Sardinia did not start well. We needed to re-fuel, get supplies and get a permit before exploring the National park of La Madelena archipelago. Nearly all the marinas in the area are very expensive – charge band 5. Two (Palau and La Madelena town) stood out as being only 1-3. We chose the second and as expected it was a noisy grubby port with ferries, fishing boats and lambrettas everywhere. What we didn’t expect was a charge of €54 for the night. That’s more than twice the rent on our 3 bedroom house in England and all we get for it is a small patch of grubby diesel-polluted water and a dilapidated 3 yards of pontoon. We have to provide the accommodation ourselves! We felt seriously ripped off which spoiled our whole time in the town.
The town itself is heaving with tourists and tourist shops but also has most shops you could need – fish mongers, butchers, grocers, supermarkets, chandlers, etc. You have to watch the prices – particularly in bars – but by no means everywhere is a rip-off or a tourist trap. We got given the run-around for a permit but in the end a travel agent to the right of the church produced one. Two weeks for our 10.5M boat with 30% discount for a sailing boat was €91. Pretty good value as it allows you to navigate in the park and gives you free mooring buoys or anchorage in all permitted spots.
We were pleased to get away from the port and off into the park. I had a really nice days sailing – winding in and out of bays and channels and not just setting the sails for a continuous long passage. We anchored in Cala Portuese at 1600 to wait until the power boats duly went home and left mooring bouys free. When the park officials came round to collect money, I was able to get clarification on the regulations. If you read them, it implies that you can stay overnight on a buoy but NOT at anchor. The nice man in a rib explained that technically that is true but in practice the regulations are interpreted ‘reasonably’ so if you can’t take a buoy because they’re all full or there aren’t any, you can stay overnight at anchor.
We liked it so much that we stayed all next day and set off on Sunday morning. The only slight fly in teh ointment was an extremely noisy Italian family in a 50ft yacht next to us. They had a little monster called Favio (about 6 years old) who had a huge voice and spent all day either wailing, summoning Mama or prancing on the deck shouting gibberish at the seagulls for no apparent reason. If it wasn’t him, they were either playing loud music or running the engine. Great neighbours!
Forget about all those spam e-mails you get. How’s this for a pεnιs extender!
On Sunday we set off at 10.00 after breakfast and had a really nice sail in 7 to 9 Knot wind to Porto Cervo. The scenery on the way, particularly Capo Ferro is beautiful.
This is the “Costa Smeralda” – the haunt of the rich and famous. Even a mooring buoy costs €250 and if you have to ask how much a pontoon mooring is, you can’t afford it.
Rod Heikel's excellent Pilot talks of a large free anchoring area but sadly this is no more. There are now serried ranks of laid visitors moorings at extortionate prices filling most of the space. There is still room for a few shallower draft yachts inshore of the laid moorings and also to the west. Once anchored, you can take the dinghy to outside the root of the mole by the yacht club or over the harbour to Porto Veccio where the inside end of the west side of the pontoon is free dinghy mooring. Nobody bothers you as you dump your rubbish in their bins ar use their free ferry between Porto Veccio and the yacht club.
After Porto Chervo we stopped at Cala di Volpe - a beautiful bay with great anchoring and swimming but marred by high speed tenders and water skiers who rush about from morning to night.
We then anchored just behind Cape Figari in a lovely little spot. I finally saw a mother and baby dolphin and got some good photos.
And then to Olbia. It was surprisingly difficult and expensive to moor at the yacht club - although it was very friendly after you got past the rather power crased dock manager. We picked up Robin and Maggie from the airport and are going two take a 2 week holiday back through the straight (and also a two week holiday from blogging).
See you all when we resume our trip from Olbia down Sardinia in the second half of September.
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