Sardinia Summer 2015

[MapisM]

LOL, having had the privilege of tasting both Finnish and Tasmanian cruising grounds, I can perfectly understand your comments - in fact, one suggestion springs to mind:
C & K, you should really include an exchange of experiences in your respective bucket lists.
A long trip indeed, either way, but well worth the hassle! :encouragement:
Saying that the two places are oceans apart couldn't be more appropriate than in this case....

 

[AndieMac]

It's sort of the other way around. In the old days, sauna has been the primary means of cleansing oneself by heating the body enough to start sweating and thus help in getting rid of the metabolic waste. The actual washing up has been done in sauna, using warm water heated on a separate stove. Swimming has served the purpose of cooling the body down enough to stop sweating. This is still pretty much the routine today, I personally like to take an one final swim before putting the clothes back on to stay fresh afterwards.

Your observation did make me smile, though. It sort of highlights the fundamental differences between our living environments .

You can tell I don't like being too cold then..

Thanks for the info K, love learning more about the Nordic lifestyle.

PS: hope the weather improves...:encouragement:

 

[AndieMac]

LOL, having had the privilege of tasting both Finnish and Tasmanian cruising grounds, I can perfectly understand your comments - in fact, one suggestion springs to mind:
C & K, you should really include an exchange of experiences in your respective bucket lists.
A long trip indeed, either way, but well worth the hassle! :encouragement:
Saying that the two places are oceans apart couldn't be more appropriate than in this case....

Yes indeed, just say the word.

You always come up with great ideas P

 

[Hurricane]

This is a quick post - very special thanks to MYAG who is away from here at the moment on business.

WE DID IT

Thanks to his explanation of anchoring technique and the loan of his floating rope, we overnighted in that same place where MYAG took MapisM and I last week.
We had all our chain out and it wasn't quite enough to reach right back to the same place but it was good enough for rank amateurs like us.

Job done, we sat down and enjoyed more of that liquid - MYAG's influence again

Full report to follow - assuming people are interested.

 

[erik_plus8]

Yes.



(...of course... :encouragement: )

 

[Whitelighter]

assuming people are interested.

Just a bit

 

[scubaman]

Yes indeed, just say the word.

You always come up with great ideas P

That's a great idea, I'd love to show you around these waters. I would have to take a rain check on the exchange as at this point with kids being still quite young, the trip across the world would be quite a feat. Even if the destination is as beautiful as seen on P's pics .

Seriously, C, if you are considering making the trip over, let me know so we can plan a cruise in the Lake Saimaa.

And with apologies to Hurricane for thread drifting. A very firm 'Yes Please' on the full report.

 

[John100156]

That really does look like an excellent place to spend some time and go snorkelling...... Publish the WP please!

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

WE DID IT

Woo hoo! Well done H. Did you stay overnight?

 

[lambohill]

Impressive!

 

[Hurricane]

OK - report on our latest excursion.

With SWMBO, friends, daughter and partner on board, we set off for a bit of a challenge.

Destination - Pan di Zucchero - only about 12 miles north of Carloforte.
MapisM had, previously (I think) explained this place as "Sugar Loaf Island".
If he didn't, - that's exactly what it should be called.

So we set off from Carloforte - this time turning left as we left the harbour. It was such a nice day that we decided to call into Isola Piana - a small island on the north of the channel. As usual, the water was exceptionally clear and it took significant determination to move on. In fact, I was the driving force - I knew what lay ahead.

I was still saying "just you wait and see" when the swell left over from the last mistral hit us. Jennywren responded by jumping onto the plane and the 12 miles was soon over.

Pan di Zucchero is itself a beautiful place and we were heading for something better but it seemed a good idea to stop here - just for lunch - with scenery like this - wouldn't you do the same??

I'll just post the pics and you can see for yourselves what a fantastic area MapisM cruises.

This is Sugar Loaf Island (I think)

The kids set off snorkelling

A question for MapisM
Did you know that there is a statue to the Virgin Mary underwater in a small alcove on the Sugar Loaf itself?
See in this pic

The plan was to move on to even better surroundings after lunch but we couldn't draw ourselves away.

Then it was off to the place where MYAG took MapisM and I a week earlier.

To be continued......
(split due to YBW limits on number of pics per post)

 

[Hurricane]

..... Continued

So late afternoon, we arrived (a whole mile further north) at Canal Grande.
This was the place where only "the brave anchor".
But, I think you will agree that it is just "beautiful".

Following MYAG's techniques, we "dug our anchor in" and tied back to the same rock that we had done the previous week.

It must be said now that I have learned (and am still learning) new anchoring techniques. Over the years, we have been very gentle with our anchoring tackle. We "kind of" ask it nicely to set itself and "tickle" back on the engines to help. MYAG's approach is to "ram the anchor in" so that it is going nowhere. Well - he has all the gear to do so. Our poor little V4 windlass would literally "throw all its gears" overboard if it were asked to anchor that way.
So, we have made a decision - we are now in the process of upgrading our bow tackle.
Whilst here in Italy, we have ordered a bigger chain and (for the moment) a new gipsy for our old windlass. It is very clear to me that we need to be far more aggressive when setting our anchor. The chain that we have ordered is also longer - that will take us to 150m of 12mm chain. Over the next few months, we will also install a substantial chain stopper so that we can properly pull the complete rig with our engines without putting a strain on our windlass.

Our Delta anchor might be big enough but we will be reviewing that later as well.
We have also ordered 100m of floating rope so that we can start to tie off to the rocks like MYAG demonstrated.
On this occasion, the new kit hadn't arrived so MYAG lent us a couple of lengths of his spare floating rope for us to try.

And, using his instructions, we successfully laid the rope back to that same rock. All of our chain was now out of the locker.

We then settled in for the night, knowing that we weren't going anywhere.

The following morning, we walked ashore and climbed that same hill to take some stunning photos.

Whilst returning to the boat, we discovered a huge cave - less than 200m from the boat that I'm sure we didn't see the previous week. I wonder if MapisM knows it - I bet MYAG didn't know that there was a 100m long cave just metres north of that anchorage. We drove our RIB inside - right down the whole length (at least 100m long) and at the end the water was still 6m deep (we have a depth sounder on the dinghy).
Here's a pic of the cave.

Back to the anchorage itself - what a beautiful place.

Then, after snorkelling around, we checked the anchor and chain.

Wow - our chain had caught round a rock.
With water like this, even 10m down you can see problems clearly.

It was time to go anyway so, after some consideration, we decided to slip the shoreline rope and let JW pull her chain out from the rock herself. I was amazed how easy it was to rotate the boat round and pull the chain out from under that rock.

All that was left was to recover the anchor and head back to Carloforte for dinner out in the town.

My thanks to MYAG and MapisM.
We are still very much amateurs at this extreme anchoring but we are enjoying the experience. Actually, I'm enjoying it but SWMBO is still very apprehensive. I think it is all about being in your "comfort zone". When we get back to the kind of anchoring that we usually do, we will be just that more confident and with our new anchoring gear we will be able to tackle more difficult situations.

 

[scubaman]

Fantastic stuff. Thank you for posting these beautiful pics of a stunning place!

 

[henryf]

Superb !

What a fantastic forum. Sharing places, knowledge and offering to help where needed.

Henry

 

[Whitelighter]

I hope you are prepared to become the SCM anchoring master?

So I need loads of chain, some floating rope and...?

 

[Nick_H]

Great stuff Mike and fab pictures.

We've only tied back to the rocks a handful of times, so are beginners ourselves, but a couple of things we have found. Firstly, in some places the rocks have been quite sharp, even at the waterline. I guess they must have been slate rocks, so rather than being rounded off by wave action, layers break away and leave a new sharp edge each time. So, in your new armoury you'll also need a manageable length of chain, or a wire rope with eyelets on each end.

The other thing we've found is you can get more swell due to reflection off the rocks and a lot of rise and fall because the swell has nowhere to go once it has passed you. We stayed a couple of days in one of the Calanques west of Toulon, and after the first uncomfortable night tied back to the rocks, we moved into deeper water in the centre of the anchorage and it was far less bouncy.

How do you keep the kegs of beer cold?

 

[Erik C]

Looking at the pictures I see a lot of the rocks have cracks in them. Maybe those cracks could be used to fit a rock anchor as used in mountain climbing, they are easy to fit and can withstand thousands of pounds of force. It might come in handy if there is nothing to tie a rope around.
Example: http://www.backcountrygear.com/active-protection-cams/metolius-climbing-supercams-spring-2014.html

 

[Pinnacle]

Great post Mike. Keep em coming, please. :encouragement:

 

[GSL]

I hope you are prepared to become the SCM anchoring master?

So I need loads of chain, some floating rope and...?

Large Heineken by the look of it!

GL

 

[MapisM]

So I need loads of chain, some floating rope and...?

Well, a boat, to start with!
Sorry J, couldn't resist.... Hope everything's going well with the new deal. :encouragement:

Oh, and re. last Hurric post:
chapeau to your crew for finding the statue. I was aware of its existence, but not of its exact location.
I'll look for it on the next cruise, though I must say that when snorkeling around the PdZ I usually pay more attention to the marine life under the two arches, which is really impressive.
Otoh, yes, I swam inside that cave, following the coast heading NW from the anchoring spot.
When we were there with MYAG, we just went snorkeling on the other side of the bay, which is equally nice and a bit more sheltered.
But for the records, there's plenty of other nice spots, going N towards Oristano, like Cala Domestica, Capo Pecora, Piscinas - to name but a few.