Beth’s birthday

On March 17^th, Beth reached the grand old age of 11. She had an mp3 player, music, clothes, money, flowers, chocolates, nail varnish, makeup and hair stuff, the Dolphinz Nintendo DS game. She is now often to be found listening to music in her bunk – practicing for when she is a teenager.

Beth with her mp3 player.

We went out for a birthday meal, and had a ‘cake fest’ in the gazebo with balloon volleyball and Twister.

Beth on her birthday – looking far too grown up to be my baby girl.

Bethany presiding over her birthday cake fest.

Birthday Twister.

Kite flying on Poetto beach

Valentina scooped up Beth and Bryn to go kite flying on Poetto beach. We dispatched them with our trusty boat-issue kites, but in the event these were no match for the industrial variety used as a form of transport here in Italy!

Beth helps to fly a 2.5 metre kite on Poetto beach.

Bryn hitching a ride on a kite-powered trike.

Woolly mammoths, wild ponies and ancient ruins

The Russian Woolly Mammoth exhibition is touring Europe and is currently in Sardinia. Valentina organized a couple of cars and we joined her and Valeria, Max, Andrea, and Big Dave (BRUMBY) to see the exhibition. After a picnic lunch, we drove up onto a high-level plateau called the Giara, and finally back down to the nuraghic complex at Barumini.

“Mummy, can we have a mammoth? Mummy, can we have a mammoth? Mummy, can we have…”

Mr and Mrs W Mammoth plus their 2.4 kids.

0.4 of a woolly mammoth family.

We reckon that this was the ancestor of a Bassett Hound having a bad day.

T-Rex didn’t disappoint.

Dessicated baby elephant – just add water to reconstitute.

Prehistoric Sardinia had a pygmy woolly mammoth.

The rain held off long enough for us to eat our picnic.

Big Dave (BRUMBY) and David.

Valentina and Max.

Valeria and Andrea.

A surprise birthday cake and pressie were produced at the end of the picnic.

The Giara

We left the mammoths behind to drive up onto the Giara – a 45 km² plateau of basalt that rises to about 600 metres. According to the guide book, the plateau has a unique eco-system, with shallow lakes that form in depressions in the basalt, woods of stunted cork oaks, and a population of small, dark, wild ponies that are probably descendants of the horses brought to Sardinia by the Phoenicians 2500 years ago.

The rugged landscape (and a wild pony) of the Giara.

Barumini

From the Giara, we drove on to the Su Nuraxi Nuraghic complex in Barumini, which is considered to be one of the most important archaeological sites in Sardinia. The complex was uncovered in 1950 by local farmers who thought that it was just a mound of earth. It was recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site in 1997. The complex, which actually looks like a massive castle, started off as a single, 20-metre high tower constructed about 1400 years BC. Over time, four smaller towers were added on, each one representing a cardinal point, followed by a defensive wall around the entire structure.

A model of the original central tower and two of the cardinal towers of the Su Nuraxi Nuraghi.

The central tower today.

Looking down to the well and entrance to the main tower from the defensive wall.

Inside the main tower – it is hard to believe that this was constructed 1400 years BC.

The complex then grew organically as circular dwellings were added around the edge, with a specific building for community meetings. The complex was abandoned, but repopulated during Phoenician, Punic and Roman times. The official tour – which took us inside the original tower, up and down narrow stone stairways, and through stone tunnels – was in Italian, but luckily we had our own personal archeologist (Valentina) to translate and elaborate for us. This would be a fantastic place for a game of hide-and-seek…

Looking down on one of the cardinal towers and the circular dwellings that make up the complex.

Spring – the great bottom scrubbing season

Spring is slowly unfolding here in Sardinia, with pink blossom appearing on the trees throughout the city, and 'V's of flamingoes heading south (they sound like geese flying overhead but when you look up, the ‘V’s are composed of huge, pink-tinged birds with absurdly long necks and legs). The weather is still unsettled, but we are getting more and more sunny days between the cold, wet, windy ones. We can tell that the weather is improving because we get to eat breakfast outside more often. On one such occasion we were sitting there about to start eating – cornflakes, sultanas, banana, milk, etc. in the bowls – and the table collapsed (it is designed so that the two outside leaves to fold out, with brackets that click into place to keep it up). It hit our knees and the two leaves flipped up catapulting a couple of bowls-worth of breakfast down the companionway into the boat (and onto our bed) while the rest (including an open carton of milk) hit our knees before the cockpit floor. We all sat there in shocked silence, dripping milk, before getting the giggles. Luckily, we were able to hose the lot away down the self-drainers in the cockpit, and there wasn’t too much milk in the bed.

I've finished the dental work that I needed doing – 6 weeks of staring at the Philips fluorescent tubes while having 5 old fillings drilled out and replaced, a couple of new fillings and a double root canal. This has blown all of the money we had just managed to put away as the new engine fund. Oh well, looks like I won’t be able to give up the day job just yet!

Everyone is gearing up for the new sailing season, many lifting out to scrub their bottom and renew their antifouling. PYXIS, TYFON and MOYA have been out and are now back in, and NEREUS II is languishing on the hard waiting for a suitable weather window to be refloated.

A rare glimpse of PYXIS’ bottom.

We went out for the day with PYXIS, sailing to Poetto beach where we anchored and inspected the growth on CAPE’s bottom. It wasn’t too bad considering that she hasn’t been antifouled for 3 years. She has acquired a ‘bulb’ of mussels, barnacles and spiro worm at the bottom edge of her rudder and keel, and a general coating of slime and barnacles over the winter, but the growth will come off with a heavy scraper session under snorkel power. Valentina has offered to help us tackle the rudder and keel with scuba gear, so we will be able to avoid a lift out this year and put the money into the engine fund instead.

The boring boat job bit

The boat jobs continue. David has modified the base of the bed in Bryn’s cabin to improve the storage and access to the lockers underneath (as well as removing the bits of wood that stick up between the bunk cushions and which always cripple you when you kneel on the bed). We bought a new mattress for our bunk in a sale, which then had to be cut to shape (using the carving knife) and the cover sewn back together by hand (I couldn’t get the mattress under the foot of the sewing machine).

Cutting the mattress to fit our bunk, and sewing the cover back in place.

The children have earned extra pocket money doing boat jobs for other people – cleaning the decks and bilges of MASCOT 3, and polishing MOYA’s stern from the dinghy. They also gave CAPE’s bilges a good clean.

Bryn scrubbing the bilges.

One of the local chandlers had a closing down sale and we got some boaty bits and pieces for a good price (a boarding ladder, some rope, new fishing line, a canoe).

Beth trying out the new canoe.

Even more cake and candles

Birthdays for Bill (YELLOW BIRD) and Lynn (MASCOT 3) provided excuses for get-togethers in the gazebo with even more cake and candles.

Bill blowing out his candles.

Lyn cutting her cake.

Lyn’s party degenerated into a disco extravaganza and sing-along…

Farewell party

Lon and Lynn (MASCOT 3) have now left for sunnier climes (Tunisia), and a few boats (ENYA and PYXIS) are just waiting for a suitable weather window to leave. As the Easter weekend was probably the last time that all the winter liveaboards were going to be together, we had a Farewell BBQ – with live music (Sailing) provided by Beth, Bryn, Gary (WILD OATS) and Martin the Music.

“One, two, three, four…”

The ‘intrepid Smith Family’

The ‘intrepid Smith Family’ continue to appear in print – with Part II of this trip now available in the May issue of Sailing Today. Two down, two more to come, and I am negotiating with my publisher about future installments with which to bore the yachting community.

The arty bit at the end

I found a little time for some painting…

‘ENYA’.