Egadi snorkeling

A few pics from down below the Egadi islands.

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Buongiorno Sicily !

We left Cagliari with a narrow weather window between the end of a 3-day mistral and impending dead calm.  The winds were excellent, 10 to 15 knots on a broad reach (with a few gusts to 18 during the night) but the sea was still a bit lumpy after the gale and the 1-2 meter swell hit us at such an angle that the autopilot had a hard time stearing a straight course, so we ended up hand steering for 30 hours in 2 hour shifts.  It was a very fast crossing (for us) averaging 6-7 knots for the last half.  We had a beautiful full moon and the dawn brought us an image of the Egadi Islands.  As I went forward to take a photo, I also discovered some gifts that Neptune deposited on the deck with the swell during the night: a flying fish and a small squid. A nice welcome gift (but those squid leave some nasty stains on the gelcoat...).

We picked up a mooring buoy in the Marasolo beach of south Favignana island.  The Egadi islands are the largest marine reserve in the Mediterranean and the park authorities have an excellent network of mooring buoys on the 3 main islands.  A 7-day permit allows you to tie up anywhere you like for only 17 euros per night.  We are thoroughly enjoying discovering these islands above and below the water.

Marasolo mooring field.

Favignana Port.

Phoenician stone quarries along the coast of Favignana.

Finocchio mooring field, Marettimo.

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Cagliari and the big hop

We pulled into Cagliari a few days ago to load up on food, do a little tourism, and prepare for the big hop from Sardinia to Sicily (150 miles). We were told that Marina del Sole was the cheapest marina in Cagliari and heard rumors that it was possible to negotiate the price for longer stays. We prepared our negotiation strategy and wrote out our phrases in italian, all for nothing. As soon as we asked about weekly discounts, we were given a price that was less than what we had planned to ask for, so for 35 euros / night (instead of 65), we decided to stay 7 days.

The weather is in transition and everyday we have an afternoon monsoon, with thunder, lightning, gusts up to 30 knots, and rain. It doesn’t last long and it has mercifully cooled the temperatures, but it is very unstable and not particularly suited to the sort of relaxing days at anchor we have enjoyed thus far. It’s too early to tell, but there may be a good weather window for heading to Sicily this weekend or early next week. We will leave Cagliari a few days before and position ourselves in the Porto Guinco area, a lovely protected anchorage at the southeast tip of Sardinia, well positioned for "take off ".

We took a day to visit the Phoenician-Punic-Roman-Vandal ruins in Nora, just south of Cagliari.  As with most of these archeological sites, the magic is in the imagination of what it must have looked like in its heyday, since what's left is mostly, well, um, ruins.  

And here are some creature features that I put on the Facebook page but that didn't make it into the last blog post.  The flatfish (sole) like tagging along with the rays because rays are sloppy eaters.  The flatfish also hang out around our anchor chain because the chain stirs up the sand and apparently uncovers tasty tidbits.

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Sardinia's East Coast notes

As mentioned in the last post, our Imray guide ( 2016) misses large sections of the east coast of Sardinia, as if it were just a zone for transiting to somewhere else.   Thankfully, there is a brillant document on the sea-seek web site (sea-seek.com) for East Sardinia that points out many wonderful anchorages.

Along with Cala Ginepro (our anchor coordinates: 40°26.491 09°47.522) and Cala Luna (40°.14.323 09°37.485) mentioned earlier, we have discovered the cala Santa Foxi Manna (sea-seek coordinates 39°41.56 09°39.67) and now, a little corner of paradise named Cala Sinzias with no chart information in OpenCPN, MaxSea, or Navionics at 39°11.297 09°34.133.

Photos of sea slugs (nudibrachs) from Cala Frailis.  Almost didn't see these little guys.  They are about 20 cm long (8 inches or so) and move around faster than I imaged.

Photo bombed by colorful fish, who, when you WANT to take his picture, is very evasive...

We left Cala Frailis just south of Santa Maria de Navarrese a few days ago headed for Cala Santa Foxi Manna, but after lunch en route, Patrick announced that he had broken off a few bits of a tooth.  He wasn't in any pain but it was clear that we needed to have it looked at before it really cracked .  With good winds, we changed course slightly and headed for Porto Corallo, arriving at 8 p.m.  The next morning, we discovered that the port had a small medical clinic on site, where we were informed that we needed to see a dentist.  (Fortunately that advice was free...).  After calling 4 different dentists in the villages around the port, we managed to find one that was not closed for vacation and could see us in the afternoon.  All was taken care of rapidly if not painlessly within 24 hours of discovering the problem.  We were quite pleased with ourselves.

And now we are enjoying a beautiful day in a beautiful cala.  A day at anchor goes something like this:

Up at the crack of 8:30.  Adjust solar panels.
Patrick skinny-dips before breakfast; Maria watches, amused but still groggy, with a cup of tea from the cockpit.
Breakfast.
Internet time: emails, news, weather check. Discussion and decision on day's plans.
Put up sunbrella panels anywhere there is sun coming into the cockpit.  I feel like I spend most of my day moving these bits of cloth around...
Hand-wash some laundry, repair worn seal around refrigerator.
Move boat to a better spot (closer in to shore now that we know the rocks are far away).
Snorkeling: 1 hour or so.
Prepare and enjoy a long languid lunch. Watermelon, lamb chops with steamed potatoes and carrots, aged goat cheese on toast with honey and herbs de provence, red wine.  (There is a great butcher shop in Santa Maria.  I mentioned earlier that one of the first phrases a cruiser learns in a foreign language is "where is the hardware store."  If you are a foodie like Patrick, the second phrase you learn is "can we have this vacuum packed?"  After pantomiming vacuum-packed for the butcher and after the laughter died away, we learned the magic phrase:  "sotto vuotto".)
Calls and skypes to kids and parents.
Nap time !
Second snorkel session.
Internet (download pod casts, e-books, check weather again, discussion of plans for coming days based on weather).
Reading, lounging, light housework and cleaning.
Aperatif time !  Sundowners (well before sundown)
Prepare and enjoy dinner (usually inside watching the Italian evening news).  Fresh ricotta and spinach raviolis with tomato sauce and bresaola (salt-cured thin-sliced beef).
Mosquito patrol: put up mosquito screens and light mosquito incense coils.
Movies, reading, cockpit contemplation time.  Okay, okay...yes, one more weather check...
Mooring lights on, inside lights out.

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The Gulf of Orosei

Our sailing guide only lightly describes the Orosei gulf as an exposed stretch of coastline only suitable for day anchorages, but with a long stretch of calm weather and lots of targets on the AIS showing other boats anchored overnight, we bravely pressed forward to explore the area.  Cala Ginepro was a sheltered anchorage with beach resorts (tasteful ones) dotted around the beach, and Cala Luna was an exposed and rolly marvel of caves and grottos.  During the day, one gets the impression of being in the middle of a swarm of wasps as tourist boats zip and zoom all around, but after 6 p.m. they all go home.  We managed to get some quality snorkeling in at 8 a.m. when the swell was call and before the hords returned.

We are now in Sainta Maria de Navarrese, visiting the oldest church in Sardenia and its 2000 year-old olive tree as we load up the fridge and water tanks for some longer hops down the coast.

Mareda in Cala Ginepro

Cala Luna

Sainta Maria de Navarrese

2000 year-old olive tree

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Our Costa Smerelda

Despite the reputation as a sailing paradise, we dreaded the Costa Smerelda – too many people, too crowded anchorages, too "bling". We managed, however, to avoid almost all of these problems and have been seduced by this gorgeous region, with enough space and anchorage choices for everyone, even in the high season.

The Maddalena Archipelago : You DO need a permit and you can do everything on-line. For Mareda, we paid 18.80 euros per night, which gives you the free use of the park mooring buoys. The nautical guides all tell you that you can only stay overnight in the Maddalena if you are on one of these buoys, but we saw people anchored everywhere and staying overnight. We did the same as we never managed to snag one of the buoys. We were visited by the park authorities on the day we left, and were told that you have to leave the park by 9 am on the day your park permit expires. It was 10 am but they let us go peacefully. In this region, at least in the high season, there are many things that are officially forbidden but tolerated. A few days ago, we parked our rental car along a side street near a military office. An officer came out and stared at us. We gave him our best crispy stupid-tourist smiles and said "is it okay ?". He replied in broken engligh : "Is forbidden. But is okay."

In the Maddalenas, we wanted to visit Maddalena and Caprera islands by scooter, but with 2 days of high winds predicted, we didn’t want to leave the boat at anchor unsupervised for that long, so we headed into the port of Cala Gavetta, which seems to be the cheapest on Maddalena at 62 euros/ night.

Cannigione : Just across from Maddalena island is the golf of Arzechena with several good anchorages and one of the only places with great mooring buoys close to town. We indulged for a few days on the buoys at 35 euros per night (we had to find a safe haven to go ashore to watch France win the World Cup!) and thorougly enjoyed the stop. Lorenzo manages the buoy field, speaks excellent english, and takes care of everything from trash pick up to taking on water from one of the nearby floating pontoons. There is a dinghy dock close by, and the town has all the amenities and supplies, including a very large farmer’s market on Monday mornings. We rented a scooter and visited the archeological sites in the area.

Golfo di Marinella : This is another one of those instances where the guides and charts say that anchoring is forbidden, but people are everywhere. We anchored east of the Punta Sabina, which had great holding and good snorkeling (moray eel, small rays, octopus, and lots of fish). The only drawback was the music from the beach club that started around 7 pm and lasted until 1 am, but it was more-or-less tasteful mood music and not enough to drive us off. There is also a train stop just behind the beach that goes to Olbia, but I wasn’t keen to leave the boat for a full day in this area, since there were a lot of neighbors during the day.

Liscia delle Saline : Yet another forbidden-but-okay anchorage just at the entrance to the Olbia channel. This is a good place to stop but not to stay. The water is murky and there is nothing particularly interesting to see. We pulled in here for 2 days of strong southeasterly winds. We anchored on the southeast side since the southwest side has been taken over by a kite surfing school.

Isola Tavolara Reserve : One could easily spend weeks exploring all the great anchorages set in breath-taking surroundings. As with the Maddalena, the guides say you must stay on a Reserve mooring buoy, but there are so few of them that mooring is tolerated. We aimed for Porto Istana but as we neared it was clear that no one was anchored there so we continued on to Taverna. There were quite a few boats anchored just north of Taverna in the Golfo di Spurlatta area but it is a small anchorage and there were already quite a few boats there. In our guide, there are 2 anchorages in Taverna on the southeast and southwest coast, but a small area on the northwest side caught our eye. There is a small sandy beach near by and a large sandy area for anchoring although there are some rocks on either side of this zone ; nothing big enough to hit but just enough to get your chain wrapped around. We found a good spot away from the rocks and sat out a couple of days of high winds here in gorgeous surroundings.

La Caletta : This was our first port after leaving the chic zones of the north, and we took a berth in the Circolo Nautico de Caletta for 2 nights for water and supplies. While here, we discovered that the exterior T berths of the marina are free. This is mentioned in our guide but they made it sound so derelict that we didn’t want to try. There is no water or electricity, but it is safe, sheltered, and FREE ! After 2 days in port, we moved to this free area, which gave us the opportunity to rent a car for a few days and head up into the Barbagia hills : Nuoro, Orgosolo, Olinea, Dorgali, and Cala Gonone. Now we are finishing up re-supplies and waiting for a bit of wind to head down along the Blue Crescent area and on to Sainta Maria de Navarrese.

UPDATE:  We apparently overstayed our welcome at the "free" berth in La Caletta.  We were jolted out of our sleep at 8 a.m. (barbarians) by 3 strong knocks on the hull of the boat.  Two marina agents came to inform us, rather brusquely, that we had to leave within 2 hours and that this was not a legitimate berth.  They did not, we notice, visit the other boats on the same dock, who had only recently arrived.  I suppose 5 days tested their patience.  So if you go to La Caletta be warned that you can stay on this dock, just not too long !  We are now in the lovely Cala Ginepro and don't regret having left La Caletta.

The Orgosolo town council in session.

Our blue mediterranean wake.  So nice to see water after the dry mountain towns.

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The Maddalena Archipelago

We left Elbe at 4 a.m. to take advantage of good winds for a 16-hour sail down to the San Ciprianu anchorage in Corsica.  It's not like us to get up so early, but we knew that after 8 hours of good winds we would have 8 hours of weak winds and motor sailing so we could catch up on sleep along the way.

We aimed for San Ciprianu because we know the area well and knew we could drop the anchor safely even in the dark if we had to.  At this time of year the sun doesn't set until 9 p.m. so we did manage to get in before dark.

After a couple of days enjoying the area, we made our way to the Maddalena Archipelago in north east Sardinia.  This is one of the more chic areas of the Med, where the rich and famous buzz about in large glossy suppository-shaped boats and where getting a nice spot to drop anchor can be a challenge.

We went to Santa Maria first, attracted by the large sandy bay, but quickly grew tired of the masses there.  Our highlight while here was watching Italian actor Roberto Bennini (It's a beautiful life) pass just in back of our boat in a small motorboat that deposited him on the beach at the gate of his home.  He was easy to spot - he was wearing a dark suit while all around are in skimpy swim clothes.

Santa Maria Panorama (click for larger version)

We moved on down to Budelli and found a super anchorage just north of the (forbidden) Pink Beach.  We waited till late in the day and took our dinghy over to walk around the area (also forbidden but apparently tolerated).  Gorgeous.

About the Maddalena park and its restrictions:  you do have to register and pay for a park permit before you enter into the archipelago.  You can do this on-line.  The downside is that you have to give precise dates.  The permit allows you to navigate in the area and to use the park mooring buoys for free.  Note: not all the buoys in the bays are park buoys; many are private (like those in Santa Maria).  The regulations say that you can only stay overnight in the area if you are on a mooring buoy, but in practice, we saw many people anchored over night.  We were visited by the park authorities on the morning of our departure.  You are supposed to leave the area by 9 a.m. on the morning after your permit expires.  For Mareda, the cost was 18.80 euros per day.  The mooring buoys go fast - get there early !

Motivated by 1) the desire to visit Maddalena and Caprera islands on scooter, 2) a near gale approaching, and 3) the french team playing in the World Cup semi-finals, we took a place in port in Cala Galvetta on Maddalena island.  It was suprisingly reasonable at 62 euros per night (reasonable being relative to the 120 and 85 euros we were quoted for other ports).  We thorougly enjoyed our day around Caprera.

Now we are hanging out on the Costa Smerelda just across from Caprera, and have taken a mooring buoy for a few days owing to 1) a new near gale approaching and 2) the french team playing in the World Cup Finals later today !!  We will use the "gale time" to take a bus to Porto Cervo, one of the most exclusive ports in the Med, to gawk at the rich people, and may rent another scooter to visit the archeological sites around the area.  We are finally "cruising" instead of fixing our boat in exotic locations.  Nice.

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A New Lesson in Anchoring

Is there anything more frustrating than doing a thing "by the book" and still running into trouble ?

We thought we knew everything we needed to know about anchoring : Minimum chain-to-depth ratio of 5:1, put the motor in reverse to dig in the anchor, and use a snubber on the chain to take the strain off the windlass. Our trusty Rocna anchor has held us through 30-knot gusts in all types of holding.

So imagine our idignant surprise last week when, despite having a 10:1 chain-depth ratio in sandy mud noted in the guide as excellent holding, we managed to drag our anchor and ended up stuck on a shallow mud bank.

We had been anchored out for 3 days in light to moderate winds that turned slowly in all directions. We even joked as we dined in the cockpit that we had a 360-degree panoramic restaurant.

On the 3rd day an afternoon storm kicked up with gusts up to 25 knots. We were on board and not at all worried. We had out 10:1. We had a Rocna.

I was working in the cockpit when I looked around and noticed that the stone dike around the beach looked much bigger than before. Much much bigger. I called down to Patrick to turn on the navigation instruments and come up fast. The depth sounder showed 1.1 meters, the exact depth of our keel with the centerboard up. We noticed we were perpendicular to all the other boats in the bay and to the wind. We were clearly beached.

We tried to use the motor to push ourselves out but all that nice excellent-holding mud held fast to our rudders and keel. At least this is an advantage of having a boat that can beach – we were simply stuck, but stuck upright, whereas a keel boat would topple over sideways.

We tried pulling and pushing the nose with the dinghy and the boat motor, but 2.5 horsepower vs 20+ knots on 10 tonnes is just not good odds. We knew we had to call for help before the winds pushed us even further up onto the mud bank.

We called the port closest to us where we had spent 4 nights. They were only 200 meters away. They informed us that they were not allowed to intervene and we had to call the mooring assistance service in the major port of the bay. A tragic-comic mélé of vhf and telephone calls ensued in french, italian, and broken english, where we finally had to take time out from our crisis to look up how to say "stuck in the mud". Three cheers for google translate.

A small coast guard vessel showed up for what we can only interpret as moral support. They informed us that the mooring assistance service had to help us but that they were currently out helping another boat. When the MAS arrived, they realized that their boat was too big to safely approach us in shallow water and went back to headquarters to get a shallow-draft vessel.

Once everyone was in place, the actual rescue only took 3 minutes. They tugged and we pushed, a boiling cauldron of mud exploded around the boat, and we were free. (Note : very important to clean the water filter and flush the engine with clean seawater for awhile.) We re-anchored in deeper water, the storm having passed, and then had to take our dinghy to the main port to fill out paperwork and pay the 85 Euro fee.

Lessons ? We suppose that the constant slow piroettes of the boat over 3 days must have "unscrewed" the anchor in the mud. When we pulled it up, there was a large hard ball of clay filling the spade, which would have made it very difficult to dig in again. I guess we’ll have to either dive to verify the holding or pull up and reset the anchor periodically when the boat turns 360s.

Fortunately, we were on board and no other boats were in our path, we have a lifting keel boat that settles instead of topples, and we were pushed onto mud and not rock.

But the best lesson, something we already knew but saw confirmed once again, is that there is a solidarity among the sailing community that warms the heart. As soon as it was clear that we were in trouble, two other dinghies showed up to offer help. Even with 3 small motors pushing, we didn’t solve the problem, but their presence cheered us as we waited and their stories of their own similar misadventures made us feel less stupid. That’s worth 85 Euros any day.

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