Sardinia, anyone?

[Champagne Murphy]

Any of the committee with experience of Sardinia? My impression is that it is very expensive; right/wrong? Full of people who may or may not come from the land of the hammer and sickle; right/wrong?
Wife likes the look of a charter there. All info gratefully recieved

 

[mjcoon]

Any of the committee with experience of Sardinia? My impression is that it is very expensive; right/wrong? Full of people who may or may not come from the land of the hammer and sickle; right/wrong?
Wife likes the look of a charter there. All info gratefully recieved

Not been since 2009, when we had a charter out of Olbia. Not sure it's that much more expensive than other parts of the Med. An advantage of being in the north is that you can "go foreign" and visit Bonifacio and the Maddelena archipelago.

But being a strait between two islands it can get windy there...

Mike.

 

[Iain C]

Chartered there a few years ago. TBH it's the only foreign charter I've done so I don't have much of a reference, but IIRC £80 per night for a marina berth for a 40 footer, sometimes more. But we were on the Costa Smerelda, or "millionaires playground"...it was an experience, but perhaps of how the other half sail!

Leaving the hotel at Cala di Volpe and putt-putting past the assembled beautiful people on the lawn on the waters edge, in our incredibly loud dinghy, drowning out the string quartet as the guests drank champagne at the closing party of the classic regatta was quite amusing!

If you do go Bonifacio on Corsica is worth the trip over...a harbour approach unlike any other!

Avoid "cruising charter" booked via Nautilus...a very shonky outfit with a load of faults on our Bav40.

 

[GrahamD]

Chartered an Oceanis 393 out of Portisco in early August 2005. Some marinas were eye-wateringly expensive but we avoided them - cruising through the Madelenas with nights on the anchor was fabulous. We found that there were a lot of powerboats and RIBs blasting around from 11am-5pm , but the vast majority then disappeared off to the restaurants in the marinas, leaving the yachties to enjoy the islands. We would agree that the approach to Bonifaccio is one of the most memorable ever......it should be on every sailor's bucket list! I would also echo the comment about the potential for strong ( and very hot) winds in this area. We used the engine very little and had to shelter for 24hours from a 40kt blast.

 

[binch]

Sard

Have been going for many years, calling in for a month or so while on passage Greece/France.
There are snags which you learn to avoid.
Avoid the playground of princes and oligarchs. It's not worth it. They have organised one of the nicest anchorages in the island just off the north coast where now anchorage is forbidden unless you are very rich, and this is enforced.
But there are some lnice spots.
Among the ports we visit are Cannigione (anchor off is best. Good facilities ashore, but beware of rising north winds)
There are many little bays on the north coast where to anchor quietly and clear of crowds.
We call at La Caletta on the way from Messina. Scruffy little port, but relaxed. The inside of the breakwater has rocks below surface in most of nength, so is little used and free. Anchor and go stern to after sounding out a spot where the stern or bows can be hauled in. I did paint the parts where there is five feet alongside but I bet the paint has worn off now. Survey it and re-paint and do everyone a good turn
Avoid the island off the NW tip of Sardinia. It is (was?) a prison island for the mafia and heavily guarded, but just south of it is a nice harboue. Forgot its name, (enility is setting in)
South coast is pleasant., especially the little port at the SW tip of the island.

 

[sailorgirl]

Was crew on a friends boat for the Swan Worlds at Puerto Cervo some years ago. It is a very small Swan (in comparison to the rest of the fleet) with a crew on a similarly sized budget so once we'd got over the shock of pizza at 32 Euros each we survived the week by eating somewhere well inland most nights. The locals are friendly though!

 

[Dux Duckett]

My wife spent much of her life there before we married, so we know the island well. I would avoid the Costa Smerelda area for reasons outlined above. Instead, look at the north west of the island which is more charming, more 'authentic' and, for my money, just as pretty. Look at Alghero and Stintino (the island Binch refers to is Asinara - just off the beach at Stintino and no longer a prison).

 

[SeamanStaines]

We spent the majority of last summer in Northern Sardinia. We found it expensive for general provisions but not impossibly so, and a let down as far as eating ashore was concerned. We thought we where going to spend the summer in Italy enjoying the much discussed excellent cuisine and instead found it to be expensive and basic. We also looked forward to amazing markets and shops, again nothing to get excited about. I suspect we are at fault, expecting to be visiting London and the Solent and instead finding ourselves in the Bristol Channel!

Marinas of course where impossible, the prices where eye watering (we did in fact spend one night in a Marina (Portesco) at a remortgaging cost of 200 euros a night for a 42' Catamaran!

The main thing we where very aware of is just how windy it became there, in the first six weeks we had seven gales, I normally set the wind alarm to go off at 20kts in an anchorage which was pointless, 35kts was a more reasonable figure and that was in sheltered anchorages and on several nights we where showing Force eight on the instruments at anchor hiding behind a big hill.

Having said all of that, the weather was good and the swimming terrific. We anchored all of the time (with the exception of Olbia mentioned below) and had no particular problem finding suitable anchorages. The holding though is often not good, we dragged a couple of times, and this was the first time we have had an issue since we changed anchors a few years ago, so you need to make sure you are well dug in. Water was easy to get, Marinas where charging us about twenty euro for eight hundred litres.

Olbia is worth a special mention as you can tie up to the town quay there for free and we spent a good amount of time there on and off during the summer. It is very convenient for the town and especially for the airport if you are changing crew. There is also a good train service if your crew come to a different airport.

We found some good places to visit and generally had a great time, but always watching the weather did get us down after a while. Having said that we did sail a lot, we hardly used any diesel and sailed everywhere, a first for us in this part of the Mediterranean especially after the Balearic's!

The North West coast was very good and Porto Torres particularly nice for us, with the benefit of hindsight we should have spent more time in that area rather than rushing off to the North East.

There are a lot of big super yachts around but they anchor a long way out and where not a problem (apart from how close they like to get when passing). Many of the anchorages seemed to have buoys for them and a couple of times we where intercepted by RIB's telling us we could not anchor in the area they occupied. We normally said we where going into the shallow water closer in to anchor in sand. Apart from them insisting we made sure we anchored in sand they where extremely pleasant (they did check but given the lousy holding anywhere else we where hardly likely to anchor in weed!).

On reflection, we did enjoy our visit, I don't think we would repeat it.

 

[Zen Zero]

Like the others have said, avoid the posh bits in the NE corner and you'll be ok. The rest is breathtakingly beautiful and cheap, the further South, the cheaper it gets.

PS I'm happy to help you with local stuff.

 

[ITH]

As others have pointed out, there are some very expensive areas in the NE of the island; but in the S you will find both good sailing and interesting/inexpensive places to visit. We found the Sardinians hospitable and friendly - if less demonstrative than the mainland Italians; we met lots of nationalities (Italians, French, Greek, Germans, Brits etc but no Russians.)

Anchorages are plentiful and marinas not too pricey- depending on the time of year. In May and June two years ago, marina cost for us (11m monohull) varied from €25 (Teulada) to €30 (Cagliari).

Interesting and varied coastline, with plenty to see and do ashore. Provisions generally are slightly dearer than UK, although fruit and veg are cheaper. Eating out varied from €20 for a set menu of the day (two courses plus drinks) to basic pasta/pitza parlours and quite ritzy restaurants where the fish course alone can set you back €25/30.

We'll certainly spend more time there on the way back.

 

[Caladh]

I can only back up what all the others have said esp. about the NE in july and August. We found the Sardinian people mainly arrogant, un-helpful and out to make as much money as possible. Unfortunately we hit Sardinia (Algerhro) on August 15th and it was very busy. However after September 1st it closed down ! We over wintered in Cagliari the islands capital right down south and the started to very much enjoy the Sardinian experience.

 

[jimbaerselman]

This page: http://jimbsail.info/mediterranean/west-med/sardinia gives a fairly comprehensive description of the island from the point of view of a cruising sailor.

 

[duncan99210]

We've been to the north west from Algerho to the Straits (3 years back) and to Cagliari in the south (last year).

Cagliari: the marina was run down but cheap (€22 per night, 12m monohull), the bar was even cheaper but the shops were a good stomp away. Otherwise, good place to lurk waiting for the winds to changes. Also good place to meet folks as the airport is a short bus ride away.

North west: we anchored off or used a marina once (€30 iirc) and had a nice trip round and a hairy crossing of the straits to Corsica - set out under motor, wound up under about 1/3 of the foresail and still hitting 7.5 - 8 knots...... Nice enough place and easy enough to buy stuff once we found a village or 2. All of our visits were en route to elsewhere, so we didn't explore any further. have a look at the blog for details if you're interested.

 

[KellysEye]

>and visit Bonifacio and the Maddelena archipelago.


I would charter from Corsica rather than Sardinia it is cheaper and has many more anchorgages. The places above are must visit, the first has the most amazing entry, climb the hill to the village and look at the view, and the latter are very pretty. As said the straits can be very windy it can be a gale force, which sometimes arrives when a cigar shaped cloud forms over the island.