Italian adventures await.

At 7am on the 18th August, exactly 21 days after arriving in Fornells, we slipped from mooring bouy no.42 and poked our nose out to sea. Not exactly in ideal conditions, dressed in foul weather gear and braving the rain and threatening clouds. The confused sea caused by the two big bad GWulfs stirring it up for the past two weeks was a bit of a shock to the system, but we no longer cared; we had to break free from Menorca's clutches.

We had an unpleasant passage, an uncomfortable sea and the most frightening lightening storm we've ever encountered. Surrounded by the storm for around two hours during our first night, we were seriously preparing to abandon ship in the event of being holed by a lightening strike. Thankfully the dawn bought more favourable conditions and the sea flattened during the second day, allowing us to crash study our Italian phrase book. Depending on the wind direction on passage, we had planned three optional landfalls at the top, middle and bottom of the west coast of Sardinia. Arriving at nightfall and in the middle, we picked up a mooring at San Marco in the shelter of the Gulf of Oristano and awoke the following day under the ancient ruins of Tharros, IN ITALY!

The following morning we sailed the final 4nM across the bay to Torre Grande marina where we firstly re-fuelled before being allocated a berth. Over 20 knots of wind made manoeuvring on and off the fuel berth 'interesting' but the marina staff were helpful, experienced and friendly - thankfully without much need of communication, the first day in a new country with a new language can be a little stressful. The city of Oristano was just 7km away and we were able to catch a bus directly from the marina. Getting the utmost out of our 70c bus ride we pooled the chores of re-provisioning and a cyber fix with some pleasurable sightseeing and enjoyed a wonderful day trip. It felt like heaven to be in a marina after 42 days on the hook, excluding our 2days on the island pontoon in Mahon; we made the very most of a two night stay before sadly needing to run south for shelter from more forecasted north westerly gales.

Our initial intention was to cruise around the island in a clockwise direction but persistent gales from the north forced us to take a different tack. We made the 80nM passage south to Cala Malfatano in two day-sails, anchoring overnight at Calasetta. The coastline was surprisingly unpopulated and magnificently picturesque, particularly the far south-west corner. We would have enjoyed exploring the area in more detail given the time. Cala Malfatano was enormous, encompassing three anchoring areas and an island, we chose the largest bay on the west side where incredibly there was just one other yacht at anchor (well, technically two as we'd made the passage in company with 'Whoosh' who'd arrived just ahead of us). This was a very unusual sight having just travelled from the crowded Balearic Islands.

Hitrapia's first grounding...and second!

The most perfect passage was abruptly made more dramatic whilst surveying the depths of the anchorage. Angie slowly manoeuvred Hitrapia around the inner bay, between the 2 and 5m contour, while Wayne prepared the anchor and visually checked out the composition of the seabed. Spookily, we spotted it together; something unusual; a sudden change in the look of the seabed. Wayne briskly asked what the depth was, Angie replied... "4m, is that...?" But as she mouthed the word 'rock' Hitrapia softly (thankfully) nudged to halt; most definitely aground. Not budging an inch after a number of blasts of reverse from our 56hp beast of a Yanmar. Without thinking to strip, Wayne jumped overboard asking Angie to find the snorkel gear. He could hardly believe his eyes. The seabed was densely undulated with huge mounds of sand and weed covered rock, which is why we had ran aground in 4m of water. Jack and Patricia aboard 'Whoosh' had by now figured out our situation and were calling for us to throw them a line, with which they'd kindly attempt to winch us off, but first, Wayne had an idea. Angie had seen the technique performed on a RYA Yachtmaster video but with the stress of situation had not yet considered it. Wayne climbed calmly back aboard, released the main sheet and with his armpits over the boom, swung himself out dangling above the water. Like a well-trained dog being asked to roll over, Hitrapia leaned to starboard and slowly rolled back afloat. Unable to hold-on any longer Wayne dropped into the water as Angie gingerly pointed Hitrapia's nose back in the direction they'd approached from. As Wayne climbed back aboard to 'whoops' of congratulations from aboard 'Whoosh', we unbelievably nudged to a stand still once again! Even though we'd tried to retrace our steps, it appeared that we were surrounded by a maze of these mounds. This time, Hitrapia was gently grounding on her rudder – we once again followed the same procedure but to the port-side and took care to turn the rudder gently when driving her off. This time Wayne stayed in the water, snorkelling in front of the boat to lead the way safely out of the maze. As we motored around 'Whoosh's' stern we pointed out to them another mound of similar rock and they too upped anchor and resettled in deeper water.

Once settled at anchor ourselves, Wayne once again donned the mask and snorkel to check Hitrapia's keel for damage. Fortunately she had encountered soft landings causing no damage; only we were left bearing scars of the incident. Wayne had been stung numerously by jellyfish whilst swimming around the boat when aground and later developed huge bruises under his armpits. While Angie's was a mental scar - she knew of the saying 'if you've never been aground then you haven't been sailing long enough' but would have preferred to stay a novice! For weeks afterwards, she experienced the re-occurring feeling of running aground in any unusual hull movement.

We had no idea if the gales forecast further north would reach us in the south, but had run here to be on the safe side. The following day the wind built gradually to 30 knots and we shuddered to think what it must be blowing further north. Once again we became stormbound, this time suffering 7 days of 25-36 knot winds, while the west, north and east of Sardinia got pounded with F7-10's. The cala was incredibly picturesque but offered little other than shelter and beauty. We could see nothing on shore other than a couple of beach shacks and a few motor homes camped along the beach. Jack and Wayne braved a wet dinghy ride ashore just once in search of rubbish disposal - after seven days trapped aboard by a choppy sea together with the constant howling of the wind we were all nearing the end of our tether not to mention our food stores! To escape the unusually severe weather that both Corsica and Sardinia were experiencing and with our season quickly disappearing, we had little choice but to abandon the idea of seeing much more of Sardinia. When the winds eased, our initial instinct was to run yet further south directly to Sicily, but we imagined the sea-state offshore would be unpleasant immediately after a week of strong winds. Although we'd seen more than enough of Cala Malfatano it didn't somehow feel the right time to leave Sardinia, so we chose to sail 30nM east to the port of Cagliari, Sardinia's capital city, where we could enjoy stretching our legs for a few days.

Cagliari, Sardinia's capital

On 31st August we made passage to Cagliari together with 'Whoosh'. Incredibly, after sitting out a week of F7-8's we motored the whole way and lastly into a head wind. A huge commercial port, it took 3 hours to cross the Golfo de Cagliari and felt similar to approaching Gibraltar, without the presence of the Rock. With a number of berthing options to choose from we decided to support Marina Sant Elmo, a fairly new venture run by Enrico Deplano, the Cruising Association's HLR for Sardinia. This was definitely the nicest and most secure berthing choice but also the most expensive at €42pn in August, dropping to €26pn September. Despite the cost, we spent a relaxed week here (we had spent the majority of July and August at anchor), revelling in the ease of getting ashore, the marina facilities and exploring the city, while keeping a beady eye on the weather. The city has an abundance of history to absorb and as Enrico's English was excellent, it was most interesting to chat to him about Italian and Sardinian culture and politics.

A stop off point for traders for thousands of years, due to its central location in the Mediterranean, the Cagliari has a lot of character with influences from every corner of Europe. The view over the city and surrounding countryside from the Bastione San Remy is magnificent and at sunset we saw flamingos returning to their city patch from a countryside lake. Other places of interest were the Roman remains of a 2nd Century amphitheatre, the Duomo (Cathedral) and the Museum of Archaeology displaying an interesting collection of nuraghic items. Our week here was a good mixture of work and play; we re-stocked our provisions, cleaned the boat, did laundry, produced updates for our website, caught up on emails, filled tanks and succumbed to a modern day evil of the city - Burger King!

Typically, now that we were ready to cross to Sicily in an east-south-easterly direction, our beady eye on the weather could see nothing but easterlies for the foreseeable future. Our choice was to either stay put and wait for favourable winds or motor to Sicily in light easterlies headwinds. The cost of the fuel we'd consume was a little less than one week's marina fees, and there was obviously no guarantee of favourable winds if we stayed. With the advantage of a gorgeous full moon, we opted for the motorboat ride.

Next Page > Sardinia to Sciacca, Sicily.