Stromboli

What we wanted was this:

After a slow sail, we arrived at Stromboli on the evening of July 24^th – 3 months too early! The ‘spectacular’ lava flows were not in evidence – just a little sparkler on the summit to assure everyone that yes, this is an active volcano. As I write this now, Stromboli is in full voice once again. Rats!

Following our evening of viewing, we made our way to the anchorage outside the town of Stromboli. We plan not to arrive at night – and here we are arriving in the pitch black. It was difficult to work out quite where to anchor but as it turned out in the light of day, we’d managed pretty darn well!

We took a walk around the town – narrow streets that could barely accommodate Tut-Tuts and if one came by you had to breathe in! The main church at the top of the hill was impressive in its airiness, though it has suffered some damage due to subsidence.

For dinner we ate at the best pizza joint we’ve ever been to – bar none! Da Giovanni. He has the normal selections and then I queried the waiter (his son) about a section of the menu I didn’t understand – which he explained were his father’s specials. Boy! Were they ever! Delicious!

Lipari

The following day we made our way 20 miles south to Lipari. There was no wind, so it was a power boat ride. We motored past the town of Lipari as the anchorages there don’t get rave reviews, so we went all the way to the south, then up the west coast a little way to a “good anchorage.” It was OK but there was not much there! We did catch a nice sunset and decided to stay a second night so that I could put some grease on the propeller and replace the anodes.

The next day we motored back to Lipari – which turns out to be a quaint little town, did some shopping, got a so-so pizza and then motored back to a spot we’d passed earlier and spent a delightful evening there!

Sicily

The following morning we set off for the Straits of Messina – which separate Italy from Sicily. There was no wind so it was a straight motor to an anchorage just north of the Strait. With zero protection we were concerned about getting swell and rolling all night, but fortunately it wasn’t an issue.

The following morning we set off – once again motoring – for the straits where we watched the Swordfish boats with their crazy gantries. Then made an expensive stop at the single pump fuel station – ouch!

Now that we’d replenished our fuel supply, the wind came up with a vengeance, so we stormed through the strait – and then it quit! We’d hoped to be able to head straight to Greece, but instead we made a stop at Spropolo – our only stop on Italy proper (and we didn’t get off)…

Tomorrow: 240 or so miles to Zakynthos, Greece.

An overnight sail of a little more than 150 miles, sailing most of the first day, motoring lots of the second brought us to the Island of Ponza. We were going to anchor on the west coast, but nobody was there in a “favored” anchorage so we figured they must know something we didn’t. We were right – when the swell comes up, make sure you have protection by being on the right side of the island!!! Instead, we ended up anchoring in 14 meters in a very crowded anchorage on the east coast near the town of Ponza and had power boats all over us. We didn’t have swell, we did have wakes! The following day we moved closer to land and got some reprieve. If the boaters in Sardinia are nuts, these guys are on steroids!

The coastline is pretty dramatic and the town itself cute. We were able to bring the dinghy to a dock and get provisions easily. We also found an excellent chandler – who had everything tucked away in draws – ask him for something unusual and he was able to put his hands on it quickly!

A scooter ride the length of the island (there’s only one road) was fun and gave us a good feel for the place. We had a nice lunch at the restaurant at the end of the road ‘Ristorante da Anna’ – delicious. Italian cuisine is excellent! During our three day stay we had numerous Italian snacks from various places in town – all were very tasty!

Our next passage (about 175 miles) will take us to the Aeolian Islands – and I’m hoping to arrive during darkness so that we can see the spectacular view of Stromboli’s eruption. The wind is forecast to be light but in the right direction for us to sail…

Our trip to Sardinia was horrible! I’d picked a good weather window in that the wind was good – but I didn’t realize we had wind against current – so we had lumpy seas all the way. Just to add to the mix, we suddenly smelled smoke! Initially I thought something awful was happening with the new Lithium battery bank, but in the end it turned out to be a cabin fan! (4 months later, the cabin fan is working fine and hasn’t given us any further frights.

We’ve been looking forward to Sardinia for nearly 20 years when we first laid plans for a hiking holiday there – unfortunately various things conspired against us and we were left rather deflated by our visit. Most notably, we found that the Italian welcome to boats was somewhat lacking – in that there were strict restrictions as to where you can anchor and where you can land a dinghy – sometimes having to carry it up the beach and into a carpark! The Italian anchorages were full of both boats and swimmers – but that didn’t stop idiots from powering through the crowded anchorage at full speed making huge wakes. I wonder how many swimmers get killed or maimed each year? It was also frustrating that the Italians just don’t follow the navigational rules – motoring through marine parks designated as “sailing only” – or even “no boats at all”… Granted we had timed our visit poorly – the height of the season and height of temperature! It wasn’t just the Italians – it was all sorts of nationalities, all in chartered boats.

We spent nearly 3 weeks in Sardinia – on the northern and then the north west coast. There are many islands on the Smerelda coastline, making for interesting sailing and anchoring possibilities.

The first of the Magdelena islands we visited had a lovely anchorage – but crowded. Never-the-less, we enjoyed staying there for a couple of nights and even braved the heat for an early morning walk. (Our exercise these days is pretty much restricted to swimming.)

When we arrived in the larger town of Olbia, we were able to rent a car to visit the interior – towards the high mountains.

And to a very interesting village (Orgosolo) with all sorts of political and humorous street paintings.

Olbia, a nice town with interesting center (including carousel) also allows yachts to tie up to the town quay for free for up to 2 nights which was a bonus – and allowed us to haul out the old spinnaker and start cutting it up in order to make a much needed sun shade for the boat.

We met with friends Otti and Rossi on Enya – a lovely German couple who we’d met in Lagos. We cruised around with them for a few days which was fun and attempted to paddle-board with them.

We’ll come back to Sardinia (to the southern end) when we come out of the Med next year – hopefully we’ll be able to come at a better time of year (when perhaps there aren’t as many mad boaters around!)…

Our next chosen location was to be the Aeolian Islands – I wanted to see the lava flowing off the active volcano of Stromboli – but the wind was constantly against, so we changed our plan and headed for an island neither of us had heard of before – Ponsa – just off the coast of Italy, opposite Naples.

Mallorca

Our sail from Ibiza to Mallorca was boisterous! Hard on the wind (quite a lot of it!) and lumpy. We sailed in company with Innamorata (who left us behind) and Rockhopper of London (who we left behind!). It was a long day, but we managed it, arriving at Santa Ponce, a well protected, but not very inspiring bay on the west coast.

It was May 3^rd. Clive and Aileen would be meeting us around June 10^th in Palma and looking after Toodle-oo! for 10 days while we fly off to Cancun for Stephanie and Chris’ destination wedding – so we had a little more than a month to explore. Better take a walk!

We found a very nice little anchorage at Ses Illetes, fairly close to Palma and on the bus route and we stayed there for a week – and later in the month came back there again. It’s a small anchorage that gets crowded every day with day-trippers seeking out the sun and swimming, anchoring far too close – but not creating any danger – everyone always quite respectful.

The bus was made use of – to provision and to have a look around Palma – what a nice city! Fantastic cathedral – very tall with super stained glass.

A car rental allowed us to tour the island and we drove into the mountains over passes clogged with cyclists to the lovely town of Soller. We got rather lost in Soller’s winding narrow streets and didn’t realize that we were missing a festival at Port Soller just 15 minutes further north. When we finally arrived there, the festival had just finished and all we saw was the aftermath with folks dressed in period costumes from when the Spanish were battling the Moors… everyone painted up in soot from the fierce battles! At least we could still get a drink!

With the dramatic north coast offering much more appeal, we sailed around the western tip of Mallorca towards Soller, stopping in the magical bay of Cala Deya and enjoyed a walk up to the village the following morning. Soller itself was a challenge in that the holding is rubbish – taking us 4 attempts to get hooked. However, having a laundry, we made good use of the town.

Menorca

We had a light wind sail/motor over to Menorca, arriving at one of our favorite anchorages at Algaiarens which sported a couple of lovely relaxing beaches and a nice walk to cala Morell – a very very small anchorage with a small village surrounding it – along with prehistoric cave dwellings.

We carried on along the north coast of Menorca as far as Addaia where we waited out some heavy weather with Innamorata, taking advantage of the bus service to take us into the capital, Mahon for some provisioning.

We took a super walk – which turned rather sour… We were following a Komoot App route and were 3/4 done when we met a fellow who asked us where we’d come from. He got all shirty, told us we were on private property and forced us to return the way we’d come! As we backtracked we checked that there wasn’t a single sign indicating private property… Great walk though!

We back-tracked along the northern coast of Menorca and then the northern coast of Mallorca again – noticing that the tourist season appeared to be getting underway with more and more boats crowding into the anchorages. Even so, we didn’t have any of the issues we’d heard about from friends relating horror stories of incompetent sailors anchoring dangerously close to other boats.

We arrived back in Ses Illetes where Clive joined us and managed a light wind sail the following day to a close-by anchorage so that Clive could learn some of the intricacies of Toodle-oo! and the following day made our way into Palma for our first Med-Mooring with ‘Slime Lines’ experience. We lived to tell the tale!

10 days off the boat passed very quickly as we had a great time in Cancun at Stephanie’s wedding.

On our return, sadly we hardly spent any time at all with Clive and Aileen – just one night – then they were off back to California. Unfortunately, they’d really not had a chance to sail Toodle-oo! as the winds had disappeared, but I think they had a decent time exploring Palma.

We left Palma and once again, headed around to the north coast of Mallorca experiencing some of the weirdest winds as we came around the western point – with winds gusting 25 knots from the south followed by 25 north seconds later! The boat was all over the place and in the end we opted to simply drop the sails and motor, finding an isolated anchorage just west of Soller.

We continued in to Soller the following day and once again experienced anchoring difficulties – this time getting the chain caught. . Fortunately, Jamie from Grateful assisted us by diving on the anchor to diagnose  what was going on – the chain had managed to fall between two rocks and was trapped. He then directed us so that we could align the boat in such a way that the chain could clear the rocks and we were free. Jamie and Nicki came aboard that evening for some well deserved refreshments!

With no wind in the forecast we decided to take advantage and visit some very remote spots on the north coast that are close to Soller – Cala Calobra is the most dramatic with high cliffs all around and promising an interesting hike up a gorge. Turned out that due to recent(?) rain, the hike was not tenable – so we got as far as we could (not very) and turned tail.

Our last sail in Mallorca took us to the north eastern tip of the island – as close as we could get to Menorca, Cala Figuera. There’s nothing here and it’s rocky so getting the anchor set was once again problematic.

We sailed to the south coast of Menorca stopping overnight at a nice sandy anchorage before moving onto Mahon, which turned out to be impossible to anchor at – way too crowded and goopy mud such that getting a decent grip was impossible, so we moved on to  Cala Vellana – a gem of a place that we enjoyed for our last few days in Spain.