René Seindal

By chance one day I stumbled over the Gondola Blog by Greg Mohr, who nurtures a burning passion for gondolas. He is, as he states on his blogger profile, a gondola fanatic.

There are quite a few gondolas in the USA. One day I visited the Squero Tramontin in Venice, Roberto Tramontin told that there were at least 120 gondolas there, including several he built himself, and I’m quite sure he didn’t count the electric ones

Greg also runs Gondola Adventures, a gondola service working in Newport Beach (CA), Lake Las Vegas (NV) and Irwing (TX).

Last year, when we started our circumnavigation of Sardinia, our very first camp site was on a little beach behind the Marina Piccola at Poetto, on the outskirts of Cagliari.

In the morning Wendy left on foot to buy or find something, I don’t remember what, and took her time. When she came back, she had met another kayaker who had offered her a coffee and was on his way around to meet us.

Roberto Durzu came to the beach paddling a yellow plastic kayak. We had a nice chat and took some photographs together as we took down camp and got ready to start. Roberto followed us for a while, maybe half an hour or so, before he turned back home after a different morning paddle.

Roberto later commented on the blog, and he wrote later still asking for advice on buying a new kayak, and about what he ended up buying.

Now as I’m back here in Sardinia, I hear that Roberto died a short while ago when out paddling his newly bought kayak.

He went out with a group of friends, but after an hour they decided to return, as the weather got much rougher than they had bargained for. On the return trip Roberto paddled last, at a distance of circa 50m, and at some point he disappeared. His friends searched for his as they best could in the waves, but had to give up, paddle back and sound the alarm.

The search teams located Roberto’s kayak fairly quickly, capsized but with the paddle inside. They later found his hat and a shoe. The body of Roberto was only found the next day at some distance.

Apparently, the cause of death hasn’t been determined yet. There are two hypotheses around. One is that he capsized in the waves and got separated from the kayak before he was able to reenter, the other that he had a heart attack, either before or after a capsize. He had a heart attack four years ago.

Roberto was 52, and leaves his wife and two children of 14 and 15.

Of course it is not the first we hear such a story, and probably not the last either, but the impact is so much stronger when its somebody you’ve met and knew, even if only superficially.

I still have Roberto’s number on my phone, and had planned to call him as I approached Cagliari, so we could meet for a chat. I didn’t manage to meet him last year as I passed Cagliari. Now I have to search for a cemetary instead.

Its all very sad.

Franceso and i had planned to paddle to Cala Goloritzé in the Golfo di Orosei yesterday, and we got up early and set off fetching kayaks at a local camping where Francesco keeps par of his gear, and then on the road to Santa Maria Navarrese.

We launched in calm weather, a force 2 scirocco (SE) and some following waves and swells, but with a forecast of up to force 4 during the afternoon.

The paddle northwards went easy enough, and we passed Pedra Longa and the Grotta della Columba without problems, but as we approached Capo Monte Santu the going got a bit rougher. The Capo Monte Santu is cape with a 200m vertical rock wall that drops straight into the sea for some 2-3km, and there are almost always difficult winds and waves there.

We had a bit of a fight with waves and winds around the cape. Personally I find following swells and waves quite difficult to navigate, as I have no visual forewarning of what is in arrival, but I think both of us found it a bit difficult there, as Francesco headed directly for the entrance to Porto Quao, which is a completely sheltered natural harbour on an otherwise not very welcoming coast.

We landed in Porto Quao and laid our gear out to dry in the sun. After a while we decided to abandon the attempt to reach Cala Goloritzé and instead enjoy the sun in our little sheltered corner, until the afternoon when there was a good chance the wind would wane a bit.

The little bay was as enchanted in the sun, so we made a little photo session. We took turns to climb the rocky cliffs around the bay to take photos of the other fooling around the sheltered area in kayak. It was hot and sunny, the rocks were steep and razor sharp with dense mediterranean vegetation, which for a nordic type like me translates to sunburn and totally scratched legs, but it was fun and we got some nice photos of our kayaks in the crystal clear waters of the Golfo di Orosei.

At about three thirty we got ready to return. As soon as we rounded the corner, we discovered that the wind was still a nice force 4, with swells of 1-2m but modest waves of less than 1m. It still took an effort to round Capo Monte Santu, and as we moved well away from the coast to avoid the choppy rebounding waves, we got separated and lost visual contact for extended periods.

Francesco knows his waters and was both much more confident and a lot faster than me, so he was well ahead of me most of the time and probably closer to the rock wall than I wanted to be. In any case I lost him for quite some time, and at the same time didn’t feel I had the resources to actively look for him, as the wind and waves gave me plenty to work with.

I wouldn’t say I was in trouble there, but it wasn’t easy going. The first hour took all my effort and concentration, but I did handle it in a controlled and steady way. My own feeling is that I was quite close to the limits of my abilities in a kayak, but not outside.

In the end all went well, and as soon as we were around the cape we found each other again, and we paddled together for the next couple of hours back to Santa Maria Navarrese. I was quite tired in the end, more mental tiredness than physical.

We had a coffee at Santa Maria Navarres and drove home to yet another dinner thet couldn’t be beat, and then off to bed. I slept well.

I arrived in Cardedu in the afternoon on Saturday, and I was hardly in the door at Francesco’s before he declared that we were going fishing in kayak that afternoon. It is like that at Francesco’s house. It is very hard not to end up paddling most of the time.

We went to a local camping where his trailer were, picked it up and were off to Cardedu beach for a late afternoons paddling and fishing.

Francesco does a lot of fishing from his kayaks, and he has had some spectacular catches, including a 27kg “pesce luna”, which is a tropical fish not normally found in Sardinian waters.

We didn’t catch a thing. Francesco got a few “tracine” but they either got off the hook or were let off because they were undersize.

Anyway, when we got home after sunset, Elisa, Francesco’s wife, had made homemade pesto with basil from the garden, so we had another dinner that couldn’t be beat nonetheless. Food is good here in Sardinia, and much of grows literally on people’s doorsteps.

I should have written something on the blog then, but we ended up in front of Francesco’s computer looking at photos, websites and leaflets, and at eleven I just collapsed on my bed.

Francesco is a person who prefers to stay active rather than taking half a day off, so Sunday morning we were off again to take a couple of Poles out paddling at nine. Just as we were about to leave, the camping where they stayed called to say that they were still too drunk from the evening before, and that they weren’t going. We had, however, recruited a few others for the excursion on the beach the day before, so we left anyway.

On the beach, only one of the promised three persons had showed up, so the group ended up being of just one persons. After a bit of instructions, communicated in an unholy mix of Italian, German and English, we paddled down the coast for a while, and back again. It was a quite calm day, with a light scirocco and only some modest swells to deal with.

Back on the beach we had a beer with our German paddler, and they and Francesco arranged for next years exchange of German beer for Sardinian red wine.

In the afternoon we went sight-seeing in most of Ogliastra on motorbike. We drove to the Lido di Orri, to Santa Maria Navarrese, over the small mountains and down to Pedra Longa, then back and on to Baunei and up to the Golgo plain behind the Cala Goloritzé and the Cala Sisine I visited last year in kayak. We spent some time there, throwing pebbles into a 270m vertical hole, visiting a 16th century church, and hanging around the local bar.

We then returned almost to Santa Maria Navarrese, before going to Triei where they had a city-wide celebration of the ancient traditions, with people dressed in traditional clothes, stands serving local specialities and many old houses open for visitors. The city also sported a large number of murals, some quite interesting.

There we met some friends of Francesco, who took us up the hills to see an ancient nuraghe and a “tomba dei giganti”. The nuraghe had been really big, but it was in bad shape, mostly a ruin, and it wasn’t even indicated on the street signs like other local sights. Francesco’s friend told us the it had been quite different when he was a kid, almost complete, but it had been ruined on purpose by somebody over 20 years ago. It is so sad to hear than something which has been standing for thousands of years has then been ruined so recently, but of course, human stupidity and ignorance know few bounds if any.

The “tomba dei giganti” is another type of neolithic monument, traditionally thought to be a tomb, but who knows what it was. This one consisted of a covered passage with the remains of an elongated mound, with a crescent shaped series of stones on one side. According to our guide it had the shape of a bull’s head when seen from above.

It was getting late, and we had a pizza appointment at Cardedu Marina a 8, so we had to head back homewards. We arrived half an hour late, found nobody there but desided to eat anyway as we were rather hungry and heard on the phone that the others were coming anyway. Not as soon as we had ordered did they show up anyway.

Today Francesco and I got up early and we’re off for a paddle to Goloritzé and back, which is about 30km along some of the most beautiful coastline in Sardinia, which is saying a lot as most of the coast here is breathtaking.

It is hard to find a bit of time for blogging, as Francesco likes to keep his guests on a tight schedule. After all, you can always sleep when you get old(er)

It also helps that there is no mobile coverage in or near his house, keeping me offline unless I go and sit in the orchard or between the vines.

My friend Francesco Muntoni from Cardedu Kayak in Sardinia has put up some photos of fish and other marine creatures he has caught while paddling in his local waters.

Here are a few:

Dentice, 5kg:

Barracuda, 3kg:

Squid 2.5kg:

More photos of his catches in his photostream on Flickr.

Francesco Muntoni has run Cardedu Kayak for ages. He organises kayak excursions for both beginners and experienced paddlers along the middle part of Sardinia’s eastern coastline, from between Muravera and Cardedu to Cala Gonone, which includes the national park of the Golfo di Orosei.

Visiting Francesco without ending in a kayak is an impossibility. On our first day we went for a short afternoon paddle from Marina di Gairo south along the coast, admiring the fantastic rock formations in the red rock of the Cardedu coastline. Many look like manmade sculptures. There’s the eagle, the old lady and many others.

Francesco spends most of his time either on the water with tourists, or getting ready or cleaning up after an excursion. In his spare time he works for a local wine cantina. The Perda Rubia cantina is one of the very last cantinas that still produce Sardinian red wine of the local Cannonau grapes in the traditional way.

We got a special guided tour of the cantina, which is a fascinating place with fermentation tanks and oak barrels so huge they have been built inside the cellar when the cantina was started in 1949. Francesco presented me quite unexpectedly with a very special and absolutely priceless gift: a bottle of Perda Rubia from 1964, the year I was born.

Sardinian cuisine is a journey in itself. That evening we had culorgiones, a kind of large ravioli with a filling of potatoes and pecorino.

Tuesday evening (March 25th) we left Palermo for Trapani. The ferry was scheduled to depart at nine in the evening, but we ended up at Giacomo’s chatting until after seven, and arrived at Trapani harbour at ten to nine, only to discover that the ferry departed from a new more distant pier, which we had problems finding as the signs weren’t quite in working order. We hauled our gear from the car onto the ferry, said a hasty goodbye to Giacomo and hurried on board, only to hear a message on the loudspeakers that departure had been postponed to ten o’clock.

Initially the sea was quite rough, but it got calmer during the night, and we had a reasonably quiet passage to Cagliari where we arrived at about ten in the morning.

Francesco Muntoni of Cardedu Kayak wouldn’t be able to pick us up until in the late afternoon, so we carried our gear to the nearby bus station where it was possible to leave luggage for a while. We checked in our bags, and a greenland paddle, and set off exploring the city.

Cagliari is an ancient city. It was founded by the Phoenicians some 800 years BC, and later pass into Roman hands, followed by Byzantine, Pisan, Aragonese, Spanish, Austrian, Piedmontese and finally Italian. We walked through the busling lower quarter Marina on our way up the hillside to the old fortified city, the Castello, which in comparison seen almost lifeless.

Francesco Ravasio, one of the persons who brought sea kayaking to Sardinia over twenty years ago, met us at the station at half past three, and he took us for a short excursion to Nola before dropping us off at Diana Canoe, a local kayak producer run by Stefano Diana.

Diana Canoe makes a wide range of recreational kayaks in fiberglass, and they can make almost anything in fiberglass and kevlar. When we were there they were even working on some fiberglass roofs for ambulances.

Francesco Muntoni of Cardedu Kayak came to Diana Canoe a bit later to pick us and a couple of kayaks up. Francesco uses kayaks from Diana Canoe for most his excursions in the Ogliastra area in Sardinia. The kayaks in question are in part designed by Francesco himself, especially for daytrips with less experienced paddlers along the rocky coast near Cardedu and in the area of the Golfo di Orosei.

We had a quiet drive to Cardedu in the dark, and arrived there at about ten in the evening, dead tired and ready for bed.

The weather has gone haywire in most of Europe, and we’ve got our part of the fun here in Sicily too. No snowstorms though, its not that extreme, but we’ve had a lots of rain, winds between force 4 and 7 and seas so rough many ferries have been deviated or had to remain in port.

The weather hasn’t given us any chances for a relaxed holiday paddle, but we’ve spend quite a bit of time with our Sicilian kayak friends Giacomo della Gatta and Salvatore Bartoli.

Salvatore has the dubious honour of having a pizza named after him at a local pizzeria, Actually the Pizza Bartoli is a very good pizza, with cherry tomatoes, mozzarella di buffala, red onion, anchovies, and a touch of rucola. We all enjoyed it immensely, except Salvo who didn’t feel well.

The day after we had a spectacular meal at Giacomo’s, with mackerel and sausages on the barbecue, salad and an unbeatable chocolatecake for dessert. Poor Salvo still didn’t feel well so most of the laughs were on him as he snored away on the sofa, but the rest of us had a great time.

We’re spending a good deal of our time with Valentina’s family. After all we don’t see them that often. Sunday was justly one of the few sunny days this Easter, and we went for a walk on the beach at Isola delle Femmine. The wind was strong, though, and we didn’t stay for long.

Today we gambled on decent weather in spite of a forecast of rain, rain and more rain, and we’ve been reasonably lucky. In the morning we left for Segesta, some 75km west of Palermo, where one of the worlds best preserved hellenistic temples stand, near the ruins of the ancient Elymian city of Segesta. We were fortunate enough to have some nice long spells of sunshine,and we took our time to explore the ruins.

From Segesta we went to visit some very dear friends in Castellammare del Golfo. I’ve known Mariangela and Paolo since before I started to learn Italian some 15+ years ago, and a visit to Sicily without dropping by in Castellammare del Golfo is just not right.

Mariangela and Paolo took us to Balata di Baida to taste a local delicacy, the cassatelle. They are little half moon shaped cakes, filled with ricotta cream, deep fried, and covered in fine sugar. Our short excursion for the sake of a cake became a two hour meandering through the landscape of western Sicily, between fields of durum wheat, beans, vineyards, olive groves and citrus orchards, with a multitude of houses in between, large and small, old and new, beautiful and ugly, abandoned or well kept.

Tuesday is meant to be our final day in Sicily for this time, and we have a bit of shopping to do before we move on. We do not know, however, if the ferry will depart tomorrow evening as scheduled. The wind will be at its strongest tonight, up to 35 knots, so the ferry might not be able to depart from Trapani in time, it might not even be able to arrive there, or even to leave Cagliari tonight. We’ll have to call the shipping line tomorrow for news.

There are more photos from Sicily on Flickr.

My wife Valentina has found a new job. She’s been working in the other end of the country, some 350km away, so she had an apartment there and we’d only see each other in the weekends. Now she’ll be working much closer, in Ringsted about 60km from Copenhagen, so she’ll be coming back here to live now.

Nice.

Sometimes two persons can share an experience and walk away with two completely different recollections of it, as if they didn’t share a thing.

Apparently, it can also happen that two persons share an experience and walk away with almost identical recollections of it, only with the roles reversed.

The workings of the human mind is truly amazing.