When Ed eventually got up we had our breakfast and then tried a new lifting technique for the tender. We decided to lift her, complete with engine attached, from the fore deck using the geneka halyard and electric winch. She balanced well and was in the water in no time. So a new technique, which I’m sure Ed and Elaine can adopt when sailing together. We also checked out the bow thruster, as Ed seemed to think it was lacking in power. We did this by lowering the Go Pro, attached to a boat hook,

This confirmed that there was no damaged. If anything, it may be weakened batteries, as they are 10 years old and probably need replacing.

Jobs done, we took a ride to the beach in the tender. The beach is sandy and inviting, with crystal clear sea waters. There is some dry foliage, but I believe this gets cleared up before the start of every season, as I saw small bulldozers, pushing the sand and foliage into the sea. The walk up the hill proved uneventful, but there is obviously a holiday resort as the landscape is peppered with quite attractive villas for rental.

Our plan was to head south, but being men of Lesiure , or as our friend Massimo calls us ” NO WHERE MEN”, we decided to visit the island of “Tavolara”, some 6 nm away.

Tavoilara island is 5km long and 1km wide. In the 19th and 20th centuries, a tiny kingdom was set up on the island by the Bertoleoni family as the Kingdom of Tavolara, sanctioned by Charles Albert, King of Sardinia.



The Bertoleonis (royal family of Tavolara)

Nothing much of this island apart from a couple of restaurants, one of which is owned by a chap named Tonino Bertoleoni, who is apparently the current claimant to the island. There are, I’m informed guided tours up to the top, but I saw no evidence of that when visiting.

Well the time has come to leave our home of two days and continue our sail south.

Our destination is Cala Liberotto, some 26 nms south, and the only one with protection from northerly wind in a radius of 26 nms. If it doesn’t work out, we would have an additional 24 nms to go and find refuge in Santa Maria Navaresse, but I’m continually optimistic that all will be well.

We decided to sail off our anchorage, which went fine and without event, and set a course south. A cracking sail, with ever increasing winds. As we approached our destination we had winds in excess of 18 kts and probably .5 metre waves, and wondered what the anchorage had in store. Turning into the bay, the waters were a brilliant turquoise and no white horses and very minimal swell. All good so far. turning into wind we put our main away and edged into 4 metres of water, where we dropped our hook. No real need for reverse as the 15kt wind pushed us back sufficiently for the anchor to set. In fact we were probably reversing at 1kts when the anchor dug in and put a firm stop to our backwards movement. A little reverse for safety sake and we were in. Looking at the charts we may well be in Cala Ginepro rather than Liberotto. Will ask the locals when we go ashore.

Again, another fantastic anchorage and hopefully with the wind forecast to drop, it’ll be even more comfortable in a few hours.