Our escape from Sardinia

With a day sail ahead we aimed to start early but our plans were scuppered when the engine would not start! It was locked in position and panic set in but no need to worry Mark to the rescue! Thankfully Mark is a miracle worker and after having to invest in some new tools we were back up and running.

Finally just after 1pm (so much for early start) we set off from Olbia, yep and into another head wind! This was the seventh time we had been down this stretch of water and we were pretty glad to be seeing the back of it.  Once out the channel we used the wind to our advantage and were hard on the wind leaving the bay, still no sign of the elusive dolphins which live in the bay!  Although we did see a large string ray on the surface (we had previously seen 2 smaller ones in the water whilst swimming) which was quite exciting. The day was pretty tiring with Force 4 on the nose for the entire day we had to hand steer rather than use our autopilot to make as much progress as possible.  The day will be remember for the fantastic super yachts we saw along the way, the area around Porto Cervo & Costa Smerelda is pretty amazing for volume of huge power and sail boats, Magnum must look so tiny! 

Beautiful super yachts

After our late start we managed to sail further than expected and reach the north coast of Sardinia and anchored for the night.  Up early the next day and motor on as the wind had not woken up.  As we motored between the mainland and La Magdalena it felt quite sad to know we were very unlikely to ever return to this beautiful area but felt like time to be moving on.

As we left the shelter of the islands and were into the Straits of Bonifacio a small swell started to develop within the hour as we approached the first headland we were motoring into a big swell, not what we needed.  Another Waiquiez (same make as Magnum) a few feet bigger than Magnum motored alongside asking where we were heading we indicated West and he slowly crossed us bashing into the swell to head north.  As he passed the point he turned 180 and headed back into our direction, as he passed he indicated that the swell was too big! We carried on and battled to hold onto our breakfast! We were in the process of reassessing out plans after over an hour of motor sailing into the continuing swell but knew we need to make progress or we would miss our weather window to leave Sardinia.  Thankfully as we round the next headland the wind started to build from the North West which meant we could start sailing which made the swell more manageable and within an hour it had died off and we had a lovely sail to Passage Fornelli/Stintino which is where we arrived in Sardinia almost 8 weeks before. One final pretty anchorage in Sardinia.

Mark enjoying gentle sail

Fornelli passage - look at the colour of the sea

Fornelli passage