Position: Port Cervo

Port Cervo is a terrific marina.  The staff were so helpful it made the dumb Mediterranean mooring a little less of a hassle – and the staff all spoke perfect English to boot! They actually found the anchor lines in the water in their dinghy and handed them to you!

We are still in the low(est) season so we never expect to see many boats - but there were no other boats to speak of! No other boats along our pontoon and only two along the next one.
The port was deserted! See the pics.

hmmm.. you don’t think they might have heard about our mooring skills do you?

O/K.   We are here  - where are all the other pretty people?

During the summer this is ‘THE’ port to be seen at. The world’s pretty people, the rich and famous, the infamous and all the wannabes (like us) come to spend at least some time on their super yacht here during July and August. All the restaurants and bars have their photos of celebrities that ‘popped in to them’. Princess Di was here, Sophia Loren, Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis ..the list goes on and on! I didn’t know most of them. This must have been the case for one particular restaurant owner too because I offered him a signed photo of Les and myself in lieu of payment but he clearly didn’t get out much like me.

Porto Cervo must have been a cute little sleepy cala at one time before the developers moved in – now, if there ever was an original village, it has now been gobbled up with new development. That is still continuing. However, if development must occur then they have shown a pretty good model of how to do it. Mostly low rise buildings and all kept within the hillside profiles.

All Porto Cervo does is support the mega rich in the summer - period – and all of this is based around their super yachts and super yacht racing. In fact some the most prestigious sailboat racing in the world is based here being organized by the exclusive yacht club – we are told many of the members never actually sail or own a boat by the way.
Oh yes, an oversight I am sure, but the club management knew we had arrived but we are still waiting for our invite to pop into the club room.

When the super rich and famous come here in July and August they will pay well over 3,000 Euros/night for a berth in this marine car parking lot. Plus a charge for water, then Electricity and the garbage collection. If they ‘slum it’ in a little 17m boat like ours they will pay 550 Euros per night plus ‘extras’. However in the low season everything becomes a lot cheaper. For example our boat drops from 550 Euros/night to  ..11 Euros/night! (Oh, water and electricity bring the total/night to about 65 Euros/night.
Market pricing at it’s finest!

Virtually everything is shut down at this time of the year with just a few ‘Die Hard’ businesses hanging in there. The only activities are building, painting, repairing and cleaning. Yet again, we have no internet for the boat. The WiFi antenna blew down in one of the recent gales and there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to pop it back up yet. Bruce doesn’t get here until July!

This is a wonderful sheltered marina which is just as well as we were expecting another big wind system to come through. Hey, it had been 5 or 6 days since the last one!

We found a great restaurant “Hivaoa” – and they had internet – fast internet! They even prepared our first taste of excellent Italian food this year. One of the managers even knew Oakville from his one year student exchange in Toronto!  ..an international jet setter like us!

We could not hire a car here as it was all shut down!
No supermarket.
No market
No ‘real’ shop for any provisions.

The area is tightly packed with holiday homes, hotels, restaurants and estate agencies!
In some ways its hard to think that this place will be bursting with people and restaurants will have to be pre-booked in just a few months.
The area reminded us of an extreme Muskoka seasonal  lifecycle.

To avoid all the crowds and the paparazzi we took a long walk around the bay to the ‘village’ and enjoyed a few ‘americanos’, a snack, the calmer weather and sunny skies.

After three days later we had another weather window - so time to move on to Rome. We are also now using the back up food in the cupboards! We are still amazed that not one small grocery store could be found.

..actually we quite enjoyed our short stopover here and our own chance to be one of the rich and famous.

hmm.. perhaps if I offered to pay the ‘Hivaoa’ owner to have our picture up on his wall?