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On our way back to Envoy we visit Sardinia for eight days both to share a holiday with our London-based daughter Amy and to check it out as a possible future cruising destination. Sardinia looks great in the cruising guides with many interesting anchorages and close proximity to the French island of Corsica, but an off-putting factor is its over-crowding during the peak summer months of July and August, especially by the self-absorbed rich and famous along the Costa Smeralda in the north-east. Oblong-shaped Sardinia is the second largest Med island measuring roughly 160km north to south by 100km east to west. It’s the most remote Med island, being the furthermost from surrounding mainland, has a population of 1.67m, and like Sicily is a self-governing autonomous region of Italy. Official languages spoken are Sardu and Italian.

Mountainous Sardinia (the Gennargentu Range rises to 1,834m) is not historically regarded as a seafaring nation but one of farmers and shepherds.
Now that term “historic” is interesting as we find one of the great aspects of cruising the Med is immersing ourselves in its history. We come from New Zealand which has the shortest human history of any country, being first settled by Polynesians about 1300AD (the exact date is not known), and where the oldest building was built in 1821. By comparison the earliest signs of human occupation in Sardinia are stone tools dating back 170,000 years while parts of buildings still stand that were built between 1,800 and 1,200 BC. These are cone-shaped stone towers known as Nuraghe, built for an unknown purpose but likely used as dwellings or for religious rituals. More than 7,000 of these unique-to-Sardinia structures still survive from an estimated 10,000 built.

Contributing to Sardinia’s colourful history is the fact that it was invaded consecutively by Phoenecians, Cathaginians, Romans, Vandals and Spanish before it became part of the new Republic of Italy in 1861.

ALGHERO
Eight days is too short a time to explore the whole island so after flying in to the capital – Cagliari we drive about 250km north-west to base ourselves in the historic town of Alghero.
Alghero lies on the Riviera del Corallo – the Coral Riviera, so-named for its rare red coral brought up from depths of over 80 metres by just a handful of licensed divers and fashioned into exquisite jewelry and ornaments.
It started as a fishing village in the 11th century and then had about 350 years of Spanish rule lasting to 1720, which has left an influence to this day. Now a thriving town with a population of 41,000 augmented by thousands of summer tourists drawn to Alghero’s atmosphere, historic Old Town, sandy beaches, marina, local sights, vineyards and great eateries specialising in fresh seafood.

Alghero Old Town’s impressive fortifications look like they can still withstand a siege

Beautifully ornate church steeple

This sweet shop with life-size pirate figures wasn’t at all tacky

GROTTO DI NETTUNO
An especially exciting day is the boat trip to the Grotto di Nettuno (Neptune’s Grotto), an extensive sea cave system named after the Roman god of the sea.
After arriving at the grotto’s mouth the expertly-handled tourist boat, about 70 feet long, first picks up a stout stern line attached to a mooring buoy, then heads bow first through the approximately one metre high swells into the cave’s narrow entrance. The crew then throw two heavy bow lines to shoremen who attach them to bollards and take up the slack while the boat still powers ahead taking up the strain of the stern line. With the boat temporarily secured the crew place a boarding platform over the bow to shore and assist the passengers, including some rather reluctant ones to take the seemingly perilous walk across the heaving platform to shore.
Two young Chinese ladies wearing ridiculously high heels for a boat trip struggle to get ashore and are then told their footwear is unsuitable for entering the grotto.
The grotto itself is extraordinarily spectacular with a pathway between stalagmites about 500 metres open to the public and a further 2,500 metres reserved for expert cavers. Inside the grotto is a mass of stalactites (descending from the cavernous roof) and stalagmites (ascending from the floor), built up over millions of years by calcium deposits from fresh water seepage. As it takes approximately 100-200 years for 1cm of calcium deposit to build, our minds are in awe of the process.

Ferry approaches cave

Watch out for the rocks! Ferry enters mouth of cave

Ferry’s bow held firm in the swell with stout lines

A small part of the impressive interior of the Grotto

MARINAS
During our car exploration we find good marinas located at Bosa, Alghero and Castelsardo. Several anchorages also appears to be sheltered in most conditions. Driving conditions are good with mostly well-maintained and signposted roads, plenty of places to stop for refreshments and loads of interesting sights. We’d definitely recommend Sardinia for a relaxing holiday with lots of variety.

A bleak day for our visit to Castelsardo

Amy and Laurie in Castelsardo main square below the fortress townwrapped up warm against the chill

Castelsardo

Stintino marina

FOR FOODIES
We’re surprised to find roast donkey and roast horse on many menus but can’t pluck up the courage to taste these local delicacies settling for culinary delights like grilled swordfish, octopus, squid, spaghetti with clams and roast pork (which they call “crispy roast piggy”).

At a great waterside taverna in Stintino we had Spaghetti Vongole – that is with clams and spaghetti with prawns – both delicious!

Envoy is now anchored at Argostoli, Cephalonia Island.

Sorry it’s been nearly three weeks since the last post – I’ll make it about weekly from now on.

We finally leave Lefkas Marina on Saturday 30 April with no particular technical issues except that our Robertson autopilot and rudder position indicator is intermittently not working. This is strange as it worked fine when we launched Envoy and later when we did our sea trial with Sailand engineers aboard, but it seems to have settled down since and is working fine now.
It’s early in the cruising season with hardly any cruisers around and a lot of tavernas and shops not open yet – but all that will change in the next couple of weeks.

Here is a great poem about going back to sea – a bit of poetic license on our part as Envoy isn’t exactly a “bark” but the feeling is the same.

My bounding bark, I fly to thee, I’m wearied of the shore;
I long to hail the swelling sea, And wander free once more:
A sailor’s life of reckless glee, That only is the life for me!
I was not born for fashion’s slave, Or the dull city’s strife;
Be mine the spirit-stirring wave, The roving sailor’s life:
A life of freedom on the sea, That is the only life for me!
I was not born for lighted halls, Or the gay revel’s round;
My music is where Ocean calls, And echoing rocks resound:
The wandering sailor’s life of glee, That is the only life for me!
Anon

After a shake-down cruise around some favorite destinations close to Lefkas we set off for Corfu about 65 miles north.
I wasn’t keen to test the water maker in the slightly contaminated waters of Lefkas Marina so test it in the crystal clear waters of Lakka Bay at Paxxos island. The procedure is to run the system with no pressure for 10 minutes to clear out the pickling chemicals used at the end of last season to protect the high pressure membrane, and then to run it normally. However the pump supplying sea water to the system wasn’t working so we put this on the short list of items to resolve at Gouvia Marina.
We also find a very small sea water leak to the forward bilge, which I think is coming from the aircon’s cooling water supply, so we’ve closed the seacock to see if this stops it.

Easter is celebrated later in Greece than other countries and in the small village of Lakka we’re able to see the local people marching to the stirring music of their band parading religious relics through the streets. Greece is still a country with strong traditional family and religious values and this is very apparent to us as we observe this long-practised ritual.

Easter parade at Paxxos Island

View of Envoy in the tranquil waters of Lakka, Paxxos Island

So far we’ve been towing our larger Nautica RHIB with the 25hp Yamaha and now want to lift it aboard. We recently replaced our stainless steel 3-wire lifting strop with one made using three high tensile polymer lines, and as the RHIB weighs about 250kg we want to test the whole system before lifting it too high out of the water – if one of the two boom winch cables or the lifting strop were to break it could be extremely dangerous. So the test is to lift the RHIB clear of the water and then for Diane and I to stand in it together with about 50 litres of water in two jerrycans providing in total about an additional 190kg. The system successfully handles this additional weight so we proceed to lift the RHIB with confidence and without problems.

In early May we enter Corfu’s Gouvia Marina – one of our favorites.
Here we’re meeting our friend Chris – our first visitor of the season. Chris is also known as “MacGyver” due to his special technical skills, and he quickly gets stuck into a multitude of jobs which I’ll detail in the next posting.

The local people are rather upset that the seamen who man the inter-island ferries are on a three-day strike for higher wages. Not only do the residents of Greece’s many islands rely on the ferries for transportation but there is a calamitous effect on the tourist trade which provides a large slice of Greece’s income. Even the supermarkets started to run out of some food items.

Engineer Angelos checks the water maker and confirms what we knew – the sea water pump dating from 2002 isn’t working. He removes it to his workshop and later reports the pump is too far gone to repair, especially for such an old unit and we opt for a new one at eye-watering expense to be sent down from Athens. After that’s installed the water maker works fine.

Angelos with new sea water pump for water maker (no wonder he’s smiling)

We also get contractors to clean the guest toilet holding tank’s level indicator, which has stopped working. The job entails removing the head as the holding tank is located underneath it. The level indicator has not been checked for at least 10 years and its float switch is found to be still in working order but needing a good clean.
While aboard they also dismantle, service and reassemble the master head, but it still doesn’t work correctly when discharging directly overboard. There appears to be a blockage in the discharge hose close to the seacock so we will use it only discharging to its holding tank, which is then emptied using a different through-hull fitting.

Contractors working on our main head

This is work-in-progress and the next step is to insert our portable LED-lit waterproof inspection camera (a gift from our great friend Frank) into the seacock from the outside.