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Monday, June 4th, Budelli, La Maddalena Islands,
Italy
Awakening this morning to sunshine, warm temperatures
and light winds for the first time in a week, Joe and
the girls wasted no time in taking a quick dinghy ride
to the "pink beach." After a week on our own, we
share the anchorage once again with Cenou. Thanks
to Larson, although not in the way you might think, we
are still able to share images of our picturesque
surroundings with you.
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Although we had the place to ourselves when it was
cloudy and rainy, the hordes are descending upon us now that the sun is
out. It seems this little corner of Budelli is
quite a popular place. Chances are all the charter
boats and day trippers will clear out before sundown and
we will have the anchorage back to
ourselves once again. We are still well ahead of
the notorious crowds that spend July and August
frolicking through the Med. Nearly empty
anchorages are always a welcome feature, as we spent the
week exploring Porto Cervo and Cannigione on mainland
Sardegna before coming to Budelli, one of the seven
large islands that make up La Maddalena archipelago, off
its northeast corner.
Bonifacio, on the southern tip of Corsica, is a cool little town with a busy harbor
nestled in a deep crevice carved in the limestone
cliffs, with the old walled town perched atop the hill
to the south. Zia docked closer to the harbor
entrance all by herself.
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Aside from dropping off the lads to catch their ferry,
Zia's stores were in serious need of replenishing after
a solid week of feeding six mouths onboard. The
local grocery store in the mostly touristy town was not quite up to the task, but we
got enough provisions to keep us happy for a few days
and set out on Sunday for Porto Cervo, the swanky resort
town on the northeastern coast of Sardegna.
An
old friend from my days in high school in Rome, Andy
Griffis, has friends and relatives who are long time
residents of Porto Cervo. As always, we leapt at
the chance to hook up with some locals. There were
some nasty rumors about a luxury cruising tax that
Sardegna imposes on all boats who show up in their
waters between June 1 and September 30 which would
amount to about 500 Euros for Zia. Although we
were interested in seeing more of Sardegna, we weren't
at all interested in getting stuck with such a hefty fee
for the privilege. That gave us only five days to
get it done. With no time to waste, we had a fantastic sail for the
30 mile trip, ahead of another blow that was supposed to
start later that day. The anchorage in Porto Cervo
is well
protected, so we decided to try riding out the coming
mistral at anchor.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the more-art-than-science activity of anchoring, it is a bit like
sailing itself. Although the basics are always the
same, the subtle differences between each occasion make
every experience unique. The dominant factor when
anchoring is the texture and depth of the bottom. Sand is the best medium for
holding your anchor in place. The bottom in Porto
Cervo is a mix of sand and rock and weed, but we found a
nice sandy spot and landed a bulls eye with our 66lb
spade. Well aware of the winds to come, we backed
down on the anchor with both engines up to their maximum
speed. The marks on land that I had lined up to
verify our position didn't budge from each other,
telling us that we
were holding firm. Regardless, Joe swam out in
mask and snorkel to
check the anchor, as is his custom.
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As
this was our first mistral at anchor, we decided to put
out a second one, just in case. We took our small
Danforth and rigged up the line for it. Joe took
it out in the dinghy to drop it. We had selected
the spot already, based on the direction of the current
wind as well as the projected winds. Aside from
the force 7 winds, and keeping our anchor in one place,
the other overriding concern in this exercise was a
patch of very hard looking rock about 150 feet aft and
to starboard.
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We
liked our anchor's sandy spot too much to move, and we
were well positioned vis-à-vis the only other boat at
anchor. A secondary anchor off the port bow would keep us from getting too close to
those boat killers if the wind switched to the
southwest. Within 15 minutes we had set the second
anchor off the port bow, forward and about 20 degrees
out from our primary anchor. Good to go!
Speaking of overriding concerns, I hope by now you
understand that this whole time we have been messing
with the anchor, we have also been trying to connect to
the internet. Come on....Swanky swank Porto Cervo
has got to have it goin' on! Indeed, there
are several promising powerful signals, but no free
ones. A little aside here: Italy has this
anti-terrorism law that requires signal providers to
make a copy of your ID when you buy a username and
password for wi-fi access. When you connect to
their signal and open an explorer page, it redirects you
to a login page. Usually you can buy access right
there, but not in Italy. You have to go in so they
can make a copy of your passport before they give you
the codes. Hopeful, Joe and I set out in search of
a code.
Porto Cervo is a very exclusive destination but it
doesn't really start happening until July or so.
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The streets, shops, bars and cafes are mostly sleepy and
empty as we walk through, and so, apparently, are the
internet shops on the island. We are told that the
marina wireless system is in the middle of an upgrade
and consequently inoperable. After asking around
for the Hotel Balocco, we find ourselves hiking up the
hill to the four star hotel perched on the hillside.
We were receiving their five bar signal as well as the
marina's but it proved to be equally useless.
The desk clerk informed us that even their phones
weren't working, but try back tomorrow. We did
manage to get a free connection that allowed us to get
emails in and out, so we survived.
Dejected, we hightail it back to the boat for dinner and
bed. The wind had picked up a bit by then, but
didn't start really howling until the next day.
With full confidence in our anchors, we braved the soggy
dinghy ride to shore and spent the afternoon exploring
and having lunch. We basically walked the whole
town that afternoon, although we never did see the
grocery store! The girls made the best use of the
windy day and invented "sailing" in their Heelys, using
their jackets to harness the wind.
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Whenever possible, we did a visual check on our floating
home, just to make sure! You can see how windy it
is with all the whitecaps back here in the very
protected harbor.
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Despite all our precautions, we were still unable to
sleep well in the howling wind that night. The top
gust that we saw registered 46 knots on the instruments.
There were plenty of strong ones and a very steady
35 knots in the lulls. Joe and I both slept in our
clothes, in case we needed to jump up and deal with a
dragging anchor. Thankfully, our anchors held.
No shore parties the next day, as we bunkered down on
the boat, baking cookies, watching movies, reading, and
listening to the wind howl.
Several very entertaining hours were also spent tearing
apart a digital camera.
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Lately, there is something with us and cameras that
hasn't been a good match. We had ordered up a new
waterproof camera that we picked up last June when we
went home before the Atlantic crossing. A few
weeks before Larson and Gav were due, and only a month
away from running out of warranty, it refused to turn on
anymore. I managed to get Pentax to consider
extending the warranty for long enough for Larson to
mail it back to them on his return to the States June
1st. We also ordered up a new waterproof camera
for him to bring with him. We were so excited.
This one was waterproof down to 33 feet and shock
resistant, able to sustain a drop of up to 5 feet.
Sounds like the perfect camera for a boat. And it
was, until we put the waterproof features to the test.
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Shortly after my swim to the beach with it, it starting
acting funny. Half an hour later Joe swam it back
to the boat and discovered the waterproof battery and
memory compartments flooded with seawater. We
couldn't believe it! It too was packed up and sent
back with Larson. We were down to our original
camera, which occasionally came up with a memory card
error, but worked well enough once you got it past that
little glitch. The
thing is, this one wasn't waterproof. After a very
unfortunate series of events involving some great photos
of cliff jumping, that camera too was rendered
nonfunctional. Hey, at least we saved the
pictures!
Larson, in a very generous gesture, allowed us to hang
onto his camera until we are able to get one of our two
"waterproof" cameras back from warranty repair.
The next day, the wind eased up for 24 hours or so
and we moved over a few miles to Cannigione, a much more down to earth piece of "real"
Sardegna where we could get some groceries and spend a
few days in a more practical setting. The bottom
wasn't as good as Porto Cervo with mud and sand, but we
felt much more at home wandering the streets and walking
into restaurants. We even found a Mexican joint
called Hasta Luego. The chipotle hot sauce was
HOT! The grocery store was excellent, with Illy
coffee at 5 euros a can and the Sardegnian red we had
liked at dinner the other night.
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We
had also been told that we might be able to find an
Italian SIM chip and phone number for our mobile phone
over this way. We inquired at the internet hotspot
(3 euros per half hour). Diego, who had lived in
Orlando for a few years and spoke excellent English,
kindly offered to take Joe to the nearby town of
Arzachena to buy one. Again, Italian bureaucracy
interfered, requiring a tax id number to make the
purchase. Luckily, Diego was willing to supply his
info in order for us to get our new phone number that
should work for us for the next few months. What a
nice guy!
With our new phone, we
were finally able to get in touch with Cenou, who has
also been internet challenged lately, and arrange to
hook up on Sunday at Isola Budelli, only 12 miles from
Cannigione and 20 from Bonifacio, where Cenou was
docked. In talking to a number of folks in the
boat business in Porto Cervo and Cannigione, we had
determined that the threatened cruising tax on boats
over 14 meters was currently the center of a heated
political battle and wasn't being enforced by anyone and
not to worry about it. Cenou was game and, true to
plan, showed up on Sunday in time for a lunch spread of
falafel and homemade hummus on Zia.
I
sure do hope we find an internet connection soon.
These updates are getting way too long!
Next Entry
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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.
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