We set sail for the island of Isola di Mal di Ventre ( Upset stomach island ), so called because of the sailor sailing its shore complained of sea sickness due to the rough weather around its shores. Apparently this island was declared and Independant state by an Italian truck driver, who wrote to Berlusconi and the UN asking for independence. He was eventually jailed for 4 million Euros tax evasion. Whilst jailed he went on hunger strike, protesting political asylum and after 2 month, subsequently died.

The island itself is barren and desolate. We anchored up next to a French yacht. They probably wern’t expecting anyone else to join them.

 

 

After a reasonably restful night, we set our sails and made way for CarloForte. After an hour the wind died down to nothing and we had to start the iron maiden and engined for the next 7 hours.

Ed had an idea to try some anchorages that lay about 12nm from Carloforte. We popped our head into one called Cala Domestica, but were beaten in by a yacht motoring past us at great speed, simply to get a spot before we entered. As there was limited room within this anchorage we carried on south to the next one, Mausa, near Pan Di Zucchero. This was initially bearable, but during the cooking of our evening meal became unbearable. We scoffed our food as quickly as it would go down and having just enough time to get to CarloForte before dusk set sail in a strong breeze to the island.

As we approached the main channel to CarloForte, we came across a mass of bouys and looking through the binoculars determined what we could only describe as being Tuna nets. Totally unmarked and unlit. Avoiding these we made our way to Carloforte to a welcome by a lonely Ormagetori, which Ed had requested earlier to take our lines. The other welcome we got was thousand of mosquitos. So we managed to enter and tie up at 21:00, just before dusk and after settling down, made our way to the seafront and a local pizzeria.