Sunday 8th May Stuck in Arbatax

We left Cagliari Thursday afternoon - a strange feeling to finally be sailing - and went a short distance to anchor off Villasimius nr Cabo Carbonara, which is at the SE corner of Sardinia. From there we have been slowly working our way up the East coast in sunshine and light winds. The coastline is getting progressively craggier, the mountains higher and the rocks redder. Stopped at a little port with a fairly new Porto Turistico called Corallo and then Arbatax, where we got stuck..

A strange little place, we have a French and a Belgian boat for company who are weather watching for the longer passage to Tunisia. There is little here, a small fishing fleet and an industrial timber mill and a sleepy little town that is shabby and a bit rundown, with half completed, attractive looking building projects that will probably never be finished. Would love to go inland to the mountains, but the buses are being uncooperative with their timings. We were stuck, sitting out some gales - steady F7/8 for a couple of days with rough seas. So we explored the Rocce Rosso on foot, a huge red rock promontory, and the surrounding countryside.

A huge difference to Sardinia in autumn, when it is parched and dry. Now there is a blaze of colour and everywhere a heavy sweet scent. The colour is from poppies (red, yellow,, mauve), hottentot figs, anenomes, mesembranthemum, bourganivillea and a red tasselly bush the name of which escapes me. And the scent is from pittosporum, lilac and orange blossom. All this will apparently only last a couple of weeks before the the dry sets in and it is all myrtle and fennel.

Planning the next legs, we need to meet up with Free Spirit and take delivery of our new battery charger and work out where we want to be when. And R's birthday is looming and I have done nothing. Oh Oh.