Wednesday 9 October 2019

It had been a peaceful night, but the boat rolled a little while at anchor, slightly disturbing our sleep. The plan was to leave the anchorage as soon as we were ready, but not to rush.  As our target departure time arrived, so did a boat from the Carabinieri, who asked to see our papers.  Their boat nudged up towards the side of ours and after they had explained what they wanted, they held out a sort of fishing net that we had to put both the boat’s papers and our passports into.  They backed way while they checked through everything, and eventually closed up again and returned all of the documents by the same method. It was a little disconcerting to give them our passports, but all was well in the end.

A surreptitious  shot of our Carabinieri visitors, while they checked another boat

There was no wind and we knew that we would have to motor all day, but other than that the weather was beautiful. We headed off around the south end of the Isola di St Antioco and then up the channel between there and the island of S. Pietro. A small pod of dolphins popped up to view us as we passed. We have been doing rather better for dolphins in the last few days, perhaps they are more prevalent on this quieter and more open, western side of the island

The channel between the two islands was very shallow and we had to take great care to stay on our planned path. The chart showed that the depth went down to about 4 metres, and we need 2.7 metres.  We were easily able to see the seabed through the clear water, even when it was much deeper than this minimum level.  The bottom was mostly sand, and inevitably this moves around over the years, so that the shallows are not always in the places that the charts indicate, but we managed to make our way through without mishap.

We saw the industrial facilities long before we arrived at Portsoscuso but these are in a separate commercial port, and while not attractive, we were able to look the other way. Portoscuso is an attractive little harbour, and the friendly marinaro came to greet us and direct us to an appropriate berth.

The supermarket we found had all sorts of refill options, including wine, we'll get some tomorrow

We had 2 unusual but parallel experiences later in the day. When I went to the office to pay for the berthage, the marinaro showed me the tariff for the boat on the price list, and then rounded the sum down to the nearest round number. Later, after exploring the town we went out for a meal.  Many of the restaurants seem to have decided that the season is over and were not open.  There were a few pizzarias, but we eventually found a very nice restaurant on the other side of the marina.  We had a lovely meal of traditional Sardinian delicacies, including meats and cheese as anti pasti, and then various pasta dishes, and the we each had Sardinian style tuna.  We rounded this off with seadas, which are deep fried pasta, with cheese and honey.  At the end of the meal, when the bill was presented, it was initially rounded down to the nearest 5 euros. When we actually paid, it was rounded down again. I have seldom had a bill reduced voluntarily before, so to have 3 reductions in 2 charges on the same day was truly remarkable.

The electricity units on the pontoons look like toadstools at night

Distance covered today	18	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	472	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	1525	nautical miles

Steve (and Tricia)