Since we’d planned to stay onboard today anyway, we just stayed in bed then had breakfast and went back to bed.
When we surfaced around mid-morning, the cloudy skies had given way to sunshine, but the beaches were almost deserted; not surprising given the wind. The windsurfers seemed to be the only ones out enjoying the weather. We were delighted and relieved, however, to find that the yacht, which had anchored immediately in front of us last night and was swinging wildly across our bow in the strong winds, had left.
Lunch was an interesting, tasteless experience after discovering that you can’t freeze Italian bread; it was as hard as a rock after being defrosted, forcing Elaine to use the “emergency supply” of processed long-life bread. This together with cheese that was one molecule away from plastic, or indeed one molecule away from cheese, didn’t melt, making for the most peculiar toasted cheese sandwiches.
To keep busy, Elaine completed her efforts on cataloguing all our photographs and getting them ready for upload to our website, realising this hasn’t been done since January; she was clearly a little behind.
Roy spent his day on sewerage duty again; this time on the port holding tank, unblocking one of the pipes. We have no idea why this calcified so quickly, given that the entire sewerage plumbing system was overhauled just before we left Turkey. The only conclusion we’ve come to is that the toilet cleaning product we purchased in Turkey versus using our tried and tested vinegar, was not up to the job. Another lesson learnt.
By 1700 we both had indigestion from our lunch and headaches from the wind, but, with the wind turning more to the northwest, we were hoping that the system was moving through quicker. We’ll know soon enough!
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!
After breakfast this morning, it was time for another dinghy shuttle to shore, to drop off the rest of our garbage, separated into smaller bags and for Roy to take another walk to the campgrounds in search of a possible propane filling station, something we only thought about after he’d returned yesterday. Unfortunately that attempt was in vain. Hopefully there are facilities in Spain to fill our bottles.
With the westerly winds expected tomorrow, we decided to re-anchor closer to the buoys demarcating the swimming area to prevent any yachts from anchoring in front of us. Well, within minutes of doing so, a gaggle of yachts arrived and lo and behold one squeezed into the tiniest gap slightly to our port side and will now be swinging across our bow when we all turn to face west. Yesterday we had the exact same situation and had to ask the cruiser to move. This would all be understandable if we were in a small, crowded bay, but we’re not; it’s a huge bay with ample room and good depths for everyone. Completely and utterly mind boggling!
Before our afternoon nap, Elaine did some cleaning and packed away her winter clothes which were still sitting on the bed in the starboard forward cabin, after she’d hauled out her summer wardrobe a few days ago. Roy, on the other hand, was on sewerage duty again, clearing a pipe on the starboard holding tank and repairing a minor leak on the starboard aft head (aka toilet).
After our nap, Elaine continued her cleaning efforts, while Roy drained more gunge out of the RACOR fuel filters of each engine and washed the port engine; it seems we got contaminated fuel in Italy as well, not just in Greece. By then, though, we both needed a swim to cool off, but it was more of a quick plunge as the water is still freezing.
By sunset, we were surrounded by yachts, including a catamaran that came flying through the anchorage with fenders flapping and dropped his anchor behind everyone, but to be in front of everyone when we turn, blocking the dinghy pick up / drop off lane entirely. It wasn’t long before he was told to move by the operators of the rental speedboats, given that the catamaran had essentially ended up in their mooring field. What a carry-on!
Next activity was to relook at anchoring possibilities up the northeast and northern coasts of Sardinia and to find a possible staging anchorage for our sail to Spain, although we won’t be moving for another few days due to bad weather north of here, specifically between northern Sardinia and southern Corsica. We expect to feel the effects in the way of strong westerlies on Friday and Saturday. In the interim, we’re enjoying the protected anchorage we’re currently anchored in and working around all the inconveniences of getting ashore, including how to dispose of our garbage.
Although Elaine slept all afternoon, after dinner, we dinghied ashore, left the dinghy floating in the water, dropped off smaller bags of our garbage in the carpark bins and enjoyed a lovely long walk along the beach. Most of the beach revellers had departed for the day by then, but there was a wedding about to take place. Unfortunately neither of us had our phones with us, so we never captured any closeup photographs, but it was most unusual; all the guests were dressed in white and the bride arrived in a small traditional sailing yacht. The ceremony and reception took place at the 12.1 restaurant where we had lunch yesterday, but the beach area was also set up with table and chairs too. Of course, we had the music to contend with, but at least it was half decent and we actually recognised most of the songs; anything is better than the booming noise of techno-clubbing music.
A pretty sunset sealed our day.
However, during Roy’s early morning watch, the wind backed to westerly and a countercurrent developed, just to add insult to injury, slowing us down as we could no longer motor-sail.
By 0700, Elaine spotted land ahoy and by 0945 we were anchored off a long golden sandy beach in the village of Porto Taverna. Conspicuously absent were the multi-dwelling buildings; replaced with single-dwelling homes dotted down the hillsides and bordering the shoreline. Based on the price we paid for a very tasty lunch at the 12.1 restaurant, a rather strange name, it was a very affluent area and the beaches were packed with Italians; it was, once again, a case of spot the foreigner. We were definitely starting to wonder if Italians work at all.
Once we had data connectivity again, we also discovered the reason for the terrible sea state we had encountered in relatively light winds; there were two low pressures weather systems developing to the north and the south of us. That, of course, also meant we wouldn’t be going any further for the next few days.
Our challenge, however, is staying in an area where beach access is prohibited. In fact, beaching the dinghy anywhere in this large bay is now illegal, based on new laws that have been implemented recently. They have two dinghy pick up / drop off lanes, but that’s it. So, both tired after our 3-hour watch schedule overnight and after trying to have a nap, unsuccessfully, Elaine wasn’t in the mood for this nonsense and certainly was not taking no for an answer; we asked the speedboat rental company if we could hire one of their moorings for a few hours. Voila! For €5 we tied up the dinghy and they took us to shore and back, after we’d enjoyed lunch and a nice walk on the beach to stretch our legs. It was the most ridiculous situation, though, given the number of yachts anchored here, all facing the same problem.
It’s fair to say, it is becoming increasingly frustrating dealing with the issue of getting shore access, which has plagued us all through Italy, with the exception of the marina in Syracuse, Sicily, and the little Yacht Club in Naples. This is exacerbated by the fact that we can only anchor in areas designated as Zone C, which generally don’t have shore access; anchoring anywhere else comes with hefty fines. We’re sailing vast distances every day and then struggle to get ashore to enjoy the destination we’ve arrived at. They’re making it as difficult and challenging as possible, especially since, additionally, there are no dinghy docks anywhere, no room in the marinas for transient yachts, nowhere to drop off garbage, etc, leading us to believe Italy really don’t want cruisers in their country; we’re simply not welcome. Let’s hope Spain is more accommodating!
As our day drew to a close, a shower, a light dinner of bacon on freshly baked soda bread and bed, followed in quick succession.
Expecting conditions to improve as we progressed westward, the initial wind and sea state was no surprise. However, as the wind lightened to below 10 Kts out of the northwest for most of the day, although it never turned north as predicted, the sea state got rougher, with short steep waves, which was not in any forecast. If anything, it was supposed to be calm. Regardless, we were beating to weather again making for a very uncomfortable and unpleasant motor-sail.
By 1700 nothing had changed; we were still beating to weather in very confused seas, increasing our frustration levels with the forecasting in this part of the world, but there was nothing we could do about it, except to soldier on. We did, however, wonder if the sea state was current or tide related or, if indeed, a weather system had developed to the north of us.
On the bright side, we had clear sunny skies, warm temperatures, plenty of ships plus one other yacht for company and we both managed to nap. In fact, Roy had a morning and an afternoon nap. It was a real shame, though, that we could see the air pollution on the horizon so clearly around us.
Fortunately, by nightfall, at around 2130, the seas had started to settle, although the wind backed to westerly at around 2330, which resulted in us motoring.
Another observation we’ve had about “sailing” in the Mediterranean is the lack of VHF radio etiquette. Besides the lack of protocol, we’ve heard people talking over each other, people chitchatting incessantly instead of switching to another channel, people whistling over the radio, playing music and burping, all on the hailing channel 16. We know our memories are fading, but we very seldom encountered this elsewhere during our circumnavigation.
Nonetheless, under a clear starry sky, with a waxing gibbous to light the way, we continued west.
The bouncing around in the churned up water continued until the wee small hours last night, as water taxis returned visitors to their yachts after their night on the town. Then, of course, the obligatory fireworks display at midnight woke us. To crown matters, when we went ashore for breakfast this morning, there were thousands of weekend revellers and holidaymakers wanting breakfast too.
Deciding to explore further afield and to seek some tranquility, we walked to the west side of the island and what a lovely walk it was, with beautiful scenery, fields of wild flowers and a very picturesque bay on the western coastline, one we had thought of moving to in the easterlies, but they didn’t materialise. Regardless, it was certainly calmer and less chaotic in that anchorage.
When we returned to Paw Paw, the mayhem had continued in our anchorage, so we re-anchored once again; this time in an entirely different anchorage further north on the east coast and eventually found some respite. At least we didn’t have the constant stream of water taxis ferrying people back and forth to the beach. However, we still had the megalomaniac speedboat racers flying through the anchorage, but it was further for them to come, so we had fewer to contend with. We understand this mayhem gets progressively worse through the summer and as we head to Spain. Oh what fun!
Our day ended with a Zoom Family Get-Together, hosted by Elaine’s sister, Deborah, as we don’t have the best data connectivity while on the move. It was lovely to see everyone again and to catch up, but not before we both enjoyed our first swim of the season together, although the water was so cold it took Elaine’s breath away. Needless to say, it wasn’t a very long swim!
With our imminent departure and the revellers departed, we settled for an early, but peaceful night.
