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Hugh, Anne and Hector's Sailing Adventures
El Capitano 30th August 2006
At the end of my last log I said "I thought August was going to be a quiet month", well thus it continued. As I write this we are snug in Mahon on Menorca with a gale blowing to the west of us and a force 10 blowing through the straits of Bonifacio where we were ten days ago.
Anyway, to backtrack. After the Gilroys left on 7th August we spoofed about and worked our way along the north coast of Sardinia via St Teresa Gallura and Castelsardo. The latter is a very dramatic place with the castle towering above the town and a scattering of pastel coloured houses on the slopes. Luckily a bus takes you up to the top where you can visit the museum. It has to be the most boring place in Sardinia! The local speciality is basket weaving and room after room after bloody room is devoted to the art of basket weaving! We did however have a nice lunch but in general the town has been overtaken by tourism and is dramatic but uninteresting.
Next day we moved on and anchored for the night at Stintino. Here we met up with Jane and Trevor in "Summer Breeze" who were heading in the same general direction as us but bound eventually for Sicily and all points east.
From Stintino the challenge is the Fornelli Passage! This is a narrow channel of depth 3m (we draw 2m) which is negotiated by following transits from white painted posts on the shore. I did the difficult job of shouting at Anne to keep the posts in line and she white knuckled it on the steering wheel. Quite easy really!!!!
We then started down the west coast of Sardinia, which is really dramatic with steep cliffs and fantastic rock structures. We then anchored in Porto Conte which is a dramatic setting surrounded by mountains. "Summer Breeze" caught up with us and we had a drink and a book exchange
Across the bay to Alghero. This was very much keeping the best to last. Alghero is terrific. It is a fortified town, which is completely unspoilt by tourism. It's a great place to wander around and you keep popping out to great views of the sea with the mountains behind.If anyone is thinking about a holiday in Sardinia, don't fool around, go to Alghero (or maybe Cannigione or maybe Cagliari).
All this takes us to the 23rd of August and time to set off for Menorca which is about 200 miles to the West.
Off we went and 32 hours later we were charging through large seas in 25 knots of wind approaching Mahon at speed. We had a fantastic night crossing, smooth and stunning with a huge number of shooting stars and a lot of biophosphorescence to keep us amused. I must say that the Seastream 43 has been a terrific boat for our requirements. It is not the fastest yacht in the fleet but it has a great motion, does not slam, does not creak and the mighty Mercedes engine has not missed a beat. ( Be nice to the boat and it will be nice to you, I hope).
So here we are back at the top of the page, in Mahon, waiting for the wind to drop so that we can cross the 60 miles to Mallorca in reasonable style.
Nothing hilarious has happened recently and nothing bad either. We're just having a nice time through an unseasonably cool (28C) August.
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