Alghero
Alghero is a pretty little town in the west of Sardinia with a picturesque old town. It’s easy to drop anchor just outside of the harbour, the officials who welcomed us were very nice and it doesn’t cost anything to land the dinghy at the Capitainerie. A Lidl supermarket (where you can buy quark 😉 ) is within walking distance. In the old town there are ice gelaterias and a number of souvenir shops and shops selling coral jewellery.
Mathias plants new chives. We use them to flavour our quark, among other things.
Trip to the east side of Sardinia
The anchorage in Cugnana Bay.
Places nearby are Portisco and Porto Rotondo. The marinas in the area are unaffordable. Even for a dinghy they want €50+ for 4 hours parking. In Porto Rotondo there is a place near an ATM machine where you can leave the dinghy. Otherwise, I only dropped Mathias off in Portisco and he then travelled alone by bus to Olbia to go shopping, because there are hardly any supermarkets here either, just a very small one in Porto Rotondo, which is very expensive. But the bus connection to Olbia is inexpensive (€1.90 per app). https://www.arst.sardegna.it/ Or with Sunlines from Porto Rotondo (3,50€).
Sewing project
Mathias had taken it into his head to repair our lazy bag (UV protection and storage cover for the mainsail, directly on the boom) after all. He tied the sail up and pulled the lazy bag out from under it. The rear part was completely torn to shreds and the long part had abrasions all over and some of the seams were coming loose. That’s when I and the Sailrite sewing machine came into play. I sewed on the bag for a week. In one day I used 6 bobbins of bobbin thread. You can imagine the length of the seams. The end result however is impressive.
Porto Rotondo
Alone on board
Mathias flew to Germany for 14 days while I guarded the boat.
Before Mathias left, we switched the dinghy engine back to electric to make sure that I could start the engine when I wanted to go ashore and when I had to pick up Mathias again.
Mathias also finally dived for the propeller and changed the sacrificial anode. He had been putting this off for far too long.
On the very first day after Mathias left, a strong wind picked up and I was in the bay with a few other boats in gusts of over 40 knots. That was a bit of a queasy feeling.
After the strong wind, “little winds” of 25 or 30 knots could no longer shock me and I only had to be careful that other boats didn’t anchor too close to me. If one came along, I went on deck and gave them a dirty look if they got too close. People who feel they are being watched are more considerate when anchoring. 🙂
I also used the time to finally check the drain in the pantry sink. No more water was running out without pumping. The reason was an old clog of dirt, which I removed from the drain. Then came the real problem of screwing the whole thing back together again without dripping. I only managed to do this after I had cleaned the seal in an ultrasonic bath.
14 days at anchor and you’ve been everywhere once 😉 (Yellow Track)
Mathias is now back on board. He arrived on a windy day and we got soaking wet on the way back from Porto Rotondo. Our electric motor fought bravely against waves of around 0.5 metres.
Now we can lift the anchor again soon and sail on again. 🙂
This Post Has 2 Comments
Oh my goodness!! You are now a sail maker AND a plummer! Is there no end to your capabilities? I could tell you were glad to have Mathais back again though.
I feel I’m very boring just sitting here in Colerne, with a kitchen that always remains horizontal and a shop just around the corner. However as we are on the top of a very high hill here we do get a LOT of wind, and I often think – gosh this is a good day for a sail. Great to see where you are.
Annette
I must confess that I cheated a bit with the plumbing. I usually leave jobs like that to Mathias. But as he was not around and the situation became very annoying, I tried myself. Luckily it was very easy to do, so I put all the pictures in the blog. 🙂
We have been on tour for more than a week now – without internet – and are now in Greece, I am working on the new blog.