The Good Ship Magnum: Windy week for Dan

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Windy week for Dan

After a few days tied to the commercial quay in Olbia in the heat we were keen to get sailing and pick up a breeze. A force 4 south easterly was ideal for heading north up the Sardinian coast, we had made good progress when the wind started to die so thought we would head into Porto Cervo to anchor. Porto Cervo is the marina for the super rich with many super yachts, so the marina was not an option for us. Anchoring did not go well, we actually hit an unmarked under water rock!. After a fair amount of swearing and panic we checked all was ok but I was very reluctant to try again with anchoring so we headed back out. Wind had picked up again, so sails were up but after 10 minutes the wind shifted 180 degrees in 30 secs and whilst we quickly furled the foresail the wind increased to over 20 knots which was pretty much on the nose! Things were not going well for us but we all cheered up as we spotted a couple of dolphins. We then battled to reach Porto Palma on Maddelena island to anchor for the night, large bay with a couple of sailing schools and already quite a few boats anchored. We anchored in about 20 knots but this dropped off slightly as we went to bed only to increase to over 25 knots and gusting at 2am, Mark and I had a restless night from 2am to 6am when we finally managed a few hours sleep, Dan slept like a baby.

Dan sailing to Palau

Next morning we headed to Palau which is a small seaside town on the north cost of Sardinia, it is the main departure point for ferries to the Maddalenas with a reasonable size marina but also a few mooring buoys off a small beach. We sailed up wind in over 20 knots and had a lovely sail in the sunshine, with only around 8 miles (including tacks) it was perfect. The rest of the day was a bit of a haze but we did go ashore and locate an ice cream shop!

The next morning there was great excitement as we caught the Green train from Palau to Tempio which is in the mountains. The train took about 2 hours making its way through the beautiful countryside. It was a bit rickety so those without so much bum padding were suffering after 2 hours.

Tempio is a reasonable sized town but there was little to see, we wandered around the streets admiring the pretty buildings and visited the cathedral before heading out to a park for our picnic. A little odd for a town on the tourist trail all the shops closed at 1pm (only arrived at 11.30am) and had not re-opened when we had to catch the return train at 4.30pm.

Pretty streets of Tempio

Dan & Mark in park in Tempio

Views from the Green train

After a day relaxing in Palau, well as much as you can when there is 20+ knots blowing all day, it is quite wearing, we sailed back to islands and a different anchorage on Caprera at Cala Portese which was a surprisingly large anchorage which already had around 30 boats anchored as it was a Sunday afternoon but it did also have the elusive park authority buoys so we picked one up. As we settled in for the night most of the boats left the anchorage with a limited number remaining on buoys. Over the next couple of days we enjoyed the snorkelling from the boat, seeing a common octopus, greater hermit crab plus lots of fish including the Annular bream, two banded bream, Salpa, Wrasse, grey mullet – we have a new chart to identify fish! Not forgetting that we had 25-30 knots for the entire time we were there, more wind!

Enjoy a glass of bubbly to celebrate Dans graduation

Beautiful blue sea

We were then lucky to have a good breeze to sail back to Palau as from here Dan could catch a bus to the airport and save us a 30+ mile sail back to Olbia. With 15-20 knots we had a reasonable quick sail giving Mark the opportunity to race (not that they knew) with some of the bigger charter boats heading in our direction. We also passed the Bear Rock which stands on the hill close to Palau and is a Sardinian natural monument.