Friday 11 October 2019

The best laid plans….

We have to get Gerry and Mary to a place where they can return to Cagliari for their flight on Saturday. Our target was to get to Oristano, a reasonably large town half way up the western side of Sardinia.  There is a rail service direct from there to Cagliari, and it seems to run fairly regularly.  Their flight is in the evening, so there is plenty of time during the day to make the journey. However, we were aware that the marina there is too shallow for us. The guide book, current edition, but published in 2015, says that it is possible to berth in an inner section of the commercial harbour, and our verification using Google Earth did indeed show boats where we expected them to be.  However, we had also read some things that put doubts in our minds, so we checked further yesterday, eventually phoning a number that we had located, and we found ourselves talking to the Coast Guard, who did not speak any more English than we do Italian. We were struggling to make ourselves understood, although he did ask if we had a problem.  In the end we gave up on the call and tried the marina, where they spoke much better English.  We explained our problem and asked for confirmation that we would not get into the marina. “No Way” was the response. We then asked about alternatives, could we use the commercial harbour? No, this is now under military control, and we are not allowed to use it. I guess in an absolute emergency it would be possible, but we did not want to claim this.  So, the alternatives left were to stay where we were for another night and M & G go from there, or proceed to Oristano and anchor there.  Even though it is fifty miles further up the coast, the journey from Oristano to Cagliari is an hour shorter than from Portoscuso. Easy decision, although this would then require ferrying our guests to the beach in the tender, as we have now done a few times.

We dispatched Gerry to the bakery to get bread as soon as it opened at 07:30, and were leaving Portoscuso by 8:00.  Fortunately, we had a finger pontoon berth, so we did not have to spend time putting the passerelle away. (We had also had access to clean a dirty mark off the hull that we could not otherwise have reached.)

Initially there was no wind but surprisingly large waves and we motored with the sails up for some hours. It was a long straight course, with little in the way of headlands.  We passed a ship at anchor, and more than 2 hours later could still see the ship and the chimney in the industrial complex at Portoscuso.

We had to pass the gloriously named village of Buggerru. We had so wanted to stop there, but regrettably there was no appropriately sheltered spot for an overnight stay, and no useful inland transport links.

Eventually the wind freshened and changed direction a little, and we were able to sail properly.  It was glorious.  The sea flattened off, and the boat was really eating up the miles.  It was a perfect sailing end to the week for our guests.

We entered the Gulfo di Oristano and made our way carefully past the fish farms and then prepared to anchor.  Unfortunately, the windlass chose the last anchorage of the year to play up, having worked perfectly since we were in Ibeza.  An hour was spent checking fuses, and electrical connections before we concluded that we had to drop the anchor, even if it had to be retrieved by hand when we leave (I can’t wait!). 

A couple of glasses of the wine that we had bought in Portoscuso were downed in celebration, and we ate and watched yet another spectacular sunset.

 

We called this dinosaur bread. 

Distance covered today	45	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	517	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	1570	nautical miles

Steve (and Tricia)