Arriving in Cagliari

We’ve now reached Cagliari the capital of Sardinia, at the island’s southern tip.  We’re in a small marina tucked into a far corner of the big harbour.  It’s the kind of marina I like, a collection of rickety pontoons full of small local boats, where people pop down after work of an evening to tinker or go for a quick sail off the harbour mouth.  It could be one of a score of little places on the East Coast of England, except the setting Sun is a bright yellow disc in an orange-brown haze and there’s is a wind blowing like you feel when you open a fan oven.  In the middle distance I can see the old town of Cagliari on its defensive promontory, the ancient centre of what is now a large urban tower-block sprawl of some quarter of a million inhabitants.  Across the harbour there is a flight of flamingos silhouetted by the setting Sun, something may have disturbed them from one of the salt lakes behind the City.  They fly in a straggling formation, first a long shallow V, then a wavy line, then there are two formations following one another, the changes happening in slow motion.  Something else you won’t find in an East Coast marina are the dogs, four of five of them, mongrels big and small, sprawled panting on the pontoons, too hot to move, so you have to step round them and sometimes they will summon the energy to follow you with a sleepy, half-interested eye.  Over on the large asphalted jetty to which the pontoons are attached is a collection of old fishing boats and their associated nets and rubbish and on the other side of the jetty a young guy fishing, his girlfriend by his side looking bored.  Nearby their modern sporty saloon car is parked, its door wide open and a pop song blaring from the car stereo.  I like this place.

Although we’ve now been in Sardinia for about five weeks we feel like we’ve only scratched the surface.  Much of the coast is just like the holiday brochures show - rocks, fine sandy beaches, sun and crystal clear turquoise waters.  Snorkelling around the boat I can usually see the anchor as clear as a bell from ten or twenty metres away and the shadow of the boat shimmering on the rocky and sandy seabed.  Most of the development, even away from the strictly regulated Costa Smerlda is low rise and low key, with many miles of completely empty coastline interspersed with small holiday developments and campsites.  I get the impression that the Costa Smerelda has had an enormous impact on the tourist industry here, but that outside the North East coast of the island the model doesn’t work as well.  In the height of July and August Porto Cervo is so popular that the marina there can charge 120 euros a night for a boat like ours and still be turning yachts away.  However, on the South East coast, just as spectacular, a modern marina has been built at Villasimius and is only half-full with all of the units in its shopping centre empty and unlet.

During our recent whirl of socialising our plans for the summer have begun to crystallise a little more.  In a few days we will leave Cagliari and make the 160-odd mile crossing to Sicily from where we will go on to Calabria and then probably back up the Italian coast to Rome via Naples and Capri.  We will most likely over-winter in Porto di Roma, an enormous new and for the time being very empty marina at Ostia, where the Australian Catamaran Squadron have negotiated an extraordinarily good deal for itinerant cruisers.  We then intend to spend the winter deciding exactly what we intend to do with the rest of our lives, an endeavour in which we continue to fail miserably.