Sailing up the east coast of Sardinia (Part 2)

View ashore from Isla dell’Ogliastra   

BV’s ‘Anchor Monkey’ at work      

We had a lovely settled night at anchor off Isla dell’Ogliastra and when we woke on the morning of Monday 26 June, better still, there was wind! So, eager to make best use of what we hoped was a building breeze, we jumped out of bed and got going straight away.

Heading north up the coast    

BV’s ‘Anchor Monkey’ did his work and as we headed north we had fantastic views again, all the more improved because of the lack of haze that day.

We even managed to get sailing for a short while, and with the MPS to boot. But as soon as we had got the sail hoisted (after rigging all the lines, hoisting the pole, digging the sail out from under our berth and untangling all the ‘string’ that makes the MPS’s ‘sock’ work) the wind died and we had to get it all down again! However, the picture proves that we got it flying, if only very briefly.

MPS flying again as we got closer to Porto Ottiolu   

There followed 4 hours of motoring in virtually zero wind. Nicky got enthusiastic and cleaned all the fenders (filthy from the black rubbing strake on Carloforte’s town quay) and then scrubbed the decks down (another hour’s work). [Ed: the author cleaned the winch handle pockets………]. After a reviving lunchtime beer, the wind made a showing again and, once more, we enthusiastically set the MPS, this time on the bowsprit, and got sailing again. We had about 11nm to run to Porto Ottiolu, where we planned to refuel, and we managed to hold the MPS all the way to just short of the marina’s entrance channel. It was a great little sail, even if the wind did start to die off towards the end. We hadn’t refuelled BV since we were in Malta and were now operating at the very bottom of the tanks [Ed: just shows how much motoring we have done!]. The work that we had done at the end of 2016 when we cleaned out the fuel tanks now absolutely proved its worth, as we knew that it would. Having cleaned the tanks we had refilled them slowly, jerry can by jerry can, and had plotted a graph of Tank Tender readings vs fuel quantity for the 80litre or so that we had had available. That graph means that we can easily and confidently ascertain our fuel level and sensibly operate at much lower fuel levels that was the case previously. And that was very much appreciated when we went to pay having filled up with fuel again at Porto Ottiolu. Had we bought the fuel at Carloforte, we would have had to buy it by the (6) jerry can load as there is no fuel pump on the quay and no tankers to deliver it, plus we would also have had to pay €0.15 more per litre than we did at Porto Ottiolu which was a nice bonus on top of the convenience factor of not lugging jerry cans about.

The impressive Isola Tavolara in the distance   

After a 20-minute stop at Porto Ottiolu [Ed: the pipes to our fuel tanks are quite small bore so filling is a long, slow process], we headed out again for Capo Coda Cavallo. It was only 6nm further on so we elected to sail under main and genoa only to save on the faff of getting the MPS up again. We should have known better though, as it was a slow sail north and it would have been more satisfying to have sailed it that bit faster. Approaching the headland, the skyline became dominated by the impressive outline of Isola Tavolara. This area is known as the Isola Tavolara and Capo Coda Cavallo Marine Reserve. We had stopped here briefly in June 2014 and anchored off Isola Tavolara at the start of our passage across the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Aeolian Islands. Keen to press on, we had bypassed most of the nice anchorages here and so our plan now that we were back in the area was to stay for a few days and explore the anchorages we’d missed the previous time.

Approaching Cala Coda Cavallo   

Entering Cala Coda Cavallo   

Rounding the headland of Capo Coda Cavallo we got our first glimpse of the anchorage we’d picked for the night. Tucked in on the southwest side of the headland is Cala Coda Cavallo which, from our pilot book, looked to be a secure anchorage with good holding on sand. It was immediately clear that several other yachts had read the same description and had picked the same bay. Conveniently, a large motor yacht had just departed leaving us a large area to anchor in. So we grabbed the opportunity and got the anchor down on a nice patch of sand. After a quick swim, we settled down for the evening and spent some time studying the other yachts in the bay. It was quite noticeable that the grouping was far more international than in the anchorages further south in Sardinia. It was also noticeable that there were far more yachts, full stop. High season ‘proper’ starts in July and we’ll have to get used to more popular, and more populous, cruising grounds.

Cala Coda Cavallo, Sardinia, Italy