We remained in the anchorage at Stagnali, which we now had to ourselves. Having eased the bikes out of their normal storage locations, we thought we would give them a decent outing and cycled around the island of La Maddelena, having crossed back over the causeway. This was a much needed bout of exercise as the island is somewhat hilly (the crew would say mountainous). Unfortunately, at the farthest point away from civilisation, it started to rain - this necessitated finding the nearest beach bar and sitting with a drink until it stopped. Fortuitously, the bar was not too far, it had shelter and the rain didn’t last long.

One ancillary purpose of our bike ride was to view from the land some potential anchorages. One that we had in mind from the pilot book was Cala Spalmatore. In previous seasons, this has had Marine Park mooring buoys and these are included in our pass. However, the Marine Park buoys have not yet been installed anywhere yet but the local yacht club have taken the concession at Spalmatore and installed their own - with a 30€ a night charge. Unsurprisingly, there have been few takers and none when we visited.

Entrepreneurship Sardinian style - mooring too expensive and all buoys empty

Our trusty Bromptons getting us around the island. We fear the wheels may not be as round as they used to be after coping with some very uneven paving slabs.

Tuesday 24th June  We have returned to La Maddelena, Cala Gavetta marina. This time we are moored to a floating pontoon and had to shoe-horn ourselves in place as we are right at the end of a trot and our bowsprit is just 2 feet from a traditional bowsprit on a wooden boat that obviously is here on a permanent basis.

Bowsprit jousting. We are moored stern to the pontoon that is a right angles to the one shown here

If it ever crossed your mind what happened to those ferries from Sealink when Sea Containers took them over in 1984, the answer lies in the attached photos where Sealink  and St Catherine have been painted over with white paint on one of the ferries running between La Maddelena and Palau.