PONZA, a little piece of paradise.

After a wonderful week spent with my sister Sharon and Paddy, we left Naples and headed north towards another stop over spot from 2022, Gaeta.  Gaeta has a great sheltered anchorage that is looked over by the old city on the headland.  We got off the boat after dinner to go for a wander through the old city and to find a gelato for dessert. 

The next day we were heading for the island of Ponza which took the best part of the day to get to, but the attraction of the island was obvious when we first saw the landscapes.  The cliffs were towering, and all different shades and the water was azure, blue with a sand bottom which always pleases the captain.  The bays were full of boats and the waters out deeper were littered with Super Yachts which also excited the captain.

 We took the dinghy into the main town and wandered around enjoying the atmosphere.  Tony was able to stock up on fishing supplies and then the next day went back to get some boat supplies.  We had dinner at a waterside restaurant that night and dinghied back in the dark after a scenic drive past some of the closer “Super’s”. 

The next jump from Ponza was to Sardinia and that was going to be a big one.  Leaving Ponza at 8.30am on a Friday morning and arriving to Sardinia on Saturday 4pm around 31 hours later.  The trip wasn’t too bad but not a lot of sailing happened due to the wind being mostly on the nose the whole way. 

A highlight for me was early Saturday morning I saw some birds swooping ahead of us and then saw some spouts of water being blown and thought that was odd.  I decided to change course to avoid the area and kept watching the spouts and as we passed, I saw just the top of the back of a whale come out from the water before disappearing again.  I don’t think I would have liked to come too close to them. 

A highlight of the passage for Tony happened in the last few hours.  Just as we were getting close to the end, he hooked another tuna and managed to pull it in at around 8kg. We liked the look of Sardinia as we came closer.  There was a pretty spectacular island which was basically a huge rock and when we anchored in a protected bay it reminded us of the Southwest coastline around Dunsborough and Eagle Bay. But more on Sardinia next time.