron saint of the island, San Silverio. The celebrations began at midnight on the first day where there was a huge fireworks display, followed by a colorful flotilla of brightly lit boats bringing artifacts to the church located above the anchorage. There was also apparently a procession of townspeople to the church, but we could not see that from where our boat was sitting. Each day at noon, they set off a few fireworks and there were some religious activities going on in the churches as well. The town was decorated with lights and processions led by priests went through the streets.

Restaurants are very expensive in Ponza but we found a terrific gastronomia that prepared some of the best food we have had in Italy. We went four times and brought home wonderful food for dinner…. veal, lamb, chicken, potatoes and other perfectly marinated and roasted delights. It was a whole lot cheaper than eating at the restaurants and a lot of fun. During the week the main harbor was pretty empty, but on the weekend, all of the docks were jam packed with visiting yachts. We did not stay in the main harbor, but in the adjacent anchorage (in front of Frontone Beach) which was convenient and perfect for swimming. There were quite a lot of boats in our anchorage as well, but everyone anchored well and at safe distances from each other. I wonder if it is the same thing in July and August when there are three times as many boats? I guess we will see.

We sailed over to the nearby island of Palmarola (June 13) as someone had told us that we had to go there to see a spectacular sunset. We found the anchoring there to be a bit iffy, as the bottom is just rock with small areas of hard sand. Our anchor was jammed under a rock, rather than being dug into the sand. We normally would not stay in an anchorage like that, but the wind forecast was light enough and there were so few other boats around that we decided to stay. It was a gorgeous place and we had a great swim and enjoyed the sunset. The next afternoon it started to get rolly so we headed back to Ponza where there was more protection from the swell.

Mark closely watches the weather forecasts and he could see that a big easterly was brewing for the coming weekend, and the anchorages in Ponza are totally unprotected from that direction. On Friday, June 16th we left Ponza and sailed to Gaeta (about 35 nm). Since there are no anchorages with protection from the east in this part of Italy, we thought it would be better to be at a marina. Plus we needed to get a new halyard. That easterly turned out to be an unusually late and powerful winter storm and Sabbatical III came close to suffering serious damage even while berthed in a marina. More on that later.

L.

[Note for email subscribers to our blog.  Your experience may be enhanced by viewing the blog on our web site by clicking here:   https://sabbatical3.net/blog/?p=7193 .  Video posted on the blog has not worked for email programs.  It works best on the blog web site.]

In our last posting, we were still uncertain about our visa status in Italy because we had been asked for a new form proving that we are officially residents of Carloforte.  As far as Carloforte is concerned, if you live on a boat in the marina you are not a “resident.”  So it was impossible for us to provide the required form. That has all been resolved thanks to a friend who “knows a guy” and made a telephone call on our behalf and explained our situation.  After 3 weeks we received a message from the Questura (immigration police) asking us to return to Cagliari.  There we were presented with cards granting us two years of elective residence in Italy.

Also, in our last blog posting, we had been waiting for Sabbatical III to get hauled and have her bottom painted.  Our time finally arrived and on Thursday, May 25 we made our way to the Sifredi boatyard to get hauled.  We knew exactly what was required of us for the haul because the week before we were on hand to watch Serafine, an identical boat to ours (an Amel Super Maramu) get hauled.  There is very little water depth and room in the place of our haul.  Giuseppe Sifredi had me steer a slow zig-zag course in the unmarked “channel” and turn sideways with a very strong dose of the bowthruster, with a dock at my stern and a power boat just a few feet off my bow.  The depth sounder showed that we were touching bottom.  The backstay of the main mast was slacked and the crane leaned over and Giuseppe and his assistants attached four large shackles to the chain plates of Sabbatical III.  Boatyard workers held on with lines to keep the boat from swaying uncontrollably in the wind as Aldo Sifredi, Guiseppe’s father, slowly lifted Sabbatical III out of the water with a 90 metric ton crane and then turned and squeezed her into a small space next to the work shed.

The bottom was covered in marine growth as was the prop. Plus there was a gash in the keel from my unfortunate interaction with an underwater and unmarked rock off of Lavezzi Island, Corsica last fall. The boatyard workers went right to work scraping the bottom and then power washing. Laura and I were able to sleep on the boat which had great views towards both the straits separating Carloforte from Sardinia (looking forward) and the salt pond (saline) looking aft. There is also a nice bathroom with shower in the yard so we were reasonably comfortable.

The next day they started painting the hull with the Joton Nonstop ablative paint that I had ordered. I had a worrisome repair task that I had just became aware of the week before. I had checked the rudder stock and quadrant as I always do every Spring but this time I found evidence that sea water was coming up the rudder packing into the aft section of the boat and had made the steel quadrant rusty. The quadrant turns the rudder in response to turning the wheel. The rudder compartment was dry when I looked but water must have been pushed up past the rudder packing while sailing in large seas in the previous season. Hajo (Hans Joachim) of Serafine came over to help and together we set to work on the rudder. We needed to get the quadrant off of the rudder but it was rusted in place. We were able to borrow a mechanical puller and even with generous applications of PBBlaster, it took a lot of force to finally get the quadrant off of the rudder post. After wire brushing and painting, it looks like new. Instead of replacing the packing, we just tightened the packing nut that compresses it. So far no more water has entered, even after we had an extremely rough sail 10 days ago. (More on that in a subsequent blog post).

Besides the usual maintenance tasks that need to be done when the boat is out of the water, we also needed to get our old washing machine off of the boat and the new one we had purchased (from Amazon Italy) on the boat. This is not that easy a task. Fortunately, once we were back in the water on Tuesday, May 30, the boatyard used their 90 metric ton crane to do the swap. When I went to install the new washer, I was a bit annoyed that it was a tiny bit wider and taller than the dimensions that were advertised. It has to fit into a beautiful teak cabinet and it was one-half inch too deep and one-half inch too tall. I broke off a plastic protrusion at the rear and cut a small slat inside the cabinet to deal with the extra width, and then reset the top lid of the teak cabinet so that it just fit.

Our friends Hajo and Julia on Serafine were waiting five weeks for their new dinghy to arrive, and we were waiting for our bottom paint job and for some replacement items to arrive from SVB in Germany (a new liferaft, autopilot motor, and assorted other parts). One thing we could not get was propane for our stove. It was impossible to get our American gas bottles refilled. Italy is the first place where this has been an issue. I bought a little two-burner electric cooking top, but that is only good in a marina where there is shore power. We enjoyed walking around charming Carloforte and dining with Hajo and Julia numerous times. Serafine’s dinghy and our liferaft and autopilot arrived on the same day, and two days later we both left Carloforte for the sailing season. They were heading for Corsica and we for mainland Italy. More on that in the next blog post.

M.

Finally some video:

Above:  Getting Hauled

Below:  Old clothes washer is lifted off Sabbatical III

At the end of April we returned to Sabbatical III berthed safely in the Marine Sifredi in Carloforte.  Our 250 pounds of baggage also made the journey safely.  We have been busy getting the boat ready for another sailing season.  The first order of business was a trip to the Sardinian capital of Cagliari to meet with the Immigration Police (Questura) to finalize our application for a visa renewal.  We had received a registered letter with a list of all of the documentation that we were required to bring, and we made sure that we had it all in quadruplicate.  Things seemed to go well until the Immigration official asked for another document that we had never heard of.  We showed him our letter with the list of documents and he said that there was a new document required and we had ten days to get it.  Turns out it is not so easy to get this document when one lives on a boat and not in a house or flat.  After a few days of trying to work this out, we came to believe that we would not get our visa renewed.  We then had a friend make some phone calls to explain our situation and our prospects now look reasonably good but not certain.  But we cannot make plans until this gets resolved.

The second major task is to get Sabbatical III hauled out and have anti-fouling paint applied to her hull, plus perform some maintenance to the bottom of the boat.  The small boatyard associated with the marina is well behind schedule hauling and painting boats, in part due to the high frequency of days with mistral winds.  The mistral is a strong, cold, northwesterly wind that blows from southern France into the northern Mediterranean and on to Sardinia, with sustained winds often exceeding 66 km/h (41 mph), sometimes reaching 185 km/h (115 mph).  It is most common in the winter and spring, and strongest in the transition between the two seasons.

Since we are waiting to hear about the visa and our haul date, we took some time out to tour the interior of the “mainland” of Sardinia.  We already know the  Sardinian coast fairly well from our two sailing circumnavigations last year.  But we had never seen the interior except for the road from the Carloforte ferry port of Portovesme to the capital city of Cagliari, which is a fairly unattractive part of the island.  We just returned from our six day excursion yesterday and can only say that inland Sardinia is spectacularly beautiful.

The first evening of our excursion we attended a perfomance of “Lucia di Lammermoor” at the Lyric Opera of Cagliari.  We sat in the first row for a fine performance by the resident company. We then spent the night at a B&B in Cagliari.  In the morning we went to the airport to pick up a rental car and drove through beautiful countryside to the Agriturismo Il Ginepro.  An agriturismo is a working farm that accommodates guests and provides breakfast and supper made from local products and wines.  In the afternoon, we walked in the hills above the farmstead and then drove to the coast about 15 minutes away to walk on the beach.  An African dust storm obscured the view and the hoped for sunset. The supper was fantastic.

From Il Ginepro, we drove to the northcentral mountains of Sardinia.  We stayed one night at a B&B in Sorgono (“Cuccumiao” run by a lovely young woman named Paola) where we happened upon a beautiful winery (“Su Binariu”) on a small country road.  The two men working there were excited that two American had come through the gate and asked that we return the next morning when the winemaster/owner was there.  So we did.  We sampled some wine and bought two bottles.

From Sorgono we went to an agriturismo near Tonara and then to an agriturismo near Belvi. The latter provided fine hikes and excellent meals and wine.

M.

In all past years, the end of season blog contains a photo of Sabbatical III in the slings of a “Travellift” as she is being placed on a hardstand ashore for her winter rest.  Not this year.  Sabbatical III will spend the winter season in the water as there is no boat storage ashore in Carloforte.  It is a first for us.

We spent the last days of October and early November doing boat maintenance and getting her prepared for storage afloat.  Since easterly storms can bring sizable swells into the Marine Sifredi, we added large stainless steel springs to the two aft lines that hold the boat to the breakwater.  On one end, these springs are connected to lengths of chain that go around large bollards ashore.  On the other end, we have new lines with steel eye thimbles that connect to the springs with large shackles.  In case a spring should break, a length of chain is shackled from the eye thimble to the chain around the bollard.  This way the boat floats somewhat freely and does take the full impact of shock loads from rough seas that would otherwise occur if she were tied tightly to shore.

After November 1, the ferry schedule to Carloforte was drastically reduced as were the the number of daytripper tourists to Carloforte.  Most restaurants closed down and by early November not a single gelato shop was in operation.  The last to close was our favorite place Napitia, just across the street from the marina.

In early November the whole island came out for a free concert by Gianni Morandi who has been a famous pop singer, actor, and TV personality in Italy for fifty years.  A film crew spent some weeks in Carloforte making a movie staring Gianni Morandi and using townfolk as extras, and the concert was Morandi’s way of saying thank you.  He performed on a stage set up on the waterfront and the crowd loved it.

In the first week of November, we took a respite from our labors and hopped a super cheap flight from Cagliari to Barcelona where we stayed in a comfortable hostel.  We loved the city.  We walked miles through its beautiful streets taking in the sites, people watching, and tasting Catalan cuisine.

We were particularly taken with Gaudi’s yet unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Família cathedral (above) and the Casa Batlló.

On a rainy day, we took the train to Girona where a thriving Jewish community distinguished by its Kabbalah scholars existed prior to the Inquisition.

On our way back to the US, we spent two and one-half days in the lake country north of Milan.  We stayed at a small hotel on the Sacred Mountain of Varese overlooking Lake Varese in the Campo dei Fiori National Park.  It was on an impossibly steep and narrow road but well worth the effort.  From there we drove to the Malpensa Airport for a flight to Miami.

While home, we will organize our best photos and video for our web site.  We will post when that task in complete.

M.

After a night at Lavezzi Island on the French side of Bonifacio Strait,  we crossed the Strait to the “La Colba” anchorage on the south side of Capo Testa, Sardinia on September 27th.  Overnight the winds shifted to easterlies and built during the next day to 25 + knots.  We did not leave La Colba especially early since we knew that with this wind we would have little trouble arriving at our anchorage on the northeast side of the Fornelli passage, at the far northwest tip of Sardinia, before sunset.   As we neared the Fornelli Passage we were concerned by how the seas had built up and were funneling into the Passage.  As we approached our primary and secondary anchorage locations, we could see that they were untenable in these seas but that there was still plenty of light to navigate the Fornelli Passage itself and look for a place to anchor behind Isola Piana on its more protected western side.  Unfortunately, there was nothing but rocks on the western side of Isola Piano and there were breaking waves to its south.  There was still plenty of daylight left so we turned the corner and headed south along the wild west coast of Sardinia to look for a place to anchor for the night.  Our pilot book did not list an anchorage closer than Porto Conte which, at 30 miles away, was and too far to sail to before dark even in the great winds we were experiencing.

A quick study of the charts and a Google search suggested that Cala Santa Nicola, about 15 miles away, would likely provide protection from the strong north-easterlies, although there was some doubt about the suitability of the sea bottom to hold an anchor.  The small bay was almost uncharted and supposedly had a dangerous rock in the middle, so we inched our way along the northern shore.  We had to come in fairly close to get protection from the swell but Laura could only see a solid rock bottom from her perch at the bow.  We dropped anchor anyway and sure enough, it was a solid rock bottom.  The anchor just skittered along the bottom, having nothing to grab onto.  We tried again even closer to the sandy beach and had the same result.  There was nothing to do but head to Porto Conte.  We had lost 45 minutes with our deviation to Cala Santa Nicola and even though we could sail 7.5 – 8.5 knots in the strong north-easterlies, it would be dark by the time we arrived at Porto Conte.

We almost never arrive at an anchorage in the dark.  In this part of the world, one really needs to see the bottom.  If you drop in sea grass, you may think your anchor is holding but it probably won’t, especially in strong and shifting wind.  We had been to Porto Conte in July and had to spend some time looking around for a patch of sand in Calla del Bollo at the southern end of the bay.  Based upon that experience, we definitely did not want to anchor in the same place in the dark.   Some months before, Michael and Britta of “Vera” had supplied us with a waypoint for a place to anchor in Cala Torre del Conte, in the northwest corner of this large bay.  We decided to head for that waypoint.  We arrived in total darkness and blindly dropped anchor.  The anchor seemed to hold and we settled in for a late supper and sleep.  It had been a long day and our passage was twice as long as what he had planned. The next morning Laura went for a swim with snorkel and goggles and found that our anchor was in the only patch of sand in a bottom of sea grass.

Later that morning (September 29), we sailed over to Marina di Sant Elmo in the city of Alghero.  We had stayed in this marina for two nights in July and found it comfortable and had really enjoyed walking around Alghero.  This time we spent five days in Alghero and enjoyed this old Spanish walled city as much as we had in July.  The weather was fine as we walked in the narrow streets and along the city walls and found some great restaurants.  The tourist crowd was gone and we did not need reservations to eat anywhere we wished.  We also found a marine canvas guy who fixed our damaged bimini.

We left Alghero on October 4 and sailed south to the mouth of the River Temo and anchored behind a new breakwater built to make the entrance to the only navigatable river in Sardinia safe from breaking seas.  A bit more than 2 kilometers up the river is the charming town of Bosa.  We took the dinghy up the river and tied up at at open spot next to a fishing boat on the quai on the river.  We were confident that this spot was vacant since its previous inhabitant was clearly visible, sunken on the river bottom below us and still tied to a bollard.

We spent five days in Bosa before sailing 29 nautical miles south to Oristano where we picked up a mooring in front of the ruins of the ancient city of Tharros on the Sinis peninsula.  Tharros was established by the Nuragic people of Sardinia in the Bronze Age and became an important Phoenician outpost in the 8th century BC.  It subsequently became a Punic (Carthage) city and a Roman city before being abandoned in the face of Saracen attacks in the early Christian period.

After one day in Oristano, on October 10 we sailed 45 nautical miles to Carloforte in ugly seas with large, steep waves from the northwest. We are still in Carloforte enjoying this town even more now that most of the tourists are gone.  We are spending a few hours every day doing the boat maintenance and repair required after a long sailing season that began in southern Turkey.

M.

We left Porto Vecchio, Corsica on September 19th and sailed south along the east coast before anchoring in the Golfe di Rondinara, a popular and very pretty and protected bay about 15 sailing miles away.  It was a beautiful sunny day with lots of wind.  Rondinara has lots of sea grass so there was not much room to drop anchor in sand, and even the sand that was available is thin and offers poor holding.  In the hours after we anchored, many other boats squeezed into the bay, often getting too close to boats that were already at anchor.  That made me nervous, particularly since a charter boat whacked Sabbatical III in Porto Pino by anchoring too close just one week before.  As it were, a large power yacht in front of us hit another power yacht while both were at anchor and swinging in the wind and they got entangled, leading to a lot of shouting and rushed activity.  As the offending yacht re-anchored alongside Sabbatical III, I stood on deck with my hands on my hips and stared at him just to let him know of my concerns.  Hopefully, my actions persuaded him to stay a few meters further from me than he otherwise would have.  Nonetheless, the crowd made us nervous all night and we left first thing in the morning.

I checked the charts looking for someplace less popular with lots of space even if it was not as well protected.  The large bay at Santa’Manza fit the bill perfectly.  It was wide open to the northeast quadrant but there was only one other vessel at anchor when we arrived, and he soon left, and we could tell that as long as we paid attention to wind direction and were willing to put up with some swell from the strong wind, we could anchor in peace and security.  Ashore, there was a beach bar that was only open on the weekend, and the small hamlet of Santa’Manza – so small that it lacked basics such as a bakery or any type of store, and bus service.  However, the small Hotel du Golfe was open along with the hotel restaurant.  What a gem it turned out to be.  We ate at the hotel restaurant every day and in the late afternoon sat on their patio overlooking the bay and drank Pastis while using their WiFi.  There was a beautiful walk along the north side of the bay with small sandy beaches interspersed with rocky shore.

Our plan was to spend a couple of nights in Santa’Manza, waiting for the wind to settle down, and then sail around to the famous city of Bonifacio, set on the white chalk cliffs of the Bonifacio Strait, where we would have to stay in a pricey marina.  As we walked along the bay after lunch at the Hotel du Golfe on our first day, our waiter, Silvio, drove by and asked if we needed a ride.  He was going to Bonifacio.  So we hopped into his car and 15 minutes later we at the citadel of Bonifacio, a high promontory overlooking the Straits.  It is such an impressive place.  A walled city dating to the 9^th century sitting on a narrow peninsular high over the Mediterranean. There is a very narrow fjord that cuts through sheer chalk cliffs and into the small port. While there we noticed that the marina was full, probably because boats were waiting for the wind to calm before heading out into the Bonafacio Strait, considered the windiest place in the Mediterranean.  Both Silvio and the proprietress of the Hotel du Golfe said that if we wanted a ride to Bonifacio from Santa’Manza on another day, we should just stand on the side of the road with our thumb out and a local would take us.  It was true.  Because of that we kept the boat at anchor in quiet Santa’Manza and hitched into Bonaficio.  There were only a few hours of uncomfortable roll at anchor during the five days we were there.

The wind calmed to nearly nothing so we decided to visit the uninhabited French island of Lavezzi  in the Bonifacio Strait, the southernmost part of Metropolitan France, on our way back to Sardinia.  It is a very pretty place but hard to enter and leave without local knowledge.  After a night at Lavezzi, we crossed the Bonifacio Strait to the “La Colba” anchorage on the south side of Capo Testa, Sardinia.  We will describe more of our trip back from Corsica in our next blog entry.

M.

We left Porto Pino, Sardinia on September 11, heading for Porto Vecchio, Corsica.  On the way we stopped for one night each at Malfitano, Capo Carbonara, and Arbatax.  We then sailed overnight from Arbatax to Porto Novo, Corsica arriving early on the morning of 15 September.  We spent the night at this quiet anchorage before heading into the marina at Porto Vecchio the next morning. Porto Vecchio is a cute town on a hill at the end of a long fjord-like bay that funnels the wind like crazy.  The marina leaves much to be desired but when it is blowing over 30 knots consistently, it good to be able to get off the boat and walk around and sample French and Corsican cuisine.

We had dolphins visit Sabbatical III about 20 miles north of Arbatax.  Here is a short video of their visit:

M.

We left Carloforte on August 29^th with the intent of stopping in Porto Pino, our favorite nearby anchorage, on the way to Corsica.  Nine days later, we are still in Porto Pino.  One reason is that we cannot seem to find a forecast that will permit us to sail (as opposed to motor) to Corsica, which is about 190 nautical miles north from Porto Pino.  The second reason is that we really like Port Pino so we are happy to hang around here.  The water is crystal clear and the bottom is white sand.  There are at least three good walks:  i) a two mile long sand beach, ii) meandering paths in the pine forest overlooking rocky coves (watch out for the big snakes though), and iii) a dirt road along the western edge of the“saline” (salt pond) where we sample the sweet wine grapes hanging from the vineyards that come down almost to the waters’ edge.  There is also a restaurant that we love, Blue Marlin, located on the narrow channel from the sea to the “saline”, with simply prepared and inexpensive Sardinian food, good music, and friendly service.   There is an Italian deli/bakery with fresh bread, almond cookies, and cured meats, a butcher shop, a small grocery store with the essentials, and a gastronomia with roasted chicken to take-out.  This is pretty much all that we need with one notable exception – there is no decent artiginale gelato.  One place cannot have it all.  We even have a place to dock the dinghy well up the channel (info provided by “Vera”).

Tomorrow we will rent a car for the day and drive to Cagliari and visit the Immigation Police once more and this time we think we will actually get our Italian residency cards.  We will see.  We will remain anchored in Porto Pino for at least a few more days before heading for Villasimius (for a few days) and then overnight sail to Corsica if weather permits.

Mark

In our previous blog posting, we described the first part of our circumnavigation of the island of Sardinia.  We left off on July 1 when we had just arrived on the west side of Cape Carbonara, 20 nautical miles east-southeast of Calgiari.  We only had only one evening at this anchorage.  The wind shifted to westerlies the next day and we, along with “Vera”, moved to Porto Giunco on the east side of the Cape.  After two nights, the wind shifted again and we moved back to the west side of the Cape.  We took the dinghy into the small marina and walked a couple of miles to the town of Villasimius for lunch.  It is an attractive and modern town that attracts tourists probably because of its proximity to the beautiful beaches on both sides of Cape Carbonara.  There is a nice Nonna Isa supermarket and an excellent butcher in town and, although we were still well provisioned after our recent stay in Calgiari, we topped up with fruits, veggies, and meat anyway.

The next day (July 5), we sailed north to the small cove known as Sa Figu on the north side of Cape Ferrato.  When we anchored there was an annoying roll caused by a swell from the east.  We hoped that the swell would diminish after sunset but instead it got worse and the boat rolled from gunnel to gunnel.  It was a very uncomfortable night as we were tossed around in our berths, and we slept very little.  Michael and Britta had been there a few times before and said they had never known it to be that rolly.  The next morning, we left Sa Figu, exhausted, and headed north alone as “Vera” decided not to circumnavigate Sardinia.  Michael and Britta have spent years in these waters and preferred to hang out and relax after all of their concentrated effort in preparing their lives and boat for a decade or more at sea.

The winds were southeast and thus threatened another rolly night at anchor.  Unwilling to risk this, we sailed to the marina at Arbatax.  Arbatax is a small industrial town and the harbor area where the marina is located is dominated by a facility that build derricks for gas wells.  The derrick business brings noise, night lights, and commercial traffic into the port, making it very unappealing.  We knew this before we arrived but we just needed a good night sleep and the price at the marina was less than half that of a marina just 5 miles up the coast.  It turns out that the gas drilling business is way down and the derrick facility was idled.  We moored facing a beautiful range of coastal mountains, not the idled industrial facility, and the marina was friendly, clean, and quiet, and there was no roll.  We liked it so much, we spent 3 days.  We were having issues with our internet provider TIM, and there was a bus from Arbatax to the much larger inland town of Tortoli where there is a TIM agent.  The TIM agent in Tortoli spoke no English and in any case had no access to information on our TIM account, so that was left unresolved, but Tortoli is an interesting town to walk around in and has a nice Conad supermarket.  We found a unisex hairdresser in Arbatax, so we both got our hair cut.

A: Carloforte
B: Capo Malfatano
C: Pula
D: Calgiari
E: Villasimius
F: Capo Ferrato (Sa Figu)
G: Arbatax
H: Cala Luna
I: Porto Brandichi
J: Porto Taverna
K: Isola Caprera
L: Capo Testa
M: La Pelosa
N: Porte Conte
O: Alghero
P: Oristano Bay
Q: Peonia Rosa (Isola Antioco)
R: Porto Pino

On July 9 we sailed to Cala Luna. This is in the middle of a stretch of steep cliffs rising up from the water and very rugged terrain that has prevented the building of roads or settlements.  Cala Luna is a small beach formed by a seasonal stream that has carved a gorge through the cliffs. It is a very busy place with day trippers streaming in all day long on fast motorboats, RIBS and small ferries.   The nice restaurant we had been expecting turned out to be just fried food ordered at a counter.  You can’t park your dinghy on the beach near the path to the restaurant during the day, so we had to leave it at the far end of the beach which then involves walking through waist deep water.  We did not come prepared… so ended up eating lunch in soggy shorts.  The hiking trail through the gorge involves walking in soft sand and we did not have the right shoes… also it was too hot.  Altogether, not our favorite place.  We were happy to leave the next day.

From Cala Luna, we did a full day sail north to Port Brandichi, a well protected bay 10 miles south of Olbia and two miles south of the beautiful island of Isola Tavolara, which rises 500 meters straight up from the sea with a top that is covered with clouds most of the day.  The next day we sailed a few miles north to Porto Taverna and had an even better view of Isola Tavolara.

On July 12 we arrived at Porto Palma on the island of Caprera in the Maddalena Islands National Park.  We arrived just the afternoon before a mistral was predicted.   There were about 17 boats in the bay with us until evening and then they ALL left.  Three small French cruisers (on what looked like instructional boats) came in and anchored for the night.  Winds picked up and stayed at 25-34 knots for 2 full days from the west.  There was very good protection in the bay, but it was still unnerving to have the wind howling for so long.   We had bought a one-week park pass but no one ever came by to check.   We stayed put and on the 2nd day Mark started feeling sick…. ear ache, sinus headache, then toothache, then fever.  He decided to take antibiotics and spent 2 full days really feeling poorly.  Once the worst of the winds passed (on Friday) a lot of boats came into the bay and all stayed overnight.  The wind conditions for Friday were forecast to be very strong from the north, but they were not nearly as strong as predicted.  On Saturday, July 16, Mark felt a lot better and we were very happy to pick up the anchor and leave.  It was not a fun couple of days and we were running out of fresh food.

We sailed to Porto Puddu just a few miles away which had a busy but pretty beach and two outdoor music venues that competed for attention at night, making it on the noisy side.  From Port Puddu we sailed to Baie di Reparata adjacent to Cape Testa, which is nearly the most northern point of Sardinia – as far north as Rhode Island.  The bay is lined with beaches that were crowded with vacationers.  We were short on food and there was nothing to buy in Capo Testa, so we took a bus to the cute town of Santa Teresa di Gallura to shop, explore, and eat at a restaurant.

On July 19 we sailed through the Bonifacio Strait that separates Sardinia and Corsica to La Pelosa, located in the smaller strait between Sardinia and Isola Piana at the far northwest of Sardinia. We found unexpectedly beautiful water there– very shallow with a white sand bottom. We so enjoyed sitting on deck and spending hours watching the full moon and twilight, we stayed for a second night.  On July 21 we passed through the Fornelli Strait and started our sail south along the west coast of Sardinia.  The prevailing winds on the west coast of Sardinia are from the northwest and west and the coast is wild with very few protected bays to anchor in or even towns with marinas.  The population of the island is highly skewed to the east coast.  The bay Cala del Bolla (part of Porte Conte) behind Capo Caccia seemed like a promising place to anchor.  The hotel ashore was closed down but there was a beach nearby with a restaurant at which we had a very nice meal the first evening.

Every day we check more than one marine weather forecast for the coming days and one of these forecasts had an odd prediction for the next day at Calla del Bolla – 2 knots of wind with gusts to 30 knots.  We had never seen that before.  We presumed it to be a warning that thunderstorms would be moving through.  We were well anchored and did not believe that the wind and seas associated with thunderstorms of short duration would be a problem.  Lightning strikes are always our biggest concern but there is not much one can do to prevent the damage they might cause.  There was no thunderstorm.  Just as it got dark, the wind went from 2 knots to 30 knots in 30 minutes, switched to the southeast (rather than the predicted southwest), and stayed there.  The southeast winds turned Sabbatical III so that it’s stern was just 30 meters from rocks on which a newly energized sea was crashing.  Some boats nearby dragged anchor and left.  One power boat tied up precariously to a navigation buoy in the dark.  It blew hard at varying intensity all night so we stayed on anchor watch most of the night.  On two occasions where it blew hardest, we turned the engine on so that if we dragged we could pop the engine into forward gear and get away before crashing into the rocks behind us.  The anchor held for the night but the wind still blew in the morning and we needed to get away from this unsafe situation.  We moved up very close to Capo Caccia just to get out of the waves so that we could lift our dinghy and outboard engine onto the deck.  We called the marina at Alghero, about 7 miles away, and they had a place for us, so we sailed over in rough seas.

Both the marina and the town were much nicer than we expected.  Alghero was founded by the Phoenicians in the 8^th century BC and turned into a fortified port by the Genoese.  In 1353 it was captured by the forces of the Crown of Aragon (Spain) and the local population was expelled, replaced by Catalan colonists. It is the only place in Italy where the Catalan language is an official language and is still spoken, particularly by older people.  The Marina St. Elmo is located just below one of the walls of the fortified city.  One steps off the dock and through St. Elmo’s Gate and you are inside.  It is a very interesting place filled with tourists (mostly French) and many upscale shops and restaurants.  It is a wonderful town for walking and exploring.  As it was, we had to spend a second night in the marina as the weather forecast for the next day (Sunday, July 24) was abysmal.  A succession of thunderstorms rolled through during the morning hours bringing many lightning strikes, torrential rain (a good thing for a salty boat), and winds to 44 knots.  We were glad to be in the marina.

We left Alghero on July 25 and headed south.  After a night behind Capo San Marco in the Golfo di Oristano, we finally reunited with “Vera” at the southeast corner of Isola Antioco, 15 miles past Carloforte.  After a night there, we moved over to Porto Pino behind Cape Ta Menga.  Porto Pino was one of our favorite anchorages of the trip.  Beautiful water, a 2 miles long beach just made for walking, and an excellent restaurant.  As for most Sardinia anchorages, it is not well protected so if the wind came out of the west or south one would need to leave. We had fine weather while we were there.  On July 29^th we separated from Vera again and motored north up the San Pietro Channel and finally re-entered Marine Sifredi, our home base in Carloforte after a trip of more than 40 days and 500 sailing miles. After seeing so much of Sardinia, Carloforte is our favorite place.

M. and L.

We left Carloforte on June 16 in the company of “Vera.” The intent is to spend 4 to 6 weeks circumnavigating Sardinia while exploring its many bays. Our first stop was Malfatano on the southern coast (arriving Thursday, June 16). There is no town at Malfatano, only a small beach restaurant that also rents beach chairs, places for camper vans, and small boats. One has to travel down a dirt road to reach the beach and restaurant. Our first night at anchor was very rolly as the small bay is open to the south, but things were much more comfortable after that.

After three nights in Malfatano, we had to sail to the provincial capital of Cagliari for our appointment with the immigration police. We had a reservation at the Marina del Sole in Cagliari for two nights. Other marinas in Cagliari quoted me prices that were from two to three times as high as the Marina del Sole, which had a reputation of being somewhat rundown but friendly and well located. Sailing on a fixed schedule is always something we try to avoid, a view that was reinforced during our 50 mile sail from Malfatano to Cagliari on Sunday, June 19th. The weather forecast called for rain and possible squalls and strong wind, but we had to be in Cagliari Sunday evening to be in time for our Monday morning appointment with the immigration authorities. We had a great sail with some rain showers for the first two-third of the trip but as we approached the large Gulf of Cagliari we saw a huge bank of storm clouds coming towards us. We got heavy rain, poor visibility, lightening, and winds to 42 knots. We cautiously continued on our way to Cagliari with just a tiny amount of sail up but we did not dare enter into the breakwater in these conditions. I would not be able to back into a berth and Med moor in these winds. Suddenly, there was a break in the weather and we scooted in and berthed. Five minutes later, heavy squalls resumed for the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening, we headed out of the marina looking for a restaurant. To our surprise, at least half of the restaurants we passed were either all-you-can-eat sushi or “Asian” all-you-can-eat. It was certainly easier to find Asian restaurants than Italian. We walked until we found a cute hole-in-the-wall fresh seafood place (“Frito Mania”) with only counter service and a couple of plastic tables and chairs on the sidewalk.

Monday morning we took a taxi from the marina to the office of the immigration police. We had an appointment for 9:50 am but we arrived at 9:00 am just in case. Outside the door of the immigration police there was a crowd of 60 or so people waiting. About half were African and most of the rest Middle Eastern or South Asian, all clutching forms filled out in Italian. The door opened and an Italian official called out names one at a time. You showed him some identify document, received a piece of paper with a number, and were allowed inside. Laura Pitt was about the tenth person called, followed by Mark Pitt and Brad Pitt. The immigration officer was making a joke although no one in this crowd laughed. Their business was certainly more urgent that ours and many probably arrived in a very different type of boat than we did.
The appointment time meant nothing. Everyone admitted inside pushed up against the counter trying to get the attention of an immigration agent…waving their forms and passports. More than once an agent came out from behind the thick glass security partition with small “talking holes”, like in a bank, to get the crowd to move back. The process was tediously slow. Small children ran around playing while their nervous parents talked with others or with the paid or volunteer agents who came to assist them, mothers nursed their babies, single men talked to countrymen in their local language or stared at their mobile phones. A fingerprint technician called out numbers in Italian which often led to no response from the crowd as they did not know Italian. Someone who did would try to find the missing person by checking the numbers in the hands of those waiting.

Just after noon, Laura was called. We expected an immigration interview, but there was none of that. The immigration policeman simply stapled together her photo to pages from Laura’s request for residency that we had sent to Rome two weeks earlier, while Laura watched. He entered things from the form on a computer screen. Then he took an index fingerprint from each hand using a 3M optical scanner, and told her to come back on June 30th for full hand fingerprints. They were doing full hand fingerprints of others right then but he said that there was a separate queue for the fingerprints and the first opening was June 30th. And even then, we would not have our residency permit. Then it was my turn. For some reason, the computer in Rome would not accept the data that the immigration agent had entered. He swore at the computer (all in Italian, of course) and pounded on the keyboard to no avail. He told me to wait until the computer in Rome accepted my form, and he started to process the next applicant.

I waited and waited but the computer glitch persisted. Laura needed to use the women’s bathroom but it was not in working order. Finally, the agent said he would call Rome. He went into the back and emerged some minutes later and was able to get me processed. By then it was close to 1 pm and the waiting room was almost empty and their operation would cease for the day.

We walked to the nearest main street and hopped the first bus heading in the direction of the waterfront. We got off right in front of an all you can eat sushi restaurant. We ran in to use the bathroom and then remained for a very good lunch at a very good price. Walking around town and riding in the public bus we noticed that there was a considerable number of people of Asian descent who were obviously not tourists, which helps explain the number of Asian restaurants. We had seen none in Sicily.

We sailed back to Malfatano in benign conditions the next day (Tuesday, July 21) and finally crossed paths with our friends Dick and Lynn Bisanz from St. Paul, Minnesota on their catamaran “Wind Pony.” We missed seeing then in Sicily but we kept exchanging emails as to our respective whereabouts. We had three nice days with them and their sailing mates from New Zealand on “Dol’Selene”. They are now in Minorca on their way to Gibraltar, the Canaries, and across the Atlantic. Then our Aussie friends Melinda and Dave from “Sassoon” arrived by design as well. We met them first in Malaysia and then spent two years with them at the Kas Marina in Turkey. They are also on their way to cross the Atlantic.

From Malfatano, we sailed with “Vera” to Pula on the southeast coast of Sardinia. The Vera’s left after one day but we remained in Pula for two more nights as it was close to Cagliari where we needed to get our full hand fingerprints done. We hoped to leave the boat at anchor in Pula and take a bus to Cagliari but the weather forecast suggested that would be risky for the boat. So on June 29th we sailed back to the Marina del Sole in Cagliari and the next morning waited in the same room at the immigration police office until we were called for fingerprinting. We recognized and greeted some of the people waiting.  We waited for two hours until our number was finally called.

After another sushi lunch, we provisioned the boat at the very nice “Nonna Isa” supermarket, which delivers to yachts, and gave her a good wash. We left for Villasimius in the Gulf of Carbonara yesterday (Friday, July 1) to rejoin “Vera” who had been anchored there since they left us in Pula. We expected 7 knots from the southeast but 5 miles out we here hit with easterlies of up to 25 knots. That made for a long slog tacking upwind which was actually a nice, exciting sail as we were in no rush. Now we are just anchored out on the west side of Cape Carbonara but will switch to the east side later today when the wind shifts west. The boat is full of fruit, veggies, cheese, drinks, and chicken, plus a varieties of treats, plus we got rid of all the garbage we were accumulating. Stopping in a big town like Cagliari has its advantages as long as you do not fall through a hole in the dock.
M.

(Note:  Posting of this entry was delayed for almost two weeks by issues with our our web site host, Aabaco, which is part of Luminate, which was recently spun-off by Yahoo, which by itself pretty much explains why we had a problem.  Our website was also unavailable for most of that time. Hopefully, this will not be repeated).

We left Sciacca, Sicily at 6 pm on Wednesday, May 25 and crossed the Tyrrhenian Sea to Carloforte on Isola San Pietro just off the southwest coast of Sardinia. We motored for 12 hours before the southeasterly wind came up enough to sail. The wind forecast was spot on as the wind increased through the day on Thursday becoming 20 knots from the east and then 25 knots from the northeast as we rounded the southern tip of Sardinia. We had a poled out genoa and a mizzen set on a preventer almost the whole time that we sailed and arrived in Carloforte early on Friday morning (May 27).  Our friends Michael and Britta of “Vera” tracked our progress for the last few hours from our AIS signal and were at the dock to greet us and help with lines as we backed in.
We have been in Carloforte for two weeks and this place has exceeded our expectations. We are in a small, secure marina run by the Sifredi family. It is quiet at night, the bathrooms and shower are clean and close enough to the boat, and there is almost always a good breeze. Just across from us is the town with cafes, restaurants, a Conad supermarket, gelaterias, fish stores, bakeries…pretty much all we need. I ordered some things from Amazon Italy that I could not get in town, plus some boat parts from Sweden and the UK, which is easy to do within the EU.

The island of San Pietro is only 19 square miles and has a population of less than 6500 inhabitants. It has an interesting history. It original inhabitants are from Liguria, the coastal area of Italy bordering France, by way of Tunisia.  The Tunisian coastal island of Tabarka was given as a concession by the Bey of Tunis to the Genoese family of Lomelli in 1540, in return for the release of the captured pirate Dragut.  The Lomelli family recruited Ligurians to colonize the island and undertake coral fishing.  These Ligurian colonists spent two hundred years in Tabarka, Tunisia in relative isolation until relations with their Arab neighbors deteriorated, and the coral reefs were exhausted.  Thanks to the King of Sardinia, Carlo Emmanuel III of Savoy, the Tabarkan community was relocated to the uninhabited island of San Pietro in 1741 where they founded the new town of Carloforte, named in honor of King Carlos.  The Genoese fortress at Tarbarka was surrendered to the Bey of Tunis, but still stands.

Piracy was a huge problem for the southern coast of Italy, Spain, and Greece for hundreds of years, with the pirates predominately Arabs from the North African “Barbary” coast.  Long stretches of the coasts of Spain and Italy were abandoned.  The island of San Pietro, where Carloforte is located, was no doubt uninhabited in 1741 for that reason.  A fort was built to protect the newly transplanted population (the “forte” in the name Carloforte).  It was not enough.  In September 1798, pirates based in Tunisia raided Carloforte killing many and abducting 800 persons to sell as slaves.  The captives were held for more than five years until Napoleon intervened militarily to free most of them.   He is honored with a statue, plaques and names in town.  Our favorite cafe on the waterfront is the Cafe Napoleon.  Lord Horatio Nelson, the English admiral, is also honored with a plaque outside the church for his help in fending off pirates.

The Tarbakini speak Tabarkan, a dialect of Ligurian that evolved during their isolation in Tunisia.  It does not sound like Italian.  They also have their own customs and cuisine that can be sampled in many restaurants.  Tuna fishing and canning was a major occupation since the Tabarkini were re-located to Carloforte and is still carried on today at a much reduced scale, although all of the tuna canning factories have closed. At the annual Giro Tonno (Tuna Festival) which we attended last week, they still show off their traditional method of catching tuna.  At this time of the  year, bluefin tuna migrate in schools in the San Pietro Channel, the body of water between Carloforte and Sardinia. Fisherman direct the tuna through a complex set of net barriers until they reach the “death chamber” where they are pulled out of the water and impaled on spikes in an act known as “matanza” or “the killing”.  Old photos show massive bluefin tuna being caught and even now they are typically 30 kilograms in size.

Tomorrow, we leave Carloforte to visit the bays and anchorages of the east coast of Sardinia, and to visit the police in the Sardinian capital of Cagliari to finish the formalities required to get our Italian Residency Cards.

M.

We left Siracusa on May 18 intending to head west along the southern coast of Sicily stopping overnight in various places in order to shorten the final leg of our trip to our new home in Sardinia.  Our first stop was the large Marina di Ragusa near the city of Ragusa.  We spent only 12 hours there before heading for Licata where we spent three days at the Marina di Cala del Sole. It is a new and not yet complete marina set in a planned tourist development that came to a halt in the Great Recession.  Unfinished construction and idle cranes attest to the speed at which this project came to an abrupt end.  The marina had lots of space and is very well protected by extensive breakwaters.  The only problem for us is that wild dogs took up residence in the vacant land around the marina and they bark periodically throughout the night.  Not a good situation for sensitive sleepers like us. Licata is an interesting town and we enjoyed walking around and sampling its ristorantes and trattoria.  There is a Conad supermarket next door to the marina which proved very convenient for us.

On May 24th, we sailed 50 nautical miles west to the town of Sciacca, where a large fishing fleet is based.  We were able to med moor at the pontoon of the local chapter of “Lega Navale Italiana”, a national association of Italian boaters.  This is a charming town that dates back to the Greeks who enjoyed soaking in the thermal springs, as did the Romans who followed.  It architecture reflects its occupation by, successively, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Byzantium, Arab North Africa, Normandy, and Aragon Spain.  It was once a great port for the grain trade.

Tomorrow evening, Wednesday, May 25, we leave Sciacca for the 260 nautical mile passage to Carloforte, southwest of Sardinia.  We will be taking advantage of two days of (forecast) easterly winds to get to Sabbatical III’s new home marina without having to head directly into the prevailing westerlies.  We should arrive sometime during the day on Friday.

M.

We are now in Sicily, berthed comfortably in the little marina “Marina Yachting” in the adorable, historic little town of Siracusa.   We took two weeks to get here from Turkey, covering a little over 800 nautical miles, with several all day sailing days, a total of 3 nights at sea, and a number of beautiful stops on the way (including several days at our favorite Greek island of Antiparos).     The only really tiring part was the last two and a half days when we crossed the Ionian Sea between the southern Peloponnese and Sicily.  We had a good sail, with wind much of the way.  It seems that we are pretty much the only cruisers out yet as we did not see a single sail boat across the whole Ionian.  There were hundreds of cargo ships, but fortunately all seemed to be just enough north or south of us that we could relax for the most part.  Our AIS system identifies every boat of size that is out there so we always know what is coming up within about 35 miles, and sometimes much more.

We left Kas on the 24^th of April and headed up the Turkish coast to the area around Bodrum.  It was a detour from our route to Italy, but it was necessary, as we had to test out our new sails and rigging before leaving Turkey.   We did an overnight sail (162 nm) from Kas to a very pleasant little marina at Port Iassos in Mandalya Bay (Güllük Bay) in the “Turkish Riviera.”  Everything worked beautifully on the boat.  This was a big relief as it is a bit scary heading out with brand new rigging and new sails. You never know if something is going to break.

We are friends with a warm and friendly Turkish couple (Mehmet and Begum on Kabuk) who were in Bodrum working on their boat.  Bodrum is very close to Port Iassos so we took a bus there and spent a wonderful day with them before we continued our trip north.   Our next stop was the town of Didim where we had arranged for our riggers/sail-makers (from Q Sails) to come and do adjustments to the rig. It was only a short sail between Port Iassos and Didim, but the winds were strong and right on the nose so we had a great opportunity to really test out the rigging and sails one more time by tacking to Didim.  The marina at Didim was very nice and we enjoyed a couple of days there, meeting a wonderful American couple from LA  (Mohammed and Ety on an Amel 54) as well as a very friendly Swedish couple on the Amel Super Maramu Kerpa.  We hope we will run into these people again.

The riggers spent a few hours making adjustments to the rigging and delivered our spinnaker newly modified to be part of a Selden anti-torsion rope furler.   Unfortunately, we did not have time to test it out, so if it needs adjustments we will have to have it done here in Italy.

We had a whole little drama on the boat during our passage that involved three small, land-based birds that must have been blown out to sea by the sudden change to strong southeast winds that we rode to Italy.   There were two very pretty green-breasted birds, and one aggressive black and red bird. We don’t usually have birds with us while we are at sea, but three of them were on board as we crossed the Ionian and kept making random appearances during the trip….. at various times we found them inside the boat (near the bed and then on the navigation station), and other times we saw them in the cockpit and on the deck…. always looking as if they needed shelter from the cold wind.  We tried to feed them, but they did not take the food.  It also became apparent that the black bird was attacking the green-breasted birds, killing one of them.  On the last night, the other one fled into the cockpit and hid behind the radar screen as the black bird sought her out.   By the end of the trip all three birds had died.

We have been in Sircusa for four days and we find it a delightful town.  The city was founded by the ancient Greeks 2700 years ago and was a powerful city-state that once equaled Athens in size.  The city is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.  It is a wonderful place to explore on foot and the food is great.

The map at the bottom shows where we have been and the location of our new home base at Carloforte on the island of San Pietro just to the southwest of Sardinia.

L.

A.  Kas, Turkey
B.Gulluk, Turkey
C. Didim, Turkey
D. Patmos, Greece
E. Antiparos,Greece
F. Elafonisos,Greece
G. Mezapos, Greece
H. Siracusa, Italy
I. Carloforte, Italy