Tue 7 Aug and Wed 8 Aug

Tuesday was a pretty quiet day. We stayed anchored in the bay next to Palau (off La Sciumara beach), went shopping in the morning and swam in the afternoon. We contemplated getting more water but what we’d filled up with the night before turned out to be pretty yellow so we gave it a miss.

On Wednesday we left at around midday and tacked up the channel between La Maddalena and Spargi. We planned to venture into Porto Della Madonna for the night, which according to Instagram looks like this . Freakin’ busy but it’s got to be done while we’re here. We’ve noticed that around 17:00ish is a good time to park-up as the lunch stopovers and day-trippers head home so usually a few spaces get freed up. Until then we sailed around, Tom dusted off his laptop and caught up with some email, we had a spot of lunch on the go, did a bit more sailing then the wind totally dropped off so I had a go at getting the main down by myself. Bini isn’t really set up for solo action but by wrapping the halyard around the winch then back to me at the mast it worked pretty well.

With the sails down we motored towards the anchorage, which we’d read had bays on the outer edges and free mooring buoys. The must-be place is in the middle of the three islands; Budelli, Razzoli and Santa Maria and on the eastern side there’s a little passage, worryingly called “Deadmans Passage” which looked do-able if you avoid the 2m shallow patch at the entrance. As we turned the corner, all we could see was a sea of boats, it was packed! We edged our way through the bay in between boats on buoys and at anchor and towards the entrance. We were nearly thought but as the depth alarm sounded and read 1.9m (a mere 10cm under the keel) and I could literally see sea urchins on the sea bed I bottled it and reversed us out, sharpish.

Now to find a buoy. There was a free one on the outside edge but some idiot had tied a dinghy onto it. We were in two minds whether to tie up to it anyway, but thought better of it. Just as we were starting to look for a spot to anchor, a boat left a buoy about 200m from where we were. None of the other circling boats seemed to have seen it so off we went, but as we got close a guy from a neighbouring boat swam over and grabbed it. Tom was at the bow and shouted back at me to carry on, “We’re getting that buoy” he said. As we got within earshot the guy said, “This one’s taken, it’s reserved for my brother”. Tom replied with a friendly “Where is your brother?”, which was answered with “He’s on his way, you can take the buoy over there”. Still friendly, but now even more determined to get the bloody buoy, Tom said “Well, he can take that buoy then can’t he, when he comes. We’ll have this one”. Important to note here that the other buoy was private, meaning you most likely have to pay for. Nothing seemed to happen, both men staring at each other. At some point, Tom getting slightly annoyed, asked the guy “So, what are we gonna do?”, to which he replied “Well, whatever you want to do” … so Tom promptly said “Alright, we’ll take the buoy then”. We attached ourselves to it (without any drama, which was a relief!) while he swam back to his boat, still muttering something undecipherable in our general direction. Usually this sort of encounter makes me feel uneasy, but this time I felt far from it.

We tidied up the boat and sat on deck, wine in hand. Within a few minutes the dinghy which had been attached to the other buoy appeared to come floating past solo, and a boat was attached to the mooring. Wow, I thought, that’s pretty ballsy – mooring up and untying the dinghy – good for them! Hearing a splash we looked over to see the same guy (now our neighbour) jumping in and swimming towards it. This seemingly good deed made me reconsider the “selfish b*stard” label I’d stuck on him half an hour earlier. It was to be quickly reinstated however as it turns out it was his bloody dinghy. He’d cheekily used it to bagsy that buoy as well, onto which his brother was now safely attached. Call me old fashioned but I find this sort of behaviour very unsportsmanlike, it really should be first come first serve.

In the evening Tom cooked us dinner and we played backgammon in the cockpit under the stars (yes, he got his revenge and beat me). Sounds very romantic doesn’t it? Now imagine that you can barely hear yourselves speak because the inconsiderate morons behind you have decided to run their engine for 3 hours to charge their batteries. OK, I’m exaggerating the volume a little but, still. Whhhyyy! I’m complaining at a very high level, I realise, and it didn’t spoil our lovely day. 🙂