Hermy's heroes!

Santa Teresa Gallura, North Coast of Sardinia. Possibly the ancient Greek town of Tibula. An excellent harbour, lovely beach and nice town. But more importantly it was where the scene with Jaws crashing off a cliff and landing on a wooden house in the Bond film a spy who loved me was filmed.

This is where Hermy will spend her winter being carefully looked after by the very nice harbour staff at a very reasonable cost. The berth was very reasonably priced but lift out and antifouling was a bit high so using my excellent communication skills I managed to get 200 Euros off the berth but nothing off the lift out price! Something got lost somewhere.

The wind was picking up over the next few days and we hunkered down to sit it out.

Every now and again Mrs K makes me visit the, on board, beauty parlour as she does like to show me off.

Mrs K doesn't mess about with those clippers you know, nearly lost several ears!

It's not easy being a trophy husband.

So with a bit of time on our hands out came the Bromptons and off we went exploring.

Capo Testa was near enough if you ignore the mountain it was over and we had a very pleasant time.

About 1400 BC ish some Nuragic people settled at Lu Brandali near Capa Testa making very good use of the odd shaped stones. 

Then the Romans had a pad on the Cape for a while and left a couple of columns behind. We had a very nice lunch and a visit to the light house.

Next we visited Palau. We didn't intend to, we were going to Olbia but we met a couple at the bus stop who had come from Palau to Santa Teresa to catch the ferry to Bonifacio. Strangely a young couple from Aylesford in Kent. They didn't take their passports and got turned away at the Ferry port as you need a passport to go from Italy to France. 

Sort of thing I would do if I didn't have Mrs K organising me. Anyway Palau had even more strangely shaped rocks and was quite pleasant if a little out of season.

So with little to do we made for the towns ethnographic museum, whatever that is and we enter the building declaring itself the museum. Entry is free and there is an art exhibition, I'm expecting old plough shares and pictures of animals and peasants but no. 

The art was mainly based on bottoms and boobs. I could tell Mrs K is not overly impressed so we left.

Palau is the start of a steam train journey that looks interesting and you can get a ferry across to the island of Maddelena. 

Another island connected to Maddelena is Caprera. Giuseppe Garribaldi, General, sailor, unifier of Italy and overall good guy, (Even AJP Taylor thought so.) bought a farm here and spent most of his later life here between popping off for the odd military campaign.

We had a very pleasant walk along the shore to get over the bottoms and boobs and caught an early bus home.

With the weather settled and just over a week before our old buddies from Boughton Monchelsea come out we decided to go for a little explore.

Leaving Santa Teresa and turning right we skirt between the mainland coast and the Marine reserve that requires an expensive permit to navigate. Our first stop only five miles around the corner was in Pozzo a long inlet with an anchorage at the end. We parked next to another British boat 'Viola' a very nice an American 46 foot 'Little Harbour' we were told by the skipper as they left the next morning over a brief chat.

We followed them shortly afterwards and continued our journey right and for the first time we see dolphins reasonably close up. Clearly they had strayed out of the marine reserve and gave us a free show.

Next stop Cannigione again up a creek but with a nice harbour at the end with a supermarket and some nice little shops selling local wooden things.

This does look like one of my projects but mine would have meant to be straight!

The very posh port of Cervo was just around the corner so with the wind blowing that way we sailed around to take a look. We got to the lump of concrete just outside which was meant to be a navigational mark and read the bit in the guide book that said a 12 hour stop on a mooring bouy was 75 Euros and a 24 hour stay was 150 Euros for a yacht under 15 metres. We decided not to bother clearly priced to keep riff raff such as us out. We'll catch a bus for 3 Euros. Perhaps they should spend some of their riches on repairing their nav mark.

A motor back past Palau and a search for a sheltered anchorage lead us back to Port Pozzo where dolphins oblige once again. Unfortunately they fail to coordinate their surfacing with our camera readiness.

Next morning a 10 mile trip to the islands of Lavezzi and Cavello which has a small port however on arrival we discover it is closed for winter and we edge out of its shallow entrance with the keel up.

Now I was beginning to think that having a lifting keel wasn't all that useful in these deep waters, that was until we arrived at our alternative port of Porto Vecchio on the Corsican east coast. 

As we entered Vecchio bay we were approached by a largish yacht who pointed us in the direction of a ketch that we learnt was aground. They declared it too shallow for them but asked if we could help.

The ketch was a singlehanded lady. Always a sucker for a damsel in distress we approached raising the keel and found the ketch drew a metre and a half so not far from our limit with the keel up. Anyway we took a line from her and dragged her off to the applause of the standing by yacht. Mrs K played a blinder even offering to swim over to get the rope.

Feeling very heroic we entered Porto Vecchio with a hint of Horatio Nelson in the air. Only  to be told you can't park there go round the back!

Ah well short lived but a nice feeling at the time and vindication for Hermy's ability to lift up her skirt in an emergency. The nice lady dropped off a posh bottle of wine to say thanks. She needn't have as I have been rescued by the French in the past and owed them one.

Porto Vecchio. East coast of Corsica.