SARDINIA OR SARDENGA??
After the auspicious arrival to Sardinia was celebrated by Tony catching his third tuna, we knew we were onto something good. The first anchorage was very familiar looking. The coastline had the distinct look of the southwest of Western Australia around Dunsborough, Eagle Bay, Margaret River. The granite rocks and the greenery reminded us of that area minus the white sandy beaches. The area of Sardinia we were visiting was the northeast coastline that they refer to as Costas Esmeralda (The Emerald Coast) and it was stunning and very popular.
We had strayed into “mega-super-boat” territory in a big way. Now, we like to think of ourselves as super fortunate to be doing what we are doing on our 2001 model Privilege catamaran, and we love our boat but, by god there is so many amazing boats and small ships out there on the ocean. One of their tenders would be worth 3x what our boat is worth. Tony has been in Super Yacht heaven and has developed a new obsession.
There is one American businessman who owns a 117m Super Yacht Infinity and he has a 69m expedition ship, Intrepid that shadows his main yacht and carries all the toys eg helicopter, tenders x 2,3,4???, dive equipment, a small hospital. It is just not very relatable to the regular person’s life, but these people exist in the same world as us. Anyway, I’ll start sounding like Tony, the way I’m banging on about boats.
We spent a few days in different anchorages just relaxing and catching up. One anchorage was next to the town of Porto Cervo, which has a history for Tony, which I will try to recreate as best I can.
Many years ago, when Jesus was a lad, well not quite that long ago but close, around 1987 Tony and Gary were travelling around Europe, living in a car. When they were on Sardinia, they visited Porto Cervo which has the reputation for being one of the most expensive marinas in the Med. At the time, the World 12m Yacht races were being held around the area, so Porto Cervo was abuzz with all this activity. Into town rolls these two bronzed, blonde scruffy backpacking Australians. They lob up with no accommodation but make a surf cat stored on the beach their home base for a while.
Anyway, suffice to say, the real stories aren’t mine to tell but it was a trip down memory lane for Tony but after 37 years the pathway was a bit foggy. It was a beautiful town and we walked around having a good look while the cogs turned in Tony’s memory bank.
After Porto Cervo we continued north to a group of islands called the Maddalena’s and stopped first in a rather large bay. There was a whole flotilla of little training boats with kids learning to sail. They were following the instructor in his inflatable boat like a row of baby ducklings and one time they passed really close to us. The kids called out “Where are you from?” and when we said Australia they kept saying hello Aussies!
The next bay, Della Montena, was the stunning one with the clear blue water. We had left early in the morning to reach here before the crowds arrived. Now, to give a balanced picture of our sailing life, not all days are champagne sailing or smooth and calm anchorages. Our first day in Della Montena, started out fine but then the wind picked up and we found we had swung to be around 30m from a rocky patch and if our anchor moved, we would get closer to the rocks. This is not relaxing, especially when a powerboat had parked a way in front of us but then his anchor started dragging…..twice so we couldn’t pull up our anchor to move away from the rocks. The powerboat eventually left around 7.30pm (daylight savings over here) so we were able to re-anchor. The next day was smooth and calm all day, so we were rewarded and relaxed.
The next morning, we would leave Italy and head toward France, well not mainland France but Corsica.
