Hi all,
On 7th Sept we slipped our warps from the marina in Cannigione, sailing and anchoring in Barca Bruciata bay, onto Porto Palma on Caprera and finally anchoring off in the middle of the pretty bay of Porto Rafael just after 18.00hrs.
With the anchor dug in we started to relax for the evening when an armada of local fishing boats and tourist boats came literally stampeding towards us. The boats encircled us and the. We noticed that one of the lead boats had a large religious icon of a saint from a church secured on the foredeck. We have seen this before in Spain in a bay where we were stampeded and then fireworks let off overus......a procession for the saint of the fishermen.

On this occasion it seems the saint was almost certainly 'Saint Rafael' of the bays namesake.
We expected the boats to pass us but no, they continued to circle us....tooting their horns and waving, cheering in fiesta style. We joined in with our horn too......pleased we had our anchor ball up. !!!!
Then we saw overhead a helicopter circling and then dropping vertically.  Unfortunately it seems we had anchored obliviously for the night in the key centre spot of the bay.
The helicopter continued to drop vertically, nearby with the surrounding boats moving away. The helicopter incredibly almost touched the sea before dropping a large reef into the water.
The tooting and cheering continued and the atmosphere was really good......we got front row seats....ha ha.... and in Sardinian good spirit, no one moved us away as they would have done in the UK prior to the event.

Photos tell the story better.... below.

Love to all
T and T x x