West Side Story

The decision was made, travel back to Blighty, attend 25th wedding anniversary, visit friends and family and go to old friend's, but far too young to die, funeral. The yacht's planner (Mrs K) leapt into motion and we needed to catch a ferry, a bus, a plane, a train, and cadge a lift from Granddad. Easy all booked.

9 hours there eight hours back to the boat. Took me a while but I worked out why in the end.

We sat next to a lovely Sardinian lady both on the way out and surprisingly on the way back too. She worked to rid the world of modern slavery although she was quite dismissive of my case against Mrs K.

Deadlines cause more sailing disasters than anything else. So we have to be on the Italian mainland by 11th June. Where are we now? The bottom of Sardinia. That's three weeks in which to do it.

It'll be fine!

Not sure why Mrs K made me sit here just after I said that!

Our first stop 45 nautical miles up the West coast was Oristano. I dearly wanted to go in to the small port of Buggeru but as the name suggests it is very silted up and is limited to boats of less than 10 Metres. Hermy doesn't mind shallow but she is no size 10.

Weather is rainy and someone has plonked tuna nets stretching out a couple of miles off Capo Altano. How inconsiderate.

Now I had heard that to the North of Oristano Bay, just under the ruins of the ancient town of Tharros, there were mooring bouys where it was a little too early in the season for the owners to be bothered to collect any fees. So in an effort to satisfy Mrs K's frugal desires we plumbed for them.

Rainy and lumpy. Note how the extendable deck brush stops the bimini filling with water. Modern technology! As the night went on it got lumpier and creakier. No sleep. I had not satisfied my wife's need for slumber. Bad husband!

The weather had come in and we had to decide whether to hide at Porto Torres or go for Bosa 30 miles up the coast. The deadline won the day and we had a bouncy motorsail North with a toot and a wave from a passing coast guard motor launch. I believe Sardinian for 'what on earth are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be in a bar somewhere?'

Mr Heikell says that if it is blowing more than a force four then it is dangerous to enter Bosa River due to large breaking waves. Luckily it was fine and the waves died down and the sun came out.

Bosa has gone on my list of top Sardinian spots. It has a castle, a river, a museum,  a tower, a church, tiny medieval streets, a port and a beach. That just about ticks everything.

Now despite our lack of sleep and due to our lack of time on docking we had to go exploring and with Malaspina Castle sitting on top of the hill that was a must.

Mrs K was fueled with ice cream which improves her hill climbing qualities.

And up we went.

You could just imagine marauders coming up the river and seeing this castle and thinking do we have enough ice cream to take that?

Not being content with her ability to steer Hermy better than me Mrs K determined that she needed more knowledge about the finer workings of our boat and stated that she wanted to know what goes on in the engine room each morning. I had to confess that it may not be quite  the scientific process I may have lead her to believe and I showed her how to check the oil and water and look for things that didn't look right. She picked it up and she has also taken to planning and plotting our journey's too. I realised that my emasculation was complete when on leaving Bosa harbour and getting underway Mrs K  said "Hoi Galley boy get bellow and make the tea." I think I need to speak to our Sardinian lady on the plane again.

A lovely sail to Alghero under the command of Captain K.

Five hours to do 20 miles but sailing is much better than motoring even under a tyrannical captain.