The Anchorage at Porri

No sooner had we said goodbye to John and Chris than we fell in with a group of boats anchored in Porri, a small bay in the Golf of Olbia, and had our first introduction to what might be called the Australian world cruising fleet (catamaran squadron).   Chris and Karyn have a cat called “Magic Carpet” and are nine years into a leisurely circumnavigation and Manuela and Jerry and their children Jack and Jess live aboard “Pagan II”.  “Pagan” is permanently based in the Med to give the children some stability and to allow Manuela, who is actually Swiss, to stay in contact with her family.  “Pagan” now spends much of each summer in the same bay, where Jerry and Manuela have a network of friends and make some money by informal chartering.  Five or six days quickly disappeared in a social round of swimming, drinks on each other’s boats and beach barbecues.  Then we made the fatal mistake of going out for a day sail on “Magic Carpet”.  It’s the first time I’ve sailed on a cat and the experience was an eye-opener.  The boat was fast, stable, spacious and a perfect platform for the bank of solar panels needed to provide the electricity to live aboard comfortably.  Both “Pagan” and “Magic Carpet” have water-makers and because of their stability can lie at anchor almost indefinitely, without the need to go into marinas occasionally for water and to connect the boat to the umbilical chord of a shore power supply.  

During our trip I was selling “La Fulica” in my head, buying a cat and living aboard permanently.  In the evening I returned guiltily to our little boat, feeling very disloyal.  Later over a beer at a beach barbecue Jerry confided in me -

“I’m sorry mate, it’s a terrible thing going out on a catamaran, I made the same mistake myself and before I knew it I was forcing my way onto every cat I saw asking to have a look round and now we’ve blown 200,000 euros on a new one and still have the old monohull to sell”.