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.
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| The Orgosolo town council in session. |
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| Our blue mediterranean wake. So nice to see water after the dry mountain towns. |
