|
|
Wednesday, May 16th, Alghero, Sardegna, Italy
Nearly two weeks later,
we are still here in Alghero. It is a great little
town with lots of good restaurants in a beautiful
setting, but that is not what is keeping us here.
We have seen all there is to see in the city itself, as
well as in the surrounding countryside. We already
picked up our guests, Larson and Gav, on Sunday morning.
In fact, we were heading out for an overnight sail to
Corsica on Monday night, when Mother Nature announced
once again that she had different plans for us.
.jpg)
We began our stay in
Alghero with a wonderful surprise. We came home
from our daily excursion to buy gelato
on Sunday when we saw that a British family with two
girls had docked beside us at Marina Sant Elmo.
Andy, Sarah, Alice (11) and Grace (7) were heading for
Naples on the start of a six month adventure cruising
the Med on their Jeanneau 43 Santé.
.jpg)
We quickly befriended
our new neighbors. The girls immediately came over
to play on Zia while Andy and Sarah rested and cleaned
up the boat after their passage from Menorca. We
spent the next three days sharing meals on our boats and
out in town, having water balloon fights and fashion
shows, and creating more friendships and memories that
will hopefully last a long time.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
They delayed it for as
long as they could, but the Patersons had guests
arriving in Naples and still had several hundred miles
to travel. It is a predicament we understand all
too well. After we said our goodbyes, we decided
to get off the dock and explore the area a little more.
Porto Conte, about 10 miles away, is a large, isolated
and well protected cove with lots of options for
anchoring. We found a sandy spot in calm
conditions on the southwest side. We wound up a
little closer to the rocky coast than we would have
liked, but the anchor was well set so we decided to
stay. It felt good to be back at anchor again, as
it always does after a few days at the dock.
.jpg)
We decided to move a
little further away from the shore the next day, before
we left the boat and walked up to explore Neptune's
Grotto. The bottom is mostly weed and getting our
anchor to hold proved to be challenging. We put a
second anchor on the chain, right behind the first, a
technique we had used before, although in mud. It
grabbed the bottom nicely, until we backed down on it.
It held well through 2000 rpms with both engines in
reverse, but any more than that, it would break out of
the weeds and drag. We must have dropped it and
raised it six times. In the end we decided to get
a good grab and back down to 2000 rpms and leave it at
that. We would only be gone for a few hours and
the winds were mellow.
The excursion to
Neptune's Grotto was wonderful, although it turns out
our camera lens had a smudge on it so most of our
pictures are blurry. The girls did amazingly well,
walking about a mile to the entrance and then down the
650 steps to where the caves begin, and back.
.jpg)
The guided tour through
the stalactite and stalagmite strewn caves was conducted
in Italian, English and German. The caves were
quite impressive and mostly well preserved, although
they were reputedly liberally vandalized up until they
were turned into a national park in the 1950s.
The day was sunny and
warm, but we knew what was waiting for us back at the
boat. Upon awakening that morning, we discovered
that the previously clear water had been invaded by
jellyfish. I'm not talking about just a small
exploratory force, either. This was a full fledged
onslaught. The waters around the boat were pretty
thick with them, but when we got to shore their true
numbers became horrifyingly apparent.
.jpg)
Our theory that the
water was still too cold for them was obviously
erroneous. The good news is that when we moved
back to the northwest corner of Porto Conte, it was
entirely jellyfish free. We were amazed that just
a few miles could make such a difference from one
extreme to the other. We hope that lesson helps us
in future situations with these pesky little creatures.
Rumor has it that the whole Mediterranean is plagued by
them.
.jpg)
By Saturday it was time
to head back to Alghero. Hobbie was in need of his
second round of vaccinations and we had made an
appointment for that afternoon. My Italian is very
slowly coming back to me and these little excursions
help a lot. I can understand well enough, but when
I speak it inevitably comes out in Spanish. I used
to have just the opposite problem in Spain! At any
rate, I make myself understood, although it is not
pretty.
.jpg)
On Sunday morning,
Larson and Gav rode into town on the bus from the
airport and had no trouble finding Zia tied up at the
city dock. We had learned that visiting yachts are
allowed to tie up there for free for up to five days.
Naturally, we took advantage of the chance to save the
fifty euros on a marina.
.jpg)
Larson and Gav had flown from New York to London, spent
the day there, and taken the next mornings' flight from
London to Alghero. They had a bit of a rough day
in London, wandering the city like zombies before
heading out to Stansted airport to hang until their 6am
flight. They arrived on Zia determined to stay
awake long enough for dinner, although a quick catnap on
deck proved irresistible to Gav.
.jpg)
We
took care of a little shopping and boat maintenance
issues before heading back to Porto Conte. The
plan was to hang at the beach for the day before taking
off around 8pm for Ajaccio, Corsica. Our friends
on Cenou, Claude, Rike, Celine and Anouk, are a
little farther north in Calvi, Corsica, and we are
anxious to see them again after a long winter apart.
Of course, there was some weather heading our way, but
we figured we could get there before the worst of it
hit. The plan was quickly changed as we were
heading out of Porto Conte at 8pm that evening.
Channel 16 started broadcasting gale warnings for the
entire area. We were crestfallen, as the weather
is supposed to stay bad for almost a whole week.
But, there was nothing to do but turn around and head
back to our anchorage. Our consolation was a visit
from a bottlenose dolphin, who accompanied us for part
of the way through the bay.
We
made the most of the next day by embarking on a 5 mile
walking tour of the area. We found a fabulous
little beach where many a stone was skipped.
.jpg)
We visited the ancient
Nuraghe ruins at Palmavera, dating from 1500 BC.
This civilization left dozens of similar sites scattered
throughout Sardinia, but no one knows much about them.
They completely disappeared, to be replaced by a
succession of invaders from Phoenicians to Carthaginians
to Romans.
.jpg)
We decided to move the
boat once more today, back around to the beautiful beach
we discovered on our walk yesterday. We'll head
into Alghero once again tomorrow and hope to get a
little better news regarding the weather picture.
The radio is still calling for gales. In the
meantime, we are certainly learning our way around this
little corner of Sardegna!
.jpg)
Next Entry
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
|
|
|
|
