We spent the day anchored off Fertilia. We went ashore mid morning to get some supplies, and these were satisfied by a pick up truck selling vegetables, and the supermarket for bread. We took the opportunity to photograph the Roman bridge just above the new road bridge. After lunch, we cleaned the BBQ of its many layers of congealed fat, so that it was pristine for cooking the salmon for John and Sharon in the evening. While the salmon (bought frozen) was disappointing, we spent a pleasant evening swapping stories and news of friends from Lagos.
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| The ruined Roman bridge |
We were late getting going, perhaps as a result of the previous evening, so it was nearly midday when we were at last ready to leave. The 20 miles that were notionally planned turned into 36 when the waypoints were put into the chart plotter, and a NW wind was expected, so we knew we had our work cut out. We were able to cut through between the island of Foradada and the headland north of Capo Caccia, observing where the tourist boats landed their passengers to walk up to the Caves of Neptune: a lot shorter hike than the walk down the cliffs and back. The rest of the journey was fairly tedious, as we motor-sailed into the wind that was distinctly north of north west.
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| Capo Caccia and the steps leading to the Caves of Neptune |
Fornelli encounter
We did not pay sufficient respect to the Fornelli Passage. The pilot described it as 'frightening enough' by day but this was only in the small print. We set up waypoints for the beginning, middle and end, but were unable to identify the leading marks from the description in the pilot.
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| Sunset over the Passagio dela Pelosa, off Ancora |
The day started peacefully enough. We planned a trip out to the Fornelli passage, only a mile or so away from our anchorage, to survey the passage and photograph the leading marks. While the generator was running, John downloaded the photos from the previous few weeks. We had lunch, and John went for a swim, checking out the keel, and cleaning the waterline of weed. At this point, Mo who had been e-mailing her boys, decided to prepare the ratatouille, and found the garlic (kept under the floor) floating in sea water. Our immediate reaction was that it was connected with our encounter with the Fornelli. As always, once water gets into the bottom of the boat, it distributes itself everywhere, and extracting it is painful. The bilge pumps are useless, and the dinghy pump could do only so much. The main bilge pump strumbox is thoughtfully placed on top of the fore and aft reinforcement into which the keel is fixed, so was well clear of the water. This time the engine bed was also full of water. We counted about 12 buckets.
During this process, we were knocked up by a guy from an Italian motorboat. He had spotted two young seagulls in the water nearby. John had noticed them earlier, but paid no attention as he assumed that these were early sexual rites. Sadly, one had managed to get a fishing lure with barbed hooks engaged in its wing in two places. The other bird had fishing line around its legs and wings and was thus irretrievably bound to its companion, and they were both moored to Fuga's anchor chain. Had we not intervened, they would inevitably have died, but sadly our veterinary skills were insufficient. The bird who was bound but not engaged to the fishing lure was released and could swim away from the dinghy, but seemed incapable of flying. The other died soon afterwards.
Fearing problems with the keel, we had wondered whether we had water coming in from the stern gland, and John had even mentioned the generator. So it was no surprise that when the leak was first spotted, it appeared to come from the generator raw water cooling inlet pipe. Removal of this pipe revealed no problems, but running the generator once more and then stopping it (so establishing a syphon through the filter), gave us our ingress. It seems there is a problem downside of the filter, associated with the water pump. Tomorrow may reveal all?
When things are not right on the boat, its surprising how they prey on your mind. John awoke in the middle of the night, and hearing running water, shot out of bed and turned the galley light on. Staring back at him were Mo's startled eyes, as she became accustomed to the unexpected surprise and light, while sitting on the toilet. Sorry, we had to share that with you.
The next morning we got stuck in dismantling the saloon furniture again to provide access to the generator. Once there, it was very difficult at first to reach the jubilee clip securing the water hose to the underside of the waterpump. While it appeared a little loose, it did not seem to want to tighten positively. When it was eventually freed up, the end of the hose was distorted, and where it passed through the generator casing, it had split to allow air in or water out. Sawing the end off and replacing it was surprisingly easy, but we seem to recall that we could not obtain rubber hose when we installed the generator, and used wire reinforced plastic hose instead. As it is a potential boat sinker, we need to replace these as soon as possible. While there, we changed the impeller: this was overdue, and necessitated grinding away a little of the fibreglass outer housing in order to get one of the screws in square.
We were a bit low on fruit, and so we decided to visit Stintino. When we arrived, we found that the changes anticipated in the pilot had indeed taken place, and there were now pontoons occupying much of the space previously available for anchoring. However, with only a handful of yachts at anchor there was no problem in finding room. We put the outboard on the dinghy, and set off hurriedly to try to make it to the shops before siesta time. There was very little room in Porto Mannu at all, let alone for the maximum 20m suggested, and we had to resort to tying the dinghy up to one of the resident boats. An old tuna fishing village, it was quite attractive. We particularly liked the local boats that were dow rigged with a long boom to support a sunshade. We found a supermarket and greengrocers, so quite quickly had what we needed and returned to the boat. After some lunch, we decided that the anchorage off Ancora was more attractive, and less busy, with easy swimming, so we returned there. In the evening we scouted out the yacht club at Ancora. It would have been hard pressed to take a reasonable size cruising yacht, and was given over to runabouts and dinghies.
The plan was to go to Capo Testa, some 45 miles at 071M from Ancora. The expectation was a gentle NW or NNW. We got going reasonably quickly, Mo leading the way. Neither of us have been sleeping well in the heat, and John had resorted to lashing our electric fan to the cupboard over the bunk. Mo claimed to have heard it switch itself off after an hour. As we made our preparations, the wind was blowing NE Force 3, but as winds have tended to change quite dramatically from NE to NW and back again, we were not too perturbed. We set off a little later than intended, but not too bad for us, at 0940, and once out of the shallows set the main and continued motoring. As the wind freshened, still from the NE, we set the jib, and made the best course we could. Gradually we picked up boat speed as the wind continued to come up, and it did slowly back towards the north. As the day progressed, however, we took one reef in, then rolled the jib a little, before finally taking in the second reef as the wind increased to Force 6 and then 7. We had decided to avoid Porto Torres (industrial), and did not want to go into Castelsardo if we could help it, as there was only the marina there. In the NNE wind I didn't fancy the dog leg entrance either. So we decided to look for shelter under Isla Rossa instead, probably not much more than half way to our original objective. Castelsardo looked really pretty, with its old village on the hill above the harbour. The coast in between appeared to consist of one beautiful long (9 miles) beach with mainly dunes behind.
The wind played tricks with us. Having died away almost as soon as we put Willie the wind generator up the previous evening, it started off with a little westerly flutter, then tried south easterly, either of which would have suited. Having made up its mind, it came back in and built up quickly to a fresh NE, exactly where we wanted to go. We set off, but retained one reef and kept back some of the jib. We took a long starboard tack, but perceived that the wind, now a full force 5, was veering so that on the next tack we were afraid we would be headed. As it happened, however, it freed up a little to allow us to clear a headland and go deep into a bay backed with great beaches, before we had to tack again. At this point we spotted Capo Di Monte Russu, a red rocked outcrop at the end of a beach, and we decided to go in for some R & R. We had been lusting after bacon and egg sandwiches; it had been a bit too hectic down below to make them, but now everything was possible. Curiously, the water temperature here was only 22.5C, a big difference from the bathwater temperatures we had experienced at Ancora. John managed a very fleeting dip. Late in the afternoon we decided we had better make a move, and were rewarded with a pleasant sail to Capo Testa with a wind that had both eased down a couple of notches and freed up to enable us to fetch our course in one tack. La Colba is a lovely broad anchorage with two beaches, and we shared it with just a handful of other boats.
Business as usual! The wind came up from the NE, and kept steadfastly ahead of us as we rounded Capo Testa. We had planned to get to an anchorage on Isola Caprera, but decided to extend our late lunch into the evening! John was not feeling too great and flaked out for the better part of the afternoon.
The wind had backed around to the north, and blown us into shallower water, leaving an uncomfortably low margin below the keel. We decided to move, and re-anchored in the middle of the channel up to the village. We then had another lesson in Sardinian custom and practice. We had read and observed, particularly at Stintino, that the water front was often let out to 'concessions', such as the local yacht club. They then have the right to organise the mooring and charge fees. We took the dinghy in to the village, and found a jetty to which we could tie up, albeit in a numbered place in very shallow water such that we had to raise the outboard engine. We then set off and found the supermarket. Returning, we loaded the shopping and went to set off, but the kill switch cord had been removed! Looking around for signs of any authority, the only visible was a hut on the beach. The lady, who fortunately spoke reasonable english, explained that the dinghy had not been properly moored fore-and-aft to the quay, so the propeller was damaging the boat next door. She had therefore removed the cord, so that she would find out the culprit. Please would we use the beach in future. While she insisted that the outboard had inflicted damage on our neighbour, it is difficult to conceive that any mark could be attributed to us amongst the many others. We then set off, anticipating an easy sail and a broad reach to our objective. No such luck! As we emerged from the inlet, so the wind swung round so that we could not quite fetch our course. As we reached the first waypoint, so it veered again, and we were again headed. While the pilots say that currents can be ignored, once more a significant current was against us! It proved to be a long and tortuous beat up to Caprera, with plenty of other traffic to keep us from being bored. The anchorage, however, proved to be delightful. The forecast for the next week is mainly westerly!
We remained at anchor, while most of the surrounding boats disappeared. A dinghy appeared with two officials of the National Park. As we had not purchased a permit to visit the islands, they were happy to sell us one for 22.50€, based on boat length, and a discount for a sailing boat rather than a motor boat. Another dinghy arrived later in the day, and checked the permit.
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