I have decided stop my journey around Sardinia here in Fertilia.
My primary reason for embarking on this trip was to recover from a depression I had after a marital crisis last year. I wanted to get away from everything, try something new, have freshes impulses in my life and hopefully come back a fitter person, in every sense of the word, ready to take on the challenges of a 'normal' life again.
Over all the journey has fulfilled its purpose. I have seen new places, met new people, gotten new friends, learned much about kayaking and the sea, and about team paddling. It has been a very refreshing experience, and I'm very happy that I took on the challenge when the opportunity presented itself.
Unfortunately, the paddling partnership between Wendy and I didn't work out as expected. In the end, our relationship grew so sour that it became detrimental to my stated aim with the journey, to recover from my depression.
As I continued on alone, walked the streets of Fertilia, had a coffee in a bar, ate in a restaurant, and slept under an open sky near the harbour, I had ample time to ponder what to do. My initial impulse was to just continue alone, following the path set out time ago, but as I thought things through and searched my feelings for an answer, I kept returning to the 'why' question.
Why did I go? To get to feel better after a nasty crisis in my life. Does the thought of continuing along make me feel good? Not really. Then why continue?
Now the decision has been taken, I do feel better. I take that as a confirmation that I have done right.
Wendy and I have for some time had disagreements, mostly on questions of time and speed. Our disagreements has proven irreconcileable, and yesterday at Porto Ferro we decided to go on separately.
Wendy left before me this morning. I have no information on her whereabouts.
I'm currently at Fertilia just north of Alghero. Tomorrow I will have to do some shopping at Alghero. I have no maps and no mapcase. I will also need a paddlefloat, and I have no tent pegs for use with my tarp. I have no tent either, but it is hardly worth buying a new tent for whatever remains of the circumnavigation of Sardinia. I'll try to manage with the tarp.
Blogging will probably be more irregular now. My old (non-sponsored) internet tablet doesn't charge the battery anymore, so it will soon die on me, and Wendy has (as far as I know) no mobile phone for internet access. I charged my internet tablet battery on Wendy's tablet, and she used my mobile for internet access.
I'll try to blog as often as possible.
We've had a hard day on the beach today.
The sun was relentless, but we did manage to send several text messages, shave various body parts (apparently Wendy and I have different predilections there), do some laundry and cook an edible meal of italian noodles, which they seem to call 'pasta' down here. Only at that point did we succumb to the heat and sought refuge in a nearby bar for coffee, beer and chips.
Paddling is not just aching muscles.
It can also be waking up to a beach full of sand looking at derelict old edifices:
or being forced to have your morning cappuccino in the wrong kind of cup, eating Sardinian cakes from the previous day:
or discovering that the copious amount of excess belly tissue it took years to build up, has now suddenly vanished:
Life is hard.
I have a history of back problems. It is a growth problem from my childhood, my vertebrae are slightly deformed and therefore more at risk of dislocation. When that happens it is pain beyond words. The whole back locks up in a spasm making just about any movement difficult and very painful.
My back has dislocated a few times, and it is a constant fear that it should happen again.
I started paddling on the advice of my chiropractor, and it does help. I have felt lots better and safer, without any of the little signs that the spine was unhappy.
About a week ago, as we paddled towards the Archipelago di Maddalena on the Costa Smeralda I started getting very sore muscles in my lower back. It was just after a fall on a brink at Golfo Aranci, so I obviously got quite afraid for the state of my back. These pains have sussisted until after Castelsardo, and the muscles are still a bit sore.
It took a few days paddling to figure out what was going on. We paddled in waves of over 1m all those days, and more often that not waves from the side or from several directions simultaneously. Most of the days in waves we also did non-stop paddles of 3-4 hours because we had little possibilities to stop.
The Skim Distance is very long, giving it good speed and directional stability, but is also susceptible to being pushed sideways by waves, which means constant course corrections when in difficult waves. Do that for 3-4 hours without any breaks without previous training, and you'll have some sore edging muscles in the lower back. Do it for several days in a row, and you'll have some seriously aching muscles.
It has given me some really bad days on the water, but at least I now know that it is not because my spine is dislocating, but because those muscles are badly overworked. There's a cure for that: training.
The last two day's paddling has been in much easier water, and I have had no problems. We've done long hours at good speed, and I have not had any pains. The muscles are still a bit sore, but not in a problematic way.
This being my first long journey in kayak, I'm not surprised some mucles are complaining, but I would have been less scared and bothered had it been somewhere else than my lower back.
Finally my toes have warmed up. I'm indoors at La Pelosetta, a comfortable bar about 250 meters from our campsite with a view of the Torre Pelosa. A murder of crows keep flying past the window. It has been a dreary day weatherwise to say the least, very cool, overcast and constant rain since mid morning. That's typical winter like weather in the Mediterannean Sea.
So we have indulged in Sardinian and Italian sweets. I'm not complaining.
The upcoming stretch of coast is an exposed stretch of cliffs with about two landing places, until Porto Ferro. It appears to be 25 kilometers to the next beach, Argentiera, pointed out to me by Giacomo Della Gatta when we were looking at the topo maps prior to departure. Argentiera was named after the silver mines which are now closed.
I had checked my email lying in my sleeping bag to see the weather report from Karel, which saw force 5 headwinds in the a.m. and then tailwinds at noon and more headwinds in the p.m. with 1.7 meter waves. It was a threatening sky with towering cumulo nimbus clouds on the horizon and yet a light north east wind was breezing. To go or not to go, that is the question. We decided to play it safe and not take any chances on a very exposed coast with limited possibilities for getting off the water. Besides, this beach is stunningly beautiful where we are camped and if Blogger would just upload our images, you could see for yourself.
So we enjoyed caffé macchiato made by René on the beach accompaniedd by sweet pastries given to us by Constantino Lifrieri last night, watching the scenery, the watch tower with a murder of rows in flight around it.
These are the moments that are imprinted on one's soul.
We are camped on a small, powdery soft white sand beach with a medieval watch tower across a very narrow channel. It is located at the most north western tip of Sardinia proper, Torre Pelosa. To the north is Isola Asinara, a national park. Water laps softly a few meters away. A dark threatening sky with dramatic clouds floated towards us from the west. A few distant flickers of lightning flashed and a near full moon ocassionally peeked out of the cloud cover to spill scintillating sparkles on the water, a channel which had been the softest, palest most translucent turquoise imaginable upon our arrival at about 6 p.m..
And this idyllic evening, near Stintino where we'd lunched earlier after a direct crossing of Golfo dell Asinara from Porto Torres, was shared with kayaker Constantino Lifrieri from Sassari. He drove about 30 kilometers to meet up with us and to share our beach with Sardinian pastries, flat bread, peretta cheese, home made red wine, water, and a few surprises which kept appearing from his bag; Sardinian yogurt and chocolate! Constantino knows how hungry and thirsty paddlers can become as he himself has done extensive paddling of the Sardinian coast including the Maddalena Islands and the French island of Corsica. He speaks five languages; Italian, English, French, Greek, and ancient Latin. He creates stained glass windows and also teaches sea kayaking. It was here in Sardinia where sea kayaking grew in popularity in Italy, and Constantino and I discovered that we'd met briefly in 2003 when I paddled the Maddalena Islands in the busy tourist month of August. Constantino kept both conversation and wine flowing as we sat on the beach on this calm, cool evening.
René and I sincerely thank Consantino for coming to visit us and for his generosity. Mille grazie!
We were camped on a tiny beach enclosed by very steep cliffs. I joked that no boars should bother us here and we fell asleep to roaring surf only a few meters from the tent.
In the morning, as we went through our packing routine, I discovered a massive hole in the front entrance of my new Northwater deck bag, a very useful item on this journey I might add. We determined that a rat gibbled through to access an apple I had left sitting in the bag, zipped shut.
And then René discovered the little rodent's teeth marks on the outer edge of his Skim Distance day hatch, made by Kajak Sport. Fortunately our uninvited nocturnal visitor never nibbled completely through, thanks to the untasty, sturdy construction.
We did get out on the water today and paddled to Porto Torres in fine conditions to indulge in fine dining, tagliatelle with swordfish, tomatoes and capers.
I feel that at any moment, I could run into Fred and Wilma Flinstone or Barney and Betty Rubble. It truly looks and feels like we're in Bedrock, the setting for one of my favourite television cartoons from childhood, "The Flinstones" here at Costa Paradiso.
We are debating our launch. High winds are predicted, yet the sea is fairly calm but the wind seems to be turning. But, conditions can change rapidly. Last night, the well secured Hilleberg Namatje GT3 flapped and snapped in the strong winds and then the wind died down and I fell asleep listening to waves smashing the coastline from a distance.
The intriguing smooth large grained granite rock is mesmerizing. Slabs, pinacles, fins, gouges, gouda cheese textures and sensuous lines shape the rock, even arches, bowls and complete circular holes. As a friend suggested, the Italian renaissance artists have sculpted these rocks.
Costa Paradiso is a tourist community built on a steep, rocky mountainside, where the coast is rimmed with rocks of innumerable shapes and sizes, creating a sculptured rock garden at the shoreline. Buildings all blend in with the nature, built from the rock they are built upon. It blends in well with the scenery and is not an eyesore like some tourist villages which cover entire mountainsides with apartments covering almost the entire mountainside, like at la Marmorata just east of Sainte Teresa Gallura in the Costa Smerelda where pink, orange and yellow buildings have completely obliterated the nature, all for a small spot on a typical beah.
Yesterday I went for a short walk through these rock valleys where I looked at the art found in Nature. I even found a boar drinking a bottle of beer. See for yourself.
We did launch, shortly before 1 p.m. in fairly calm waters today under grey skies. It was the first time I traded in my short sleeved Knappster Kokatat top for my long sleeved Wave drytop from Kokatat. We stopped after an hour's paddle in an idyllic sheltered cove near Isola Rossa. We then continued on towards Castelsardo, 15 kilometers distant. We headed directly towards the hilltop medieval town with a moderate west side wind, but as usual, we would not be privileged to an easy day's paddle. The wind picked up and threw 2 meter starboard beam waves at us. The sea was quite agitated as the kayak made jerky moves and was jostled about. We made it finally to Castelsardo feeling quite tuckered, with a moderate surf landing which threw a surprise at us. We zoomed about 0.2 meters above a stone ledge about twenty meters out from the fine pebble beach. The kayaks are secured to a stairway next to a very steep cliff which could see rocks tumbling from its walls.
But, we have just finished eating a full pizza each. That's how it's done here in Italy. Everyone orders their own pizza, about 35 centimeters in diameter. We're both tired but well fed.
We are lounging relaxedly at "Il Baretto" at Costa Paradiso. The wind flaps the
flag in loud, crisp snaps. Two meter waves bash the rocky coast, a coast sculpted
to be sublimely seductive with shapes to fire the imagination.
I had an interesting night. We had searched in vain, following a winding trail through darkness, wind, bone chilling cold and flickers of lightning on the western horizon looking for a campsite. René was "fed up". The straps of our Ikea bags, filled with camping gear, were digging into our shoulders. I'm not sure of what as that was not clearly explained, and thus, I returned to the hotel next to our kayaks. I prepared my bivuoac bag and sleeping bag beneath a ramada sheltered from the northeast wind by the wall of the hotel and I buried deep inside the bivy to escape the icy wind from chilling my face. I was thankful for my down sleeping bag and wool toque. I wasn't sure where René had decided to camp for the night.
The wind rustling loose boat tarps or snapping the flag violently would arrest me from my sleep but I startled awake when I heard snorting and grunting within 3 meters of myself and in the light of the half moon saw the shape of a boar. He returned several minutes later and I startled the creature with a loud yell. Thankfully it didn't return, but the wind and distant lightning made for a restless sleep. Apparently boars are very common at Costa Paradiso and are not hunted in this tourist village and surounding area. The bar tender had a good chuckle this morning upon hearing of my unexpected encounter with a boar.
I feel refreshed from a LONG visit to the washroom, where I did a small hand wash in the sink of laundry items:-) and my hair!! The sink was covered in sand. We have been unable to find a shower during our circumnavigation so this was a great opportunity on this blustery day. I had bathed numerous times in the sea, but this biting wind has me bundled in layers of winter-like clothing, including my new Odlo turtleneck and Kokatat anorak. Bathing in the sea had caked my hair with layers of salt, leaving it nearly impossible to brush through my hair. I'd brushed the top layer forcefully and yanked the hair into a ponytail the past many days.
It looks like Karel's weather prediction was right. He emails us daily with fairly
accurate wind and wave predictions. We're landbound certainly for today. And it
appears this strong wind will not diminish for the next few days. At least my hair
(photo) and laundry items (see photo) will dry quickly.
Peeking out of the tent this morning on the beach at Vignola Mare, the sea seemed reasonably calm so we packed our kayaks for launching. But sea and waves are always bigger once one is in the midst of them. No sooner had I launched when the waves were easily one meter. And then we exited the shelter of the small bay and were right away into waves 1.5 meters in height, surging relentlessly, pushing us southeastwards.
Soon enough, the wind continued to build as well as the waves. Waves reared beneath my hull, setting me ontop of wave crests, sending me careening into troughs often burying the bow. Waves spilled over the kayak's deck, sprayskirt and often over myself. I yelped when a wave washed around me up to my shoulders! It was exhilarating but at times frightening. Even without trying, my kayak would catch a wave and zoom forward, sometimes surfing at least one hundred meters. By now, some of the larger waves were easily over three meters in height. Often, I braced as another big one climbed beneath me. And just for a little more excitement, the wind would blow strong gusts as I was focusing on the lively wave action.
We had planned to paddle to Isola Rossa, but with winds at what we estimated to be a force 6, we stopped after paddling 16 kilometers in about 2.5 hours. So we rounded a garden of rock pinnacles and found a perfectly sheltered cement boat ramp used by the scuba diving groups here at Costa Paradiso. Ironically, all morning we paddled past rugged nature, a paradise of rocks and shrubs, yet here, where hundreds of holiday homes ascend the rocky slopes, it is called paradise coast.
And now, we are pleasantly warm and dry in a bar, though it pured rain and the temperature plummeted since our sunny arrival. According to the long range weather forecast, we will be windbound for several days.
Maybe I'll read my erotic novel which has sat unused in my front hatch. And I'll explore on foot.
We've had a very short but active day on the water. We started from Vignola Mare at about nine, in moderate weather conditions. We had a good NE wind, around F4, and some following waves of 1-1½m. We had a fun ride down the coast, with tailwind and following waves, but after an hour and a half the waves were occasionally up to some 3-4m, sometimes breaking over our heads, and the wind was now more like a F6.
We found a fairly sheltered landing spot a Costa Paradiso, which is little more than two hotels, a couple of scuba diving centres and about a million tourist houses scattered up the hillsides. There's no beach, but we landed on a concrete ramp used by the motorboats of the scuba centres.
We risk being stuck here for several days if the wind doesn't wind down, but at least one of the hotels has a nice bar and restaurant where we can hang out, drinking cappuccinoes and blogging.
Wendy and I have been blogging quite actively during our time in Sardinia. We've been blogging on the beaches, we've been blogging in the streets, we've been blogging just about anywhere.
There are few internet cafés in Sardinia, home internet diffusion isn't very high and in any case, we haven't been invited in anywhere. I guess this is too much tourist country to expect the locals to invite any traveling stranger into their homes.
We blog and do email using a small technological wonder, the Nokia Nseries N800 Internet Tablet.
The N800 Internet Tablet is a small portable device intended to do "internet anywhere" just like the mobile phone has given us "telephony anywhere". The tablet is the size of a large chocolate bar, weighs about 150g and fits easily into a pocket, or in our case into a small dry bag in the day hatch.
We write on it using a stylus on a small on-screen keyboard, or as I'm doing right now, using a full screen thumb-board. We also have a separate foldable keyboard we sometimes use for writing or editing longer texts.
We can get on the internet in two different ways. The tablet has wi-fi built in, but we haven't found any wi-fi hotspots here in Sardinia, so we use our mobile phone as a modem, connecting to the internet using a technology called EDGE. We found an offer of 100Mb traffic for €20 which has lasted until now at least.
When we do a blog post we first write it off-line in the little Notes program on the tablet. Then we select photos on our cameras, and crop, resize and downscale them directly in the camera. The SD memory card from our Pentax Optio cameras fits directly into a memory card slot on the tablet so getting the photo over is just a question of taking the card out of the camera, plugging it into the tablet and moving the photos over using the File Manager on the tablet.
Once the post is ready, we go online, login to Blogger, copy-paste the blog text over and upload the photos. This is often the most time consuming and tedious part, as Blogger can be quite flakey sometimes. Uploads and publishing often fail and have to be retried several times before everything goes through.
The little maps showing our location are also made on the tablet. We have a little wireless gps receiver for the tablet, and it is a matter of seconds to get the coordinates and have them plotted on a map. I use a free program called Maemo Mapper, which will basically do it all for me. I just have to zoom in to the desired level of detail and grab a screenshot of the display.
The software in the tablet does way more. We read our email on it, using the mail program or one of the free webmail services. It also has a million features we don't use much on this journey. It is an IM client for chatting, it is a multi-media player for both music and video, it can work as a soft-phone and much more.
I have been using the Nokia Nseries N800 for over a year now, and it is one of my favourite gadgets. I use it daily, even at home, for reading news, listening to music, chatting with friends, looking up stuff on the internet while
watching tv, etc.
Nokia Nseries has generously sponsored us a complete communication set for our journey. Wendy got a tablet so we both have one, and we got a foldable bluetooth keyboard, a bluetooth gps receiver and a car charger for use with our solar panels for charging on beaches.
Wendy is so happy with her tablet and the possibilities it gives to blog and mail friends, that she cares more about charging the phone and the tablet that about her camera batteries, and that says quite a bit, knowing how avis a photographer she is.
Wendy busy beach blogging:
My office set while in Venice:
We're sitting on top of a bronze age monument, a Nuraghe, with our Nokia Nseries Internet Tablets. I'm blogging this while Wendy is writing emails to a friend in Iceland:
Wendy just took a picture of me doing this post:
This is the view in front of me rigbt now, with Corsica in the background:
The Nuraghe Tuttosoni is here:
We are camped at Vignola Mare on a lovely sweep of sand next to the Torre di Vignola, a medieval watch tower. We had arrived Thursday during the late afternoon, fatigued from another dogged slog into a persistently noticeable headwind. I had optimistically and naively believed that the northwest wind, which we paddled against to approach Capo Testo, would be in our favour as we rounded the impressive rocky cape, but unbelievably, as we rounded the sculptured cape, we now faced a southwest wind. It becomes quite fatiguing to day after day plod into headwids which noticeably impede forward progress. We keep hoping that the dominant northwest mistral wind will shove us southwards along Sardinia's west coast.
But early in the night, I sensed a change in the weather. Our protected beach where water sparkled and lapped peacefully upon our arrival now roared with a continuous surging of waves. I couldn't sleep and dragged myself out of the warmth of my revery and down sleeping bag to get sandblasted in the darkness. The water had reached the kayaks. Barefoot, I grabbed the kayaks by the bow, dug my heels into the sand, leaned back and dragged each kayak several meters higher on the beach, chilled but refreshed from the howling mistral wind as Rene slept blisfully unaware. He literally sleeps like a log:-)
We slept in, though it was difficult listening to the roaring of the wind and waves as well as the flapping and violent fluttering of the tent walls. And now we are breakfasting Italian style in a bar about 600 meters from our campsite. We have had cappuccino, a croissant followed by a caffé latté.
The wind has increased in its intensity. We are staying put for now. Even standing on the beach, I have to spread my feet apart to maintain my balance and zip tight the turtleneck of my Odlo sweater and Primaloft vest.
Sardinia's coastline never ceases to impress me. The rocky shoreline has presented steep, skyhigh cliffs gouged in caves and arches and covered in thousands of falcons whereas the Costa Smerelda coast, though less vertical, has been equally impressive in its evocative and sensuous curves sculpted into the coarse granite, smooth, sexy curves revealing secret slivers of powder white sand.
Yesterday, as we took a mid day break, I walked on a horse trail amongst the Mediterranean shrubbery, various shades of green, with a multitude of textures and shapes, and breathed in the aromatic scents floating on the warm wind.
Today, we'll rest, a good thing for René's back which is aching. As I look across the Bocce di Bonifacio, Corsica sits on the horizon, its moutainous coastline vividly clear. And a frothing sea with endless rows of whitecaps surges onto the adjacent beach.
We woke up to force five to six winds shaking the tent. Wendy was up in the middle of the night to drag the kayaks further up on the beach.
It is unlikely we'll be paddling anywhere today unless the wind calms down a bit.
Yes. I know. We're a couple of chickens :-)
Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs. These signs inform the public of what is FORBIDDEN on public beaches, leaving very little that is permited. The one sign indicated that the beach is NOT a large ash tray. (Understandably) Some signs are clearly posted in picture format so that non Italian speaking visitors are clearly informed. Of course, we arrive by kayak and have to search for these signs which are prominently displayed at the parking lot. Other signs state in Italian that it is STRICTLY FORRBIDDEN to:
-park any boats on the beach (Would that include kayaks from weary paddlers?)
-play on the beach if it creates a public disturbance (Does unrestrained laughter and hollers from exuberant children disturb the public? Some beaches clearly forbid balls!!!)
-play radios on the beach or use any ther devices that create sound
-place umbrellas or beach chairs within 5 meters of the water's edge
-CAMP (OOPS)
-litter(understandably)
-drive vehicles on the sand
And yet, these signs state nothing about acceptable levels of nudity permitted. On one beach I saw a completely naked man playing beach tennis with two young children, lunging and jumping to keep the ball alive (and his genitals flopping!)
Basically, according to Rene, "Don't touch the sand!"
We have had quite a weather day today. We started early because we had camped on a beach smack in the middle of Santa Teresa Gallura. No point in inviting trouble since we did camp illegally once again.
The water was very calm as we started but as we approached Capo Testa we heard thunder, and as we were halfway around the cape we saw lightning and it started to rain.
The rocks at Capo Testo are truly amazing. They're sculpted by wind and waves into a million different shapes, and we spent a good time taking photos in the ever changing light of sunshine during rain with a rainbow.
After Capo Testa we moved down the coast, but my aching back got really bad in the waves, so we turned in for a short break on the first beach we found. I set up all the solar panels, ate a biscuit and fell asleep while Wendy went rock watching. In Italy time is different, so our short break lasted two and a half hours.
When we were ready to set out again, the wind had grown stronger and turned west, so we almost had a straight headwind again.
The rest of the day was a slow push against the wind. We continued until the little town of Vignole Mare where we set up camp on the beach, almost under one of the old Spanish towers.
We're having dinner in a local restaurant now. Not bad, but they had most unconventionally put bacon in my plate of penne all'arrabiata. That's definitely a no-no in my book.
Let's hope that tomorrow, we enjoy fair tailwinds.
Our good Venetian friend Marco Ballarin has been awarded the title of 'Maestro di Canoa da Mare'. We know that Marco has worked hard for a long time to achieve this level of certification, so here's a toast to Maestro Ballarin:
Today we rounded the northern tip of Sardinia, the Punta Falcone.
We spent the night om a beach in Cala di Trana, close to Palau. We launched on a calm and quiet day, almost no wind and little waves. It looked like a paddle in the park on an overcast day.
Within 30 minutes we got a slight drizzle, but soon all our landmarks were out of sight and we did another 30 minutes on the compass only, until it cleared up a bit and we got closer to the coast of Valle d'Erica.
We had hoped to stop there for a morning cappucino, but there were no bars in sight with a good landing spot nearby, so we forgot about our little morning luxury and paddled on along the coast.
Not a second after we stuck our bows into the waters of the Stretto di Bonifacio we got a force 4 to 5 with 1-2m waves thrown in the face. We paddled with this companion on our right for a couple of hours, until we reached the marina of Santa Teresa Gallura, eager for a break and some lunch.
The marina is rather large and we paddled around for some time looking for a good landing spot close to the restaurant when we were approached by two very common looking assholes, one male and one female, who unceremoniously told us that 'canoes' weren't allowed in the marina.
That led us to the conclusion that the people of the marina of Santa Teresa Gallura didn't like our money, so we turned around and left. Fortunately, just around the next rock were the local city beach, where we could land in peace, be greeted by a couple of impressed locals, and have a good, albeit not inexpensive pizza with a clear view of the beach and our kayaks.
I have had some backaches since I slipped on the brink of beach at Cala Morescue and hurt my back. The pains have been managable so far, thanks to regular short breaks, but our trip through the waves today made these backaches worse, and as we arrived in Santa Teresa Gallura my back was quite stiff and I had a hard time edging the kayak in the waves. After lunch we decided to stay the night in Santa Teresa Gallura to let my back recover. Hopefully the next days will be less exacting on my back, so we can keep a reasonable pace.
We've spent the time this afternoon reading and writing mail, blogging, updating out personal diaries, and charging all our depleted batteries.
Tomorrow we'll round the Capo Testa and follow the coast SW towards Porto Torres where we'll be in a few days time, weather, wind, waves and whining willing.
Today's camp at Santa Teresa Gallura
Yesterday's camp at Cala di Trana
We were camped October 13 and 14 at a small, quiet cove, Cala Moresco. I was smug in thinking I was right, that the high tide would not reach the tent, and I slept soundly with water lapping calmy about 30 centimeters from the tent.
On October 14, we had a non paddling day due to fairly strong headwinds and thus we spent the afternoon in nearby Golfo Aranci. Upon our return, we found the tide at the tent and flowing beneath the tent wall closest to water's edge. When I dove into the inner tent, all was dry thanks to Hilleberg's fine construction with a bathtub floor and thick waterproof floor.
We moved camp onto a hill above the beach, with pines framing our view of Tavolara Island and kayaks tied firmly to a tree. Due to the Tramontana wind's presence, the water level was pushed up and almost completely covered the sliver of beach we had claimed for camping.
I had to admit that Rene was right, that my choice of tent site was inadequate. As I fell asleep in a bivy bag under our large tarp, I listened to waves breaking directly below me and smelled dog breath as the resident dog lay at our heads, with a strong dog smell and even stronger bad breath smell.
Our following two nights had amazing campsites on Isola Caprera at Cala Portese and at Cala di Trana near Palau. Both were on creamy white, soft sand and both beaches were completely desolate from human presence. And best of all, both beaches were broad enough to allow for the tent to be erected well above the high tide level:-)
We in Città della Maddalena now. We've had a nice day padddling up the east coast of Isola Caprera and back down between that and the Isola della Maddalena. We expect to find a camp site somewhere to the west of here on the mainland.
The Isola Caprera has a magnificent rocky coast, sculpted into a million different shapes, some loking like animals, some like faces and others like abstract art.
We're here:
If there is on theme to today it must be the many types of weird waves we've met. We started from Cala Morescoe near Golfo Aranci and headed straight into some extremely choppy waters off Capo Figaro. Waves apparently came in from two different directions and bounced off the vertical rocks, giving us quite a ride.
From Capo Morescoe we crossed north towards Piccolo Romanizzo, passing Isola Moratio on the way. We had a very brief stop there, but there was no bar and no reason to linger.
The next stop on our path was Porto Cervo. We had been told on many occasions that there was a fantastic marina there with everything we could possibly need. We had another very choppy ride up to and into Porto Cervo. We landed on a beach just besides the marina, which was full of some very expensive looking boats. We packed up everything we needed for a good and sorely need shower and some laundry, hopefully topped by some delicious food and good coffee.
As we walked towards the marina everything looked very quiet and dull. A huge building was full of closed and boarded up shops, and the only open door we could finf led to a very closed restaurant, with tables stacked and chairs covered for storage. We continued and at last we found an open place. It was a very fancy cocktail bar, and very empty, but we got something to drink and a couple of sandwiches which surely suffered from severe identity crises.
We were low on water, the cocktail bar only had one liter glass bottles and the marina supermarket wouldn't open for another two hours. We decided to paddle on, doing our shopping elsewhere, but on our way out we did manage to find a bar that could sell us some reasonably sized bottles of water.
From Porto Cervo we headed for Isola Caprera. Again we were in for an agitated ride. We had 1m waves coming in from NE and E so we were tossed here and there most of the time. We got some nice tailing waves as we turned west towards Caprera, but we continuously got splashed and pushed by the sideways waves.
Things became a bit easier when we turned west at Isola delle Bisce, since we got some following waves to play with, but we were still tosse hither and thither most of time, including our way into the bay north of Punta Rossa on Isola Caprera, where we set up camp on a secluded beach.
It's a windy day and we just walked a dirt road to Golfo Aranci where we sampled a Sardinian flatbread sandwich, spianate calde. It met with our approval:-)
We camped in a very sheltered cove near Capo Figari. The cove was a lovely place, Cala Morescoe, at the end of a winding dirt road leading to a traditional goat farm. I watched the farmer hand milk his long haired goats and then sat quietly on the beach, looking southwards towards Isola Tavolara, where we'd stopped for lunch.
We'd paddled with vigour to reach thhe island which had risen into view the previous day, towering skywards in a cathedral like way, piercing the clouds that hovered above, making it appear misty and mysterious. It rose as a long serrated spine with a rudder on the end. We'd paddled across two bays, the second, a ten kilometer crossing, stopping only to eat a banana and a granola bar. Our day had started with a cappucino and croissant at the beach bar in Budoni, Sa Capannizza. Tonino bid us farewell on our journey by presenting us a baseball cap with the bar's name on it.
Padddling again into headwinds, albeit light, has me looking forward to rounding the northern tip past the Strait of Bonifacio which separates Sardinia from Corsica, where the prevailing northwestern wind, the mistral, will be our ally we hope. We have reached the section of coast known as the Costa Smeralda, a seductive stretch of sculpted rock, hidden coves, sheltered beaches and world class yachting opportunities. I'd paddled the Costa Smeralda in August, 2003, dodging multi million dollar yachts with bronze, topless tanning beauties, always wondering who owned the yachts who had no tolerance for a recreational kayaker in its way. But the coast is quieter now, with only a handful of tourists present. The weather has been changeable and the nights are often cool enough to be snuggled in my down sleeping bag.
Last night on the miniscule crescent of beach barely wide enough for our kayaks, I erected the Hilleberg tent with little room to spare. Rene didn't trust it, fearing water seep into the tent with the rising tide, but I felt quite confident the lapping water would not enter....and I fell asleep soundly thinking of my wonderful friends.
Since fairly strong headwinds were predicted for today, we decided to sleep in, though I awoke at the crack of dawn as a fisherman checked his net in the cove with the boat's engine puttering. It was a warm, sunny morning and though the cove was out of the wind, the pine trees had the wind whistling through.
I decided to roll the Current Designs Solstice GTS with my Avatak Greenland paddle, but I had not rolled much these past few months and I had several missses, not used to rolling this kayak with a small Greenland paddle. (I usually roll my CD with my Epic wing blade.) Meanwhile goats checked out Rene who sat watching nearby and then a sex crazed Golden retriever who wouldn't stop humping Rene's leg joined the activity in the cove.
We are now eating gelato. In all likelihood, we will paddle towards the Madalena Islands tomorrow when less strong headwinds are predicted.
