Dragonflies and lots of sea (Sardinia - Menorca)

 

Well we haven’t really given Sardinia a chance to show her true self. I’m sure there’s so much more to this beautiful rugged country than we’ve been able to see staying here on anchor for barely a week. That said, I will give my impressions from what little we have seen:

People here don’t seem as friendly as the Greeks; on our travels, a smile or a wave has always been acknowledged and usually returned. When waved at, the Sardinians will either ignore you completely, or disdainfully stare at you in an ‘are you mad??’ way.

The unofficial uniform appears to be fluorescent orange or lime green football shorts for men with nothing on top other than a deep tan. The ladies; small bikinis with the maximum amount of buttocks on show. (Like a scientist, I have been able to confirm this through repeated careful observation)

The Sardinians we have seen spend their days either on loud booze cruises dancing on deck, or rafted up together on motorboats playing really bad Black Lace style Euro disco music at full volume. For some reason they also randomly shout: ‘whooot whooot!........whooot whooot!’

I realise it is completely unfair to judge a place by it’s holidaymakers - you wouldn’t judge Fiji or Bali by the Aussies, or Prague or Dublin by the Brit stag parties that prowl their streets. ...

All that aside, come the evening, the anchorage clears, and the noisy motor boats scurry home. The twinkle of lights on shore once again reflect in the flat calm water and the bay reverts to peaceful tranquility.... Serenity Now!

We left there this morning around 9, I needed to gently push the bow of a neighbouring boat away as we lifted anchor as he had swung round to be sitting directly above it. I exchanged French pleasantries (this isn’t a euphemism for swearing... I really did: “Bonjour, Ca va?.... Merci!”) with the gentleman on the helm of the other boat as we pushed against each other’s bows. Chez later pointed out that they were in fact Spanish not French... oh well, I think he got the gist of what I was saying!

Our initial destination for the day is a supermarket a few hours along the coast in the Capital - Cagliari.

We never made it there... after an en-route chat and a look at the forecast weather, we jointly decided that a better option is to sail West for the next two or three days. This might at first seem an extreme decision, but given the strong Mistral wind predicted, we can either run for the Balearics before it hits, or stay laid up in Sardinia until it blows itself out. We chose the former, and hopefully risking only a mild case of scurvy by not getting our fresh fruit and veggies from the supermarket, we continue on our way.

It’s hard to know what to write on these long passages: there’s lots of sea, it’s hot, it gets dark, the moon comes up, the stars come out, it gets wet, it gets cold, the sun comes up, it gets dry and hot again, and there’s still lots of sea.

When something out of the ordinary happens, it becomes the highlight of the day: well today’s highlights (so far at least) is the addition of 10, (yes, 10!) dragonflies to our crew - I’m being kind, they are in fact stowaways, but we don’t have irons small enough to clamp them in, so it’s crew for now. They flit around, mainly sitting on the rail out of the sun and letting their wings flutter in the breeze. Another monotony breaker today was a turtle drifting by. At first glance, it looked very much like a big polished log, but as we drew closer we saw it’s flippers gently sculling, and as we passed he oh so lazily lifted his head to check us out. Other than that... as I say: there’s lots of sea!

Waking from one of my not infrequent naps, Chez shows me a video of something I missed; a wonderfully playful pod of small striped dolphins had joined her at the bow and put on the usual display of streamlined frolicking.

Not much to report on the second overnight - nothing in fact, didn’t see another boat. The wind started picking up at 5am, with us about 35nms from our bolt hole from the wind on Menorca.

This pick up in wind led to an exhilarating 6 hours heeled over until we eventual reached the safety behind the lee of the island. We continued somewhat more sedately along the Southern coast until finding a suitable spot to drop just off a long sweeping tourist beach.

Both very tired, very glad to be able to rest - the crossing from Italian Sardinia to Spanish Menorca has been 52 hours in total.