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 straggl...

 We continued our slow progress south arriving in the small port of Arbatax on the 15 th of July, where we met Keith and Doreen.   If one of the things we are doing is finding out about different lifestyles and how to construct a new life for ourselves, then these two are a very interesting example.   Keith is sixty and a retired fireman from Coleshill in the West Midlands and Doreen is a Londoner in her mid-forties.   They met when Keith was cruising around Spain in his catamaran “Atreyu” about eight years ago and over the last five years or so they have created a life which seems to suit them remarkably well.   They spend their winters in Coleshill, where Doreen works in an Asda Supermarket and their summers in Arbatax.   In April they load their old Mercedes up and drive from the West Midlands to Sardinia, where they prepare and launch the boat, then spend the summer cruising and socialising.   Doreen speaks good Italian and the...

We finally prised ourselves from the convivial scene at Porri and sailed on to Tavolara, a spectacular island that rises sheer out of the sea off the coast of Sardinia with a razor-like summit.   At one end is a shingle and sand spit with a small jetty and a couple of restaurants.   Having anchored and been for a swim I noticed a small white sailing boat nosing its way towards the spit, “Sue, could that be ... well bugger me it is ... Russell”.   We quickly rowed the dinghy towards him as he was dropping the anchor.   On board with him was Alain, a French friend who had been crewing with him for a couple of weeks.   In the three weeks since we had parted we had managed to cruise about a quarter of the coast of Sardinia clockwise, while Russell had raced the other three quarters the opposite way round.   We spent a great evening in their company wandering around the shingle spit and visiting the island’s small cemetery, where the “Ki...

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...