Week 12! Maddalena Archipelago – wildlife conservation area, Northern Sardinia

Coming up to week 13, half way through my Six Month Travelling Adventure.

And here we are, anchored off the island of La Maddelena (the largest island in the archipelago) today: Tuesday (24 July) – after being holed up on the boat in extreme windy weather for three days (of which more later) It’s been a very lovely, warm sunny day. After lunch we decided to go to the nearby beach.  Jo swam there, and Rae, Steve and I rowed over in the dinghy, taking Jo’s stuff with us.

I then put my phone and all my valuables (passport, money, etc) into my brilliant watertight small blue swimming valuables-holder, rolled it up as per the instructions (like I’ve been doing once or twice for the last three or four weeks without any problems), and took it with me for a swim in the sea – which was gorgeous, beautiful, deep, warm and welcoming.

And then got back on land , and emptied rather a lot of water out of my suddenly irritatingly NON watertight bag ☹   and that seems to be the end of my Iphone.   The passport and the Euro notes have dried out nicely, and the sim card is working fine in my old work phone.  Ah well.  Amazing, amazing, amazing luck is that ONLY YESTERDAY I cleared the iphone of 600+ photos and copied them all onto my laptop – whoopee!  (I also backed them up onto a memory stick which was also in the non-watertight bag, but that’s not really a problem…).  Can’t remember what my insurance says about iphones, but it was a very old one and I had already decided I wanted to replace it with one with a better phone…..

misty sunrise

So here are some of my latest photos of our trip.   The mountain contours on the islands are absolutely stunning but my phone doesn’t take those well, so I concentrate on sunrises and sunsets…

sunset

Graceful Days from the dinghy

Jo posing; Steve on watch, Rae at the helm

yes I have been staying awake at the helm!

Rae elegantly kicking the anchor away from the boat

Jon is the lovely owner of our beautiful catamaran Graceful Days.  He’s a brilliant and very encouraging sailor – he’s been in the navy and has taught sailing in the past and he says no question is ever too stupid: I’ve learned loads from him over the past two and a half weeks we’ve been on the boat.    He’s had some sad news:  last Tuesday in the early morning he had a call from the nursing home in England where his mother had been living, to tell him that she had died.    This meant that he had to go home for a few days to take care of things back home;  but he didn’t feel he could leave us till he was sure that the boat was in good hands.   Rae and I were the only crew at the time, but on Wednesday we were  due to be picking up another couple, Jo and Steve. We knew Steve had sailed before but we didn’t know how much experience he had.  Rae has done lots of sailing and has her Day Skipper certificate, which meant that legally it was fine for Jon to leave the boat with her and me (as you’ll know if you’ve been reading these blogs, I didn’t QUITE pass mine back in May in Ireland, though I had a good time working on it).   But the two of us didn’t quite have enough physical strength, or confidence, to sail the boat on our own.   Anyway, it turns out that Steve owned a yacht for ten years, has lots of sailing qualifications, and Jon was perfectly happy leaving him as skipper for the few days he’d be away – along with Rae (first mate) and me (“bridle queen” ie anchor assistant!) – we two were by then very familiar with the boat and happy to do all the day to day tasks.

There was a slight problem in that there were high winds forecast for the weekend – so we spent Friday sailing round the Maddalena islands looking out for sheltered and secluded bays that we could run back to when the winds started gusting.

So on Saturday morning we take Jon into the marina at Cannigione to catch the airport bus to Olbia, get shopping in for FIVE DAYS away from ‘civilisation’, and motor round to find one of our secluded bays.   

Except that…

One of the engines kept cutting out

And

The water desalinator didn’t seem to be working and we seemed to have run out of water

Steve in the engine room

Which meant that even before Jon had got on his plane, Steve was on the phone to him for 40 minutes, while hanging out down in the engine room  trying to get the water sorted.  (Poor Steve, he came away with his wife Jo for a nice relaxing holiday and has ended up being skipper on his first week)

It turned out we hadn’t actually run out of water – it was just that some suction skin or other had been left on, or off, or something…. And there were at least two tanks of water. Phew. So although we’re not sure that the desalinator is working, at least we have water for the next few days!

And the second engine cut back in again which allowed us to get to where we needed to go.

So we found our bay. We anchored.  We had lunch… we had dinner… (that night was gorgeous chickpea and chicken couscous made by Rae). We are certainly EATING well on this trip – we take it in turns to cook, and the food is absolutely amazing.   

   

We got up… we had breakfast.  We sat around. We had lunch. We sat around… I read, (I’ve read LOADS of books on here)…. I did some podcast editing.   We had supper (Steve and Jo made gorgeous turkey stirfry).   Jo and I did our usual starlit evening Tai Chi on the foredeck. (I LOVE doing ‘gaze at moon’ gazing at the Actual Moon).  

And on Sunday night we all went to bed on our second night with the new crew, in our secluded bay, tired but happy as they say.

Only to be woken up at 6.30 the next morning with torrential rain pouring out of the sky, thunder and lightening….

Soaking wet nightie and life jacket isn’t a good look, so I went back to get my jacket – this was the first time I’d actually used the jacket (and, indeed, the life jacket) since we have arrived in gorgeous, hot , Sardinia.

Skipper and first mate after the storm

Anyway we sorted ourselves out, and a couple of hours later it was calm, warm, peaceful, and I think Rae even went for a swim.

sunnier times

  

AND THEN WE HAD A ***REAL*** CRISIS –

THE MILK HAS RUN OUT!

(storms, engines, water, NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER).

But I think tomorrow we may even be able to solve ***that*** problem.

And Thursday (when we pick Jon up again at Cannigioni) I’ll hopefully be able to sort out my phone problem too.   Seeing as (unless soaking my poor drowned Iphone in rice all night revives it) I don’t have the phone no of the friend I’m staying with next week in Switzerland on my way to the Yiddish Summer Weimar Klezmer Music festival that I’m going to in August in Germany ….   However if you’re reading this it means that I’ve managed to get online so probably I’ll have got a message to Jo and probably all will be well.

I have ABSOLUTELY LOVED being on the boat. I can’t imagine, at this stage, coming back and ever living in a house again.  However, coming back living in my house again will presumably make my cat happy (though she looks very content with my tenants from the photos they’ve sent me). Also I do have to say that where I live  I have what has to be the best set of neighbours EVER.  Thank you all – you know who you are, and you know what you’re doing.  (There are some houses for sale there by the way if YOU want to live with the best neighbours ever. See the link!) 

I’ve already been in touch with the local Thoroughbred Rescue Centre near my village about volunteering to muck out the horses when I get home – and the local canoe club say they’ll take me kayaking (and one of my neighbours will lend me a kayak too).  I really want to get involved with something outside (boats, goats, etc have really made me happy on this trip so far as regular readers will know), and however many times I try I can’t get into gardening.  In principle I would love to have an allotment and grow vegetables, but in practice it just doesn’t do it for me.  

I have however also loved interviewing fascinating people and making podcasts, and hopefully I’ll be able to do lots more sound recording when I get home, which will make my creative side very happy. You’ll see in my previous blog post that I’ve just edited and published my fourth podcast, which was my very first interview – with Matt Whelan, thatcher and philosopher from County Wexford.  Here’s the link if you missed it.   And I’ve just been editing the next one, which should hopefully be out soon.  It is an interview with Norah King, a wonderful young woman who grew up next door to my sister and her family and is my niece Jen’s oldest friend.  She went back to Ireland with her family 26 years ago, and became – of all things – an opera singer!  So when my sister wanted a singer to sing ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ at my brother in law’s funeral in May, Norah was the obvious choice.  Here is a sneak preview of Norah singing at the funeral (the interview is absolutely lovely – she’s a beautiful person as well as having a fabulous voice).

For someone who said they weren’t going to be writing any blogs, I am aware that this is already far too long.

So … over and out for now. Thanks for all your comments – please keep in touch on Fionaistravelling at gmail dot com   

(though response time will be slowed down till I can sort out this little phone problem!)

All the best

Fiona xxx

See my travel blogs at http://fionistravelling.blogspot.com  and my podcasts at www.hannahfrank.org.uk/podcast-page