25th June - Villasmius to Dell'Ogliastra (sexy pasta and Rob's bottom)
Bali Hai
Neal Stow
Thu 25 Jun 2009 22:48
miles up the coast to catch the ferry on Friday to travel across to Rome
for Mo's 50th birthday party. The Italian Meteo had forecast strong
Westerlies which would have been excellent for the sail north. Of course
the weather was nothing like this and we were faced with motoring in very
light variable winds. Then, all of a sudden, a 15 knot westerly came out
of nowhere and we had a superb sail for about an hour before, just as
quickly, the wind died again. The boat reached 9.9 knots - even with John
at the helm.
The original plan had been to spend the night at Arbatax but with the
light winds and the fact that Arbatax marina was next door to a facility
for repairing oil rigs, we instead looked for a nearby anchorage. The
pilot book mentioned the nearby island of Dell O'gliastra. As we
approached it the island just looked like a small rock, hardly suitable
for as well protected anchorage. But on the North West side there was a
beautiful small bay with several small fishing boats. There was enough
room for us to anchor and shortly before the sun went down the other boats
had gone and we were left on our own.
The first thing we did was to go snorkeling, except Emma. Who jumped in
with her mask and fins on and swam over to us before realising that she
had forgotten her snorkel. John, who had spent the whole day on the back
of the boat with a fishing rod, was anxious to suss out the fishing
potential. It was also imperative that he caught something we could eat as
we had not planned on spending the night at anchor and had not done any
shopping.
In the end the only fish we had was a tin of anchovies. It was one of the
ingredients in the penis and booby "capricciosa" pasta that I managed to
cobble together with leftovers that I found on the boat. I blamed Rob and
John for the choice of pasta shapes but they both swear that the pasta had
been bought by Ian and Jackie.
Before the pasta the evening started with some rum punch, concocted by
John, who has certainly maintained his reputation as a superb mixer of
cocktails. Unfortunately it took some time for the cocktails to arrive and
so a few beers were drunk first and then there was the wine with the meal.
As the evening drew to a close the alcohol loosened Rob's tongue and he
started to reveal al sorts for things about himself - most of which are
not suitable for publication. One fact that did come to light though is
that Rob's girlfriend Joanne's pet name for him is the name of a well
known cartoon character. It also reflects one of Rob's most well known
but least pleasant personal habits.