We did, however, decide to try a different establishment for our morning coffee outing, choosing Restaurante La Tavernetta at the southern end of the bay after enjoying a nice long walk along the beach. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a bad choice. We were definitely not impressed with a constant smell of sewerage, barely a mouthful of coffee and a less than mediocre pastry.
Not wanting to return to Paw Paw straight away, though, only to listen to the howling wind, we decided to “take two” and enjoy a better coffee morning back at Mare Azzurro.
Being hyped on caffeine and sugar was probably not the best idea either and, by the time lunchtime rolled around, neither of us was particularly hungry, so we settled for a bit of fruit. One bite into the chopped up plum, however, had us wondering whether or not we’d just eaten a lemon, it was so bitter. Absolutely awful. It was clear that fruit, with a few exceptions, has not been the European Union’s strong point thus far.
Back onboard, Roy added our route to the chartplotter to get around the northern tip of Sardinia and on to the northwestern staging area. We were feeling a tad more optimistic, although the wind howled all night, it seemed to be settling. That was until this afternoon when it was back up to sustained winds of 25-30 Kts. After a week of being pinned down, we had to come up with Plan B, especially after one of the servers ashore indicated that the locals prefer the wind, since it keeps the temperatures bearable in the summer. Not exactly what we wanted to hear.
Respite from the wind, however, may arrive if temperatures hit 35/36C as forecast later this week to coincide with lighter winds. It’s hard to tell, though, when the forecasts are so unreliable and it seems these lighter winds are being kicked down the road like a tin can, never to actually materialise.
To add to our frustrations, we had a whole new set of charter yachts arrive today, after some yachts departed this morning to continue south or east and, with that, came another numpty to anchor over our anchor and swing across our bow.
This time, however, Elaine got in the dinghy and went over to the yacht, armed with her cellphone in the event she had to translate. After explaining that we were uncomfortable with a yacht so close to us, not only over our anchor, but swinging wildly in the stronger winds, they apologised profusely and indicated they understood and would move.
Well, a little while later, while Roy was on deck checking the mainsail head bolt, he first noticed these charterers getting their dinghy in the water, then, when trying to lift the anchor, they inadvertently jammed the snubber in the windlass. While all four of them were on the bow, they didn’t realise they’d dragged to within a few feet of Paw Paw’s bow, almost turning her into a trimaran. It wasn’t until they saw us standing on deck with a fender each, did they narrowly avoid hitting us by motoring forward.
Of course, their windlass was still jammed and by the time they had that sorted out and re-anchored they were barely metres from their original spot, although more to our starboard side. At this point we decided to let sleeping dogs lie, knowing they had let out plenty of scope and were well dug in, based on how violently the yacht jerked forward with the engine at full throttle in reverse in 25 Kts of wind on the nose and the anchor bit. We were surprised to see the bow of their yacht was still attached; it was the best we could ask for under the circumstances!
To say this is a circus, is an understatement, which is proving to be more entertaining than watching animals. When Roy spotted one of these same charterers starting the dinghy engine, while it was still mounted to the transom of the yacht and out of the water, then revving it, we were one hundred percent certain that these folks were an accident looking for a place to happen. Plan B simply had to be executed sooner rather than later!
By 2200 we were still on numpty duty, but numpty is simply not a strong enough word to describe the fool tonight, who came in after dark, in howling winds and shoehorned a huge racing yacht in between us and our floating neighbours to either side of us and right over our anchor. Well, he got more than he bargained for when all of us starting blowing our horns and shouting at the skipper to move. He then still had the audacity to put up a fight before eventually succumbing, taking a perfect spot to our starboard side and aft of us all, where there was amble space to begin with and where he motored right passed, choosing to shoehorn in instead.
It’s fair to say, by this stage, we’d both simply had enough; Elaine, in particular, was now on the warpath and she won’t be taking any prisoners moving forward!
To try and decompress after a stressful afternoon and night we sat out and enjoyed the supermoon rising before retiring for the night.
