Photo: Northern coast Isola di San Pietro
Our first night in Sardinia, anchored in Porto Giunco, was a very rolly night with a South Easterly roll coming into the bay so much so that Gail slept or dozed in the cockpit and Brian did the same in the saloon. The following morning we upped anchor and headed 4nm north to Cala Pira, anchoring in 5m on a sandy bottom. There was still a swell coming into the bay but the forecast had the wind turning north later in the morning which sorted the swell out. We spent a pleasant 3 days at Cala Pira going for walks ashore and sitting out a Mistral blow with winds up to 40 knots. Finally we upped anchor and motored around to anchor outside the marina at Villasimius, where we provisioned before motor sailing 46nm to anchor at Teredda, Porto Malfantano.
We anchored in the middle of three bays the first night, however it turned out to again be very rolly, so the next morning we moved to the western bay, much better. We stayed there for a week, taking walks ashore, having lunch at the beach restaurant, afternoon card games, drinks and met Americans Laura and Mark, Sabbatical III and Australians Melinda and Dave, Sassoon. On Thursday 23rd June we left at 06:00 and motored to Marine Sifredi, Carloforte on Isola di San Pietro. They don’t refer to this as the Motoranean for nothing. On our way to Carloforte, we again saw numerous old lookout towers on the cliff tops and hillsides. We guess the strategic position of Sardinia made it a target in the olden days as a staging post for North Africa. We plan to use the marina to restock, refuel and wait for a weather window for the overnight passage to the Balearic Islands. The Mistral or strong winds tend to come off the coast of southern France, through the Bay de Leon and pass between Sardinia and the Balearics, so we want a time when there are none in the forecast.
We managed to get the loan of a car for an afternoon and tour the island. Isola di San Pietro is not very big and its main industry apart from tourism is tuna fishing. Most restaurants in town have many tuna dishes on the menu. The northern shores are rugged and quiet beautiful in their isolation, and it is in this area the island has large tuna pens and in the past a large tuna canning factory.
The town of Carloforte is rather small but has a lovely community feel to it, with pastel painted houses with iron balconies and a lovely tree lined Main Street in front of the harbour. Tourism is not extensive here with smaller numbers doing day trips across from Sardinia. The locals are very friendly and provisioning was comparatively easy due to the close proximity of everything. The area is also home to a now discontinued industry in Salt production using the traditional salt lake approach and the naturally occurring bountiful supply of sunshine to evaporate the water leaving the salt deposits. The industry apparently thrived here in the 19th century but has been abandoned. The lakes are still visible with their lower walls and ancient rusting harvesting machinery. We went for a walk around the lakes now occupied by large numbers of different aquatic birds, including flamingos, herons and egrets.
A weather window has finally opened for us and we leave for the 191nm sail (hopefully) to the Balearic Islands tomorrow with Wind Pony and Sassoon.