To Sicily

On Thursday night the wind slowed down, swell wasn't bad and we slept well. In the morning we sailed off around island of Sant Antioco towards South. We were hearing warnings about navigational hazard on the radio all week, and now we got the chance to see the reason why. It was a big cargo ship, sitting on the rocks.

Maybe the engines stoped working and the wind put it up there. I can hardly think a big ship like that would try to sail so close to the shore.

After a slow start wind picked up and we were sailing fast on just a flock. On South side of Sant Antioco there are several islands and rocks, these two are named Isola Vacca (the cow), the smaller one Isola Vitello (the calf)...

...and in the distance, just a shadow next to mama cow you can see Isola del Torro (papa bull). The whole bovine family.

As we reached Capo Teulada, wind was really strong, about 25 knots, and the steep cape made for some additional gusts. It was a bit too sporty for me, as well as all the way up to Porto Teulada, as we had wind from the side. Luckily we rolled the flock on time and sailed only on storm jib.

No need to mention that the boat was encrusted in salt after sailing. In the distance on the right deep in the bay there is a marina...

...and in front of it a beautiful anchorage. Water colour was so pretty, so we went for a dip in the sea despite the strong chilly wind.

It was blowing all night, not as strong as during the day, but still enough to make enough noise to keep us waking up and listening if everything was fine.

In the morning we checked the other side of the tower and there's also nice anchorage there, just with more fetch.

Then we sailed further South and soon wind was between 25 and 30 knots again.

We didn't have far to go, we just rounded the Capo Malfatano...

...and then anchored in front of one of the prettiest beaches in Sardinia. Wind was still blowing and the gusts were pretty strong, but this part of the bay is protected from almost all sides, so the waves can't develop, because there is no fetch.

We ran out of bread, so I baked a soda bread. It was chilly enough from all the wind, so the oven didn't warm up the boat too much. It turned out quite good. And warm bread with butter...

Did I mention how pretty the water was? And there were tons of fish around our boat.

Wind calmed down a bit in the night, so we slept well. Next day we sailed East along the rocky coast.

It is wild and pretty. I read that this light house is now a luxury hotel.

We had a nice breeze and sailed all the way. Our next stop was just around Capo di Pula,...

...a nice bay with turquoise water...

...and ruins of ancient Roman town of Nora. I read that there are also some ruins in the sea and I thought I should go and snorkel around them, but I couldn't find anything on Google satellite shots, so I didn't know where to go. But we swam plenty in the afternoon, because it was really hot.

In the evening, but only when the sun was low and temperature down a bit, we rowed the dinghy to the shore and walked to the town of Pula, 2,5km far. It was a long walk, but we wanted to buy some food and I wanted a pizza. We got both, pizza was delicious and the service great, and luckily we found supermarket that was open till 22.00 on Sunday. Even after pizza we still bought too much stuff (usually that happens if we go shopping hungry), and we had to walk again 2,5km back to the shore, with everything we bought.

Once there, I couldn't believe our luck - the wind turned and instead of blowing from NW, it was blowing from NE and made quite big waves in the bay. Not to mention, we had to row the dinghy against wind and the waves to get to our boat. And evening started off so good! We managed to get to boat dry, loaded all the stuff we bought from the dinghy and secured dinghy to davits. It was lots of work and afterwards we deserved a double rum. And we need it too, the boat was riding the waves and the night was not very calm. Only towards morning wind eased down and waves slowly disappeared.

Next morning we prepared the boat and after big breakfast and a dip in the sea, we sail out of the bay around the watch tower, towards Sicily. We knew there would be lots of wind, another portion of Mistral from Gulf de Lyon was coming down from North, we just hoped the waves would not be too bad yet.

Wind got stronger in the afternoon, and the waves bigger. Waves never photograph well, but maybe you can get the idea from this photo of not small fishing boat, sailing against the waves.

It was quite wild and in the evening we didn't eat much. Despite the forecast, waves grew to over one meter high, many were more than 1,5m. And it really doesn't show on photos.

The night was hard on both of us, and towards the morning wind slowed down, but the waves stayed, so it was even more rolly. It stayed like this during the day and we were both relieved to see the Isola Marettimo, one of the Egadi islands on NW point of Sicily.

It still took us couple of more hours to get to the town of Trapani, where we anchored in the port under the forth. I made a nice dinner and then we went to bed early. It was very calm and we slept well. But the passage was one of the worst we had, for me anyway.

Next morning we discussed our plans over the coffee and since it was already scorching hot before 10 in the morning, we decided to not go into town, but rather sail to some place nice where we can swim and be lazy. We've been here already 7 years ago and explored the town a bit then.
This is the same forth from the outside of the port, with town of Trapani in the back.

Sicily has so many wild and rocky hills, unfortunately there were clouds covering them, so it all looks a bit hazy.

We dropped the anchor in a bay behind Capo San Vito.

The colour of the water was absolutely beautiful..

...but because of the clouds it doesn't show. We still swam a couple of times, but didn't go ashore.

 Only in the evening we had a couple of rays of sun again.

Although it looked calm enough during the afternoon, it was unfortunately very rolly during the night when the wind died. Well... looks like we'll need a double rum before sleeping more often here...

Alghero and back South

Sailing towards Alghero was more motor-sailing, despite the wind that was forecast and then wasn't there. Only last hour we were able to sail with lightning speed of 3 knots. But luckily we didn't have to go far. In the afternoon we tied our boat to the mooring buoy in bay of Porto Conte, West of Alghero. Buoys are again part of the nature reserve and are there to protect Posidonia gras, and they are free. How nice. We rested in the afternoon, we were a bit tired after the wild previous night. In the evening I saw this:

My first thought was UFO! But since I don't believe in UFOs, I thought that there has to be another explanation. On Google maps I discovered some kind of military area on that hill, and only because of the cloud, that strategically covered the top of the hill so only the strong lights were visible above, it looked like UFO.

Since it was Saturday, we were not the only boat on buoys over the night. The bay was very pretty, green...

...and calm, and so was the night. Only disturbance was the sound of the buoy banging on our hull occasionally, but even that was fixed by Captain late in the evening.

After the breakfast we left the anchorage and sailed to explore the Capo Caccia. It looked pretty in the distance and there is a Neptune Grotto on its West side.

The cape is even more impressive from up close...

...it is an almost vertical rock on which the lighthouse stands.

On the other side there are 650 steps to Neptune grotto. We saw the steps, but couldn't see the caves from the boat.

Just to the West of it is a small rocky island, also full of caves and holes.

We sailed around it, and on the outer side switched off the engine and pulled out the flock, and sailed nicely with 4 knots of wind.

And then something happened, that we haven't seen before. While watching and photographing the island, I noticed the big shadow behind the boat. I yelled: Dolphin! Because dolphin was the only big ocean creature that would come so close to the boat. Captain watched and said: No, it's a tuna, it is moving its tail from side to side like a fish, not up and down like sea mammals. We stared in disbelief. It was over 1m long and shaped like torpedo. You can see it had yellow fins near the tail and long black side fins, just like the last one that Captain caught on our way from Mallorca to Sardinia.

It was swimming just below the surface, went away and came back several times. At one point we thought I could stick my hand with camera into the water and make an underwater shot, but photos were just of blue water. Pity. I wonder what it was doing behind our boat, maybe it sometimes follows the fishing boats that are throwing the fish rests into the water. Anyway, I think it was once-in-a-lifetime sighting.

After our excursion...

...we didn't sail far, just a bit closer to Alghero. We found a nice anchorage in Pozzo Laxxaretto. But since it was Sunday, there were many boats in there already. What a different sight!

And it was even more crowded on the beach. No distancing whatsoever.

But by the evening the crowd left and we had a calm night and woke to an empty bay in the morning. Except for us.

After the breakfast we sailed to town of Alghero. We passed the unfortunate sailboat, parked next to lighthouse on a rocky islet in front of the town.

We anchored our boat to the North of the port and dinghied into the port.

This is the town pier with dinghy dock.

We walked through the old part of town and it was really hot.

People of Alghero try to keep their town pretty and are very inventive with use of old water bottles.

A patron saint watching over the harbour.

Captain was very interested in all kinds of medieval weapons...

...that were displayed along the town walls.

There are many pretty old houses...

...and narrow streets.

Many are adorned with flowers. It was pretty, but more touristy than Bosa, which I liked better.

After a long hot walk among closed pizzerias we managed to find one that was open in the late afternoon and got delicious pizzas and "oh so well deserved" cold beer.

We returned to the same anchorage that we left in the morning, and it was again calm, with no boats and a clear water to swim in.

Next day we started our journey back South. We sailed off in the morning and the beginning was not very fast, but very nice sailing over flat water. I mostly like Mediterranean for its blue colour.

We planned to sail as far as Bosa Marina, but just a bit before we were there, wind got stronger and we got good speed, and we both thought it would be a pity not to make the most of it, so we steered to South toward Oristano bay. With strong wind the waves also came. They were more than 1m high in a matter of hour.

Unfortunately wind didn't last till the evening, so we motor-sailed for last two hours. We rounded the Capo San Marco in the last rays of sun...

...and tied Heron to the buoy in the West part of the bay. We had a good calm night and in the morning had the view to the both towers and the Roman ruins.

It was really hot and without a dip in the sea the heath would be hard to bear. But already shortly after noon wind picked up and got quite strong. We wanted to explore the bay a bit, so we sailed off with only a flock. First we sailed East towards the commercial port, then turned North and anchored in front of the Marina di Torre Grande.  After a swim we were visited by financial police, that checked our papers. They informed us that buoys are not free any more, but they didn't give us any hard time although they knew we were tied to one over night. Anchoring in nature reserve is also charged, just like the buoys, but we were just outside of it. They also informed us about bad weather that is forecast for Friday, and which was the reason for our journey back South. So we thought we would stay anchored where we were, and Captain went to explore the area with the dinghy. He even went to the village of Torre Grande to find a shop with bread and good Italian tomatoes, but the small market was already closed and all he got was an ice cream.

Even before he returned, waves started to roll into the bay from SW. They got bigger and bigger, and we figured out that the best place for the night would be all the way across the bay in the South part. It was almost dark already and we immediately sailed off, we had 7 miles to sail. We couldn't tuck right into the most protected part of the bay, because it is military area, but we went in as far in as we dared. Luckily the SW waves didn't get to us, NW were not big yet, but we got some chop from the strong wind that started blowing from East at midnight. Luckily it didn't last long, so we got some sleep. Oh the joys of sailing, that always happen at night!

We sailed off already at 8 in the morning, with the waves from SW still about 1m big and the ones from NW coming during the day, we knew we would have to sail all the way to Carloforte to get some protection for the night. There wasn't much wind so we motor sailed for the first part of the day, but it was quite rolly. In the early afternoon we got more wind and sailed for the rest of the afternoon. At about 5 in the afternoon we checked the anchorage in front of town of Calasetta, but found it too shallow and too exposed, so we sailed to the bay under Punta Nera, where we anchored at our first day in Sardinia. There were already four boats anchored there, and it was well protected from waves and wind. We had a beer and a big good dinner and even went for a dip in the sea in the evening, and then had a good and calm night.