Category: Sardinia 2007/8

It has been an OK day today. I’ve paddled from the Is Arenas beach around Capo Mannu first to Putzu Idu, and then on to San Giovanni di Sinis at the entrance to the Gulf of Oristano.

I slept well in the night, with just a few interruptions due to wind and rain. It really makes a difference having slept well. I only unload the basic necessities, so even if I’m a slow starter in the morning, it only takes about an hour to pack and launch.

During packing the wind was E, but it turned to NW (maestrale) before I was on the water at 9.

I therefore had a bit of headwind for the first hour, until I was around Capo Mannu. The last stretch to Putzu Idu was very easy, as I was sheltered from the NW waves and the wind pushed me inesorably towards a bar on the beach for an early lunch (I had almost but not entirely, completely skipped breakfast).

The sun was shining from an almost cloudless sky, so I stayed at Putzu Idu until 2, to avoid paddling under the midday sun.

Wind and waves remained in NW, so I had mostly following waves and a tailwind. Paddling in following waves is something I still have to work on. I’m sure that I’m working way too hard keeping my course, and that there must be a better way. I’m completely dependent on the skeg for assistance, and would have been in difficulty without it. I’ve been experimenting with various ways of edging into and out of the waves, but I still need the skeg to keep on course.

It might be related to the weight distribution of my gear. If I haven’t packed it balanced, it might increase weathercocking, but I have no way of checking that until I’m back and can weigh everything. There are probably a handful of lessons to be learnt here too.

Anyways, I had a skeg and used it, so I arrived at the last cape before San Giovanni di Sinis in good shape, and continued, now with some rather big but also long following waves, which gave me a very good speed.

The beaches of San Giovanni di Sinis must be popular with kite surfers, because they were all over. I tried to surf a bit on arrival, with mixed results. It didn’t quite work, but I got up in speed as I approached the beach. Unfortunately, I lost control just as I was about to land, and capsized in the surf less than 10m from the beach.

As usual my roll failed me when its not planned. I tried once, but the paddle got hold of nothing, it felt like it was moving through air, which it might very well have done as I was in the middle of the surf. I set up for a second try, but hit bottom and bailed out almost instinctively. I was maybe 5m out in 1m of water, so I waded in not very content with the end of the day.

I’m parked on a beach just south of San Giovanni at the Tharros ruins. I went up there, but they were closing for the day. You can see a good bit from the road, though.

I’ve just had a great plate of spaghetti con bottarga, which is just as delicious as it is simple. I’m not quite sure, but I think bottarga are smoked tuna eggs.

The locals have killed off my dream of paddling with flamingos. There are currently none or very few in the local stagni, and you can’t paddlein anyway, as the entrance of the stagni are blocked by fisheries. I will skip that part, and try to return another time just for that, so we can launch directly in a stagno where we know there are flamingos.

Tomorrow I will cross over to Capo Frasca. It’s about 8-10km, so it will be the longest crossing I have made. Weather should be just like today, and I managed that well enough (except for the surf landing), so I’m not worried about that.

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Location

I’ve paddled 32km today. My current position is 40,066515, 8,475475 (its a restaurant 🙂 ).

Today has been an inefficient day. I have paddled 23km from Porto Alabe just south of Bosa, to the beach Is Arenas, between S. Caterina Pittinuri and Capo Mannu. I did not get around Capo Mannu as I had hoped.

I had a terrible night, and didn’t get to sleep much. I was up at 6.30 but more tired than when I first tried to sleep. Karel had promised F4-F5 winds in the morning, so I decided to wait a bit, get some rest and let the worst of the winds pass.

It was 11 before I launched, while the winds were still quite strong, now more SE than E, so I had it against me whenever I couldn’t paddle directly under the shore. The waves were from SW, well below 1m, and not a problem.

Progress was slow, and it took me two hours to do the 8km to Punta Foche, where I stopped for something to eat and a bit of respite from the sun. Having eaten a bit I promptly fell asleep in the shadow under a rock, and slept for another two hours.

When I woke up, the sun wasn’t as strong and there was very little wind, so I only had the waves to keep me company on my way to S. Caterina Pittinuri. I stopped there for a short rest before I continued to find a place to camp for the night.

I’m on a very long beach, full of locals fishing throughout the night. When I get up in the morning, they’ll be packing up.

The hatches on my kayak are giving me problems. I have had some water getting into the day hatch for a couple of days, and today also in the front hatch. I have tried to make sure they are closed properly, but tomorrow I will clean the completely, to make sure there is no sand underneath. I have never had this kind of problem with the skim distance before.

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Location

Today has been a calm and hot day and I have made good progress for a second day. I’ve paddled from Cala della Speranze to Porto Alabe (5km S of Bosa) with a short detour up the river to Bosa, about 39km in all.

I launched early (for my standards at least) at 8.30 to take advantage of the calm weather. No a wind was moving, and the only waves were the sorry remains of the swells from yesterday. It couldn’t have been easier and I was at Capo Marargiu in no time. At the Torre Argentina I stopped for lunch and an hour’s rest.

At Bosa Marina I got a bit curious, and started to paddle up the river Temo to get a glimpse of Bosa and the medieval fortress above the city. I ended paddling all the way to the centre of Bosa, with the cathedral at the old bridge. On the way back I stopped at Bosa Marina for an icecream.

From there it was only a few km to the beach of Porto Alabe where I will stay the night.

Tomorrow I have another stretch of deserted coastline to negotiate, until S. Catarina di Pittinuri. I hope to be able to round Capo Mannu tomorrow, but it depends on the weather. The weather forecast is much like for today, with mostly easternly winds most of the day, which should leave me sheltered by the mountains, but tomorrow will show what tomorrow will be like.

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(Entry written yesterday evening but not posted due to lack of mobile connectivity)

Today I finally got started. I’ve made it a short day, for various reasons, so I’ve just paddled 15.5km from Fertilia to Cala della Speranza. Tomorrow I will try to get to Bosa Marina.

This morning couldn’t have been more different from yesterday. The sun was shining from a partially clouded sky, and it was even a bit hot. There were a bit of wind at sea, but on land it was calm.

The first thing to do was shopping, buying food and snacks for the next few days. I then changed, checked everything one last time, and packed the kayak, while the phone was charging. When everything was ready, I set off for the camping office with the packed kayak on a trolley.

The trolley is quite solid, and didn’t seem to mind the load, except for the stupid plastic things they had used to keep the wheels in place. The load simply tore them apart and a wheel would roll off. In the end the caretaker of the camping gave me a hand across the road to the beach.

Karel Vissel has kindly offered to send me forecasts as he did last year, and it was spot on: force 3-4 SSW with waves of just under 1m.

I was on the water at 11. My first task was to say hello to the ramp in the harbour where I pulled the kayak up last year. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to say afterwards to have done the entire circumnavigation of Sardinia, albeit in two turns.

In front of Alghero is a small island with a lighthouse. Somebody had been reckless or unfortunate, because a sailing boat lay wrecked on the island. I tried to get closer for a good photo, when I was caught by the breaking waves around the island, and almost without warning I was sent surfing towards Alghero. I have practically zero experience surfing, so I just kept the kayak steady with a low brace until it stopped.

I paddled slowly today. I want to take a little time getting used to the Skim Distance again, and to paddling a loaded kayak again. I want to see how my current physical shape is, before I try to push harder. My experience with kayak traveling is limited to what I did last year, so I still have loads to learn and I’m not sure just plunging into it to see what happens is the best way to have a positive experience.

I stopped for a lunch break, and did one of those mistakes that’s supposed to teach you something. I knew there should be a small beach after Alghero, and when I saw a bar on a rock I thought that that must be it. In front of the bar was a rocky outcrop with loads of breaking waves, but just before that was a small beach with what looked like the usual piles of algae at water’s edge. I went in through the small surf, but saw in the very last moment that the algae were in fact small rocks. I changed directed and landed on a 3 by 4 pebble beach between a lot of rocks, and I had to park the kayak at a rather steep angle to get it clear of the waves. I used a neoprene cockpit cover to avoid scraping off too much gelcoat.

The next beach was some 8km down the coast, and I headed for that with the intent of deciding what then to do when I got there. I had to round a cape with a small island a few km before the beach, but didn’t really think much of it. When I got closer, I could see that the passage between cape and island was very agitated, at times completely covered in white foam. When trying to paddle around the island, I discovered that the other side of the island was even worse, with huge swells breaking all over a wide area. I would have to make a detour of several km to get around the nasty area. I decided that the inner passage was the lesser evil. As I approached, I noticed that it was only really agitated every once in a while. The rest of the time it was just very choppy. I sat there for a few minutes contemplating the situation, when it struck that the foam was from swells that had moved around the island to break in the passage. They were 2-3m and I definitely didn’t want one of them on my head, but they seemed to come in groups of three with a more quiet period in between. I waited for a group to break, positioned myself a few metres from the white area, had the next group of swells breaking just in front of me and paddled like mad. It worked, I got across the white area and the next set of swells broke well behind me.

Situations like that makes me really nervous. I do know how to roll, I have a standard sweep roll to both sides, but it has never worked for me in “combat”. Until I sort that out I cannot really rely on it in an emergency.

I arrived at the beach in Cala della Speranza at around 4. The same swells were still arriving directly on the beach and they broke at a distance from the beach. There were no sheltered corners, and a lot of algae that could be rocks, so I sat there for a while before I decided where to land. Besides me the breaking waves made the cutest little tunnel, so I grabbed my camera to see if I could get a picture. Several tries and no success. The waves must have pushed me forward a bit while I took pictures, because suddenly a wave broke just behind me, and I was rather unceremoneously shoved onto the beach. I reacted just in time with a brace so I came in bow first and not sideways.

I decided to stay. There are some 16km from here to the next beach, along a rocky coast without any landings. I hope I can make it to Bosa Marina tomorrow, but Karel writes of force 4-5 winds with waves like today, so I’ll have to see what to do.

There’s a closed bar above the beach, with a very nice roof, so I’ll spend the night under that and save the tent for another night.

My current position is 40°29.729’N 8°22.241’E

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The forecast said thunderstorms in the night and morning, and thunderstorms we got. The first came at 4 in the morning, and gave me a good idea about why some people find thunder scary. It was just overhead, lightning almost continually while a constant thunder rolled back and forth over the sky.

After the thunder came a downpour which has continued since, transforming most of the camping into muddy pools. Another thunderstorm passed in the early morning, around 7-8, and yet another as I’m writing this, at 11-12.

The current forecast promises more thunderstorms for the rest of the day, followed by light rain during the night. Friday should be clear and sunny, about 20° C and moderate winds. Saturday and Sunday will have scattered clouds but at that time I hope to be well clear of the Alghero area and more towards Bosa.

I’m a bit worried about my tent. Its an old Jack Wolfskin lightweight tent which has served me well for some 15 years, but it is a long time since it has taken this kind of weather. When the rain was at its worst this morning, it had accumulated quite a few drops of water on the inner tent, so the seams of the outer tent might be leaking. The inside of the tent has stayed nice and dry until now, but I have taken the precaution of leaving it empty except for my thermorest and my sleeping bag packed in a dry bag. If necessary I’ll bivy under a roof somewhere in the camping, since I have it all for myself.

There’s little I can do with a day like this, so I just hang around bars, writing emails, looking at weather forecasts and maps and drinking huge amounts of Italian coffee.

Two seconds ago I could enjoy the spectacle of an Ape aqua-planing across the church square here in Fertilia. For the uninitiated, an Ape is a three-wheeled micro-lorry with 50cc engine, hence legally a scooter here in Italy, so they’re often driven by elderly people without a driver’s license. Does wonders for traffic safety.

I’m back in Fertilia today, almost ready to continue the journey around Sardinia.

Francesco drove me and my gear from Cardedu to Fertilia this afternoon, and I am now well installed in a camping a few hundred metres from where I stopped last year.

The local weather forecast promises a thunderstorm tonight or in the early morning, so I will sit that out here, and then launch as soon as the weather behaves again, which should be tomorrow afternoon or the day after tomorrow at worst. Afterwards I should have at least two reasonably good days to get started on.

I’m preparing the last leg of my circumnavigation of Sardinia, which I plan to do in April. The route is about 320km (circa 200 miles) from Fertilia down the western coast of Sardinia to Cagliari. I still don’t know if I’ll do this trip in early April or late April, as I have other affairs in Italy to attend to too, such as starting a kayak company in Venice.

I’ve been looking at weather statistics, and it doesn’t really look that bad, at least not if the Sardinian weather this April behaves like it has in past Aprils.

Temperatures should be between 10° C and 15° C, and the water temperature 14°-16° C. The water will be warmer than the air most of the time.

Wind should be mostly W to NW and mostly in the range F2-F4, but on the average there’ll be 5-6 days during the month with F5 winds or stronger. There’s a 5% risk of having a day with winds of F7 or more. This trip will be the first time I paddle alone for longer distances, so I will probably be rather cautious and not venture out if the winds are F5 or stronger.

Waves should be around 1.5m the first 3 weeks of April, mostly E and with little variation throughout the day and night. This is not worse that what I have tried before, but I will probably get some surf landings unless I can find sheltered beaches. In late April the waves should fall a bit, to 0.8m-1.0m, with some variation during the day and the direction will be mostly ENE.

I’m already all eager to go, but there’s still some time 🙂

I’m heading back to Sardinia soon. My wife Valentina and I will spend the Easter holiday with my in-laws in Palermo, and immediately afterwards we’ll be on the ferry to Sardinia. We’ll spend almost a week with my good friend Francesco Muntoni in the Ogliastra region on the east coast of Sardinia. Valentina then returns to Denmark and I’ll start thinking about finishing my circumnavigation of the island.

I feel so incredibly lucky going back. The Golfo di Orosei is the most beautiful place I have ever paddled, and it’s going to be fantastic returning there.

Francesco Muntoni knows the area and he is going to be a brilliant guide, just like he has been to so many others. He runs Cardedu Kayak which organises guided tours in the area, including multi day trips with camping in the natural reserves in the area.

The photo is taken by Francesco’s wife when we first met him by chance on the water in early October. From left to right: Wendy, myself, Francesco and his son.