Satisfied we were far enough away from these numpties, we dinghied to the “dinghy carpark”, hired another mooring ball and got our shuttle ashore, where we enjoyed a mid-morning coffee and baked delight in the very pleasant setting of Mare Azzurro, before disposing of our fresh garbage and enjoying a walk. This allowed Elaine to enjoy the inland scenery for a change, visiting the campgrounds and convenience store along the way.
From the size of the standalone villas, nestled amongst the natural vegetation, it was clear that this area of Sardinia was much more upmarket than other areas we’ve seen during our sail through Italy. The campsite was also at the upper end of the scale compared to other campsites we’ve seen during our travels, including pretty gardens and major security system installations; partitioned fencing, controlled access gates, cameras, etc.
By lunchtime we were back onboard, but not before we both got wet as a rain shower, associated with the front we’ve been watching, passed over us during our walk. This didn’t deter folks from enjoying their beach day, though, although the beaches haven’t been as crowded these past few days.
Another perusal of the weather indicated that the storm to the northwest of Sardinia, the one we’ve been waiting on and preventing us from getting around the northern coast of Sardinia and continuing west, was in full swing and approaching as forecast.
However, the most astonishing fact of the day goes back to other cruisers anchoring on top of Paw Paw.”; it truly is the most bizarre behaviour we’ve seen.
After re-anchoring this morning, a country mile from where the other yachts had shoehorned in around us yesterday evening, and positioning ourselves almost in the middle of the bay, without a single yacht anywhere near us, this afternoon, not only one, but three yacht shimmied up to Paw Paw ready to drop the anchor. Not sure what caused them to change their mind; possibly the vibes they were getting from Elaine, but they, nonetheless, decided to reverse or turnaround and anchor slightly further away, but still in close proximity to us, while our original location remained wide open with bags of room for people to anchor. We’ve truly never seen anything like it before. There is oodles of room in this anchorage with reasonable depths. Do these people just prefer to snuggle up or what? We don’t understand the psyche at all, especially when howling winds were expected later and having plenty of space between the yachts, allowing for plenty of scope, is the prudent thing to do. We are completely baffled! The laugh of it all is that, as transients clearing in to the European Union to sail in these waters, we had to show our Captain’s Certificate of Competency.
Moving on from this unfathomable situation, we enjoyed a nap after lunch, then Roy finished his efforts on the leak in the starboard aft head (aka toilet), while Elaine sanitised and stowed our provisions and cleaned around the cockpit and helmstation.
By 2000 the westerly winds we’d been waiting on eventually arrived. It was almost time to move on!
