Islas Maddalenas - our Archipelago Adventures

With much more sensible wind strength, (virtually nothing!) we began to get the anchors in quite early on the Sunday morning. Having dropped two, in around 17 metres of water, with a total of 50 metres of chain and 80 metres of warp out, it was quite an exhausting exercise for Chris, since we have no windlass, just his muscles! We had decided to treat La Premiere to a night in harbour to wash away all the crusted on salt and La Maddelana was our choice, being approximately 6 miles away. We motored all the way there, unashamedly!

It was a busy little harbour, with all the local motor and fishing boats milling around waiting for the fuel berth. We approached cautiously looking for a space and were then waved in by some ormegatori, calling out "una notti", one night! It was a fantastic relief to be tied up to a pontoon. There was no electricity but there was water and showers. We did very little that afternoon. We took a stroll around the town and relaxed in the cockpit. Giblet entertained the neighbours, even sneaking below into their boat, enticed by the smell of food! We slept well and were up early to shower and do the shopping before setting off to find another anchorage.

The Maddalenas are an archipelago, consisting of two main groups of islands, which form a nature reserve. La Maddalena is the only "town" and the other islands, San Stefano and Caprera in the southern group are little populated. Hardly surprising when you consider they are granite (a pretty pink colour) with very little in the way of vegetation. San Stefano is now home to some US naval submarines and Caprera was where Garibaldi chose to retire.

Our first anchorage was on the south of San Stefano, a little Cala called Villamarina. It was quite beautiful and we enjoyed our hike around the rocky remains of the old quarry works. It was like a scene from a Disney 'way out west' theme ride, with rusty neglected track, overturned carts and abandoned winches. There is an unfinished sculpture, a huge bust of a man, rather proud and distinguished with a neatly curled moustache. We don't know who he is, or why he is left there, unfinished, but he gave us something to wonder at.

The next day, rather than hang around to watch the tiny cala fill up with mad anchoring people we went in search of a larger place. This time we ventured all of 4 miles to Porto Palma on the south of Caprera. It took us a few minutes on our approach to get used to the scale of the chartlet because the bay is vast, chock-a-block with boats and used as a base for several sailing schools. Finally, we found a small sandy cove off to the east and carefully tucked ourselves in behind a shoal which is marked on the chart. It was a popular day anchorage with the locals and Chris was more than entertained by the bikini-clad girlies on the motorboats!

A few other yachts ventured in, including a 50-foot Beneteau, which anchored almost too close. By way of a peace offering, the next morning the family motored over in their dinghy, thrusting a yellow bucket towards us. "A fish" they said! And it was! They had caught it and wanted to give it to Giblet. She was rather unsure what to do with a whole fish so after the family had gone I gutted and filleted it for her. It went down a treat!
We stayed a couple more nights, enjoying the peaceful surroundings and beautiful evening sunsets. Chris was keen to find a windsurfing shop to replace the batten screw he had lost in Liscia and we needed some food too, so we left the islands and returned to the mainland, to a large inlet due south of Porto Palma called the Golfe di Arzachena. The idea was to go into the marina at Cannigione on the southwest side because, according to Rod Helkell's pilot book, you are not permitted to anchor outside the marina. But what we found as we approached was a very busy and lovely anchorage, so we too dropped the hook and enjoyed the better view. It was close enough to motor in to the shops with the dinghy, but to Chris' disappointment, the windsurf centre did not have his part.

That evening we invited an English couple, Peter and Caroline, we had met on board for drinks. We had last seen them in Stintino and were intrigued to find out how they had faired during the "storm". It turned out that they had known it was on the way from a warning from an American boat and had decided to head further round to Porto Cervo. Unfortunately, though the wind was not quite as strong as we had had in Liscia, the holding was poor and they dragged onto rocks. After pulling themselves off with large applications of throttle they spent several hours motoring round the harbour in the dark with three other boats because the authorities had told them there was no space inside. Finally they had anchored in the entrance (prohibited really but they had little choice) until daylight when they could see spaces in the marina and they went in! Only £45 for a night! A bargain in that weather but how unfair of the harbour authorities for not letting them in at night.

The following day, with some lateral thinking, Chris tried out an M10 bolt from his spares box instead of the batten screw and it fitted! At last he could have another attempt at rigging and sailing with his new toy! Hours of endless fun later, he finally had the sail on the mast and tensioned correctly! He was much happier and even managed to always sail it back to the boat, so my rescue services were not required. We kept it rigged up, across the deck so that he could take it out again the following day, when with more wind it really went quite well.