Our next destination was set to be Santa Maria Navarrese and we weighed anchor at 1041 and set a southerly course in reasonable winds and, as usual on this trip, we managed to sail all the way to the entrance of our destination.

We were welcomed by to marina staff members, who took our lines, and were extremely friendly, as were the staff in the office. €50 per night and a discount for Cruising Association Members of 10%.

We were here two years ago, and neither Ed nor I can remember much about it. Looking at our logs of two years ago, we reminded ourselves that we arrived here quite late in the evening and left early the next day. So that’s probably why we don’t remember much about this town and not for the fact that we overindulged. Phew a relief.

We settled into our new home, and then took a walk into town, up a slight incline and a distance of a kilometre. We never ventured this far on our last visit. The town is delightful. Full of hotels, restaurants, shops and delightful properties. We ventured further up the hill, past ever more beautiful houses, overlooking the marina and bay. We were tempted to eat out, but Ed and I made a pact to eat on board and so we descended back to the marina and to Arctura. Our neighbours, were a delightful Swiss family, who invited us for a drink on their, slightly smaller Dufour, and we struck up a good rapour. back to Arctura, and down to the special business of watching Liverpool beat Tottenham, in the UEFA league final 2-0, Alex will be happy as his team became the champions.

The next day we decided to get to tourist boats and visit the caves, some 12 miles north the the marina. At €46, plus the additional €8 to enter the caves, it seemed quite expensive, but we decided to go for it. We just about managed to catch the 0930 boat, but were a little rushed and forgot a few things, such as Edwards iPhone, swimming trunks and towels. Anyway, we made our way out of the marina and along the coast, which we had said the previous day, but this time a lot closer, at times literally 4 metres from the steep cliff face. I think the biggest danger being so close is falling rocks rather than depth.

The coast is stunning, the cliffs simply rise virtically out of the sea. Occasionally, there are incredible beaches along the 12 miles of coast the we visited. You have the option of stopping at beaches or going to caves, we choose the caves. There is however a compulsory beach stop for lunch, with a pleasant restaurant located some 300 metres from the shore. We stopped here and had a couple of basic pasta dishes at reasonable prices.

We visited two caves, Grotta del Fico and Grotte del Beau Marino. Both are amazing and worth the visit. The cost of entry was €8 and €10 respectively.

The boat tour, with stops, lasts the whole day and covers approximately 15 miles. We left at 0930 and didn’t get back until 1800. We’ll worth the money and in my opinion should not be missed.

We invited our Swiss friends for a drink at the marina bar and exchanged sailing stories. A really pleasant family and hopefully we’ll stay in touch and may meet again.

This is an amazing quite and yet very sociable town, with many bars, restaurants and activities, one of which includes diving, which is probably fabulous in the crystal clear turquoise waters in this region.

The next day we walked into town to pick up some basic food supplies and walked down towards the beach and back to the marina. The beach looks fantastic, clean and with inviting waters. I dare say this town is awfully busy in the height of summer.

We slipped lines at noon and engined up the coast again and onto the anchorage of Cala Goloritze, which we had passed by ferry the prior day. Lovely scenery, and we were going to stay overnight, but it was rather folly, with passing pleasure boats and northerly swell. So we moved onto an anchorage south of Arbatax, Cala Frailis.

5th June 2019

Slipping lines at 1056, we raised sails whilst still in the marina and headed out of Porto Corallo and into open water. Our planned destination is Villasimius. We managed to sail until 1420, when the wind dropped and on went the engine. As we approached the south eastern tip of Sardinia, “Capo Carbonara”, the wind pipped up and we managed to sail the last 2nms to an anchorage in ” Spiaggia di Campulongu”, which is just a stones throw from Marina Di Villasimius.

The anchorage seemed very settled and protected from the south easterly swell and there were at least 8 yachts already at anchor. So we dropped the hook in 8 mtrs and decided to see how Arctura settled. All seemed fine, and calm, and as we sat on deck more and more yachts arrived.

We watched as they anchored and I made a note of all the different nationalities we had in our bay. Two Canadian, several English, Australian, Dutch, French, Swedish and even a RAF ensign, were all anchored in our Cala. Quite appropriate for the 75th anniversary of the D Day landings, and NOT a German in sight.

As I sat on deck watching our D-Day contingent, I thought of my Grandfather, “Maximilian Szafranski”, who served in the Polish Allied Forces, under General Anders, in the Second World War. I now regret, not asking more question of him when he was alive.

This anchorage is quite a find, settled peaceful and quite. Even overnight and next morning, when the wind turned to a westerly at 15 kts, it wasn’t to lumpy and certainly not rolly.

We decided not to stay in Goloritze, as there was to much swell and it became very rolly. So we weighed anchor and headed to a small anchorage, just south of Arbatax, called Frailis. We anchored in 3.5 metres and about 100 metres of the beach. A very pleasant anchorage and in June was quite of noise from the beach., but reports say it becomes quite noisy in July and August. there were 4 other yachts anchored in this Cala and we had a wonderfully peaceful and still night.

Another highly recommended anchorage.

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.