38 53.561N 008 48.213E Souther tip of Sardinia
Pipedream
Tue 13 Sep 2011 19:16
We got up fairly early this morning after several gin and tonics at the Monday night barbeque.
Seems like we were only in Cagliari for a short time but made lots of friends there. A couple of the boaters said they remembered me from two years ago when Tony and I stopped at the same marina. I paid the marina bill and then we were off to take on fuel. Filled up to the brim this time not knowing what to expect on the passage to Spain.
Glad we did, as we left we put up the sails turned off the motor and were going almost 5 kts. We sailed about 15 miles across Cagliari bay and when we turned the corner to head south to the end of Sardinia. We found ourselves in the middle of some kind of NATO exercise. Four war ships. Two Turkish, one Spanish and one with no flag. They had some kind of picket line going. About then the wind starts to pick up. After it hit 25 kts on our nose I pulled in the Genoa, reefed the main, and the staysail. We looked up and the sides of one of the war ships is lined with all kinds of civilians with binoculars in street clothes watching... us trying to get the boat under control in 33 kts of wind. The weather forecast said 10 kts variable.
It blew the rest of the day like that so rather than try to sail all night in near gail conditions we put into the nearest anchorage with enough water to hold us. We are now on he very southern tip of Sardinia. Last anchorage for 300 miles. After dark the wind dropped and it is like a mill pond in here under a super bright full moon. Go figure someone threw a switch and the wind stopped. Mike is below whipping up a spaghetti dinner... last one in Italy? We'll head out for Spain again in the morning.