We headed for the south western tip of the island to a place called Calasetta. Our main reason for coming here was to meet up with our old mate Peter on Golden Eagle. Although we had spent Christmas with him in his bosses house in the south of France, the last time our boats had been together was 2 years ago in Panama. Peter crossed the Atlantic from Panama a few weeks ahead of us but went directly from there to Bermuda and then Gibraltar, as we crossed from the US and then dallied in the Azores for a couple of months he had arrived in Europe well before us, while we wintered in Morocco. We were beginning to despair of ever catching him up, but he arrived in Calasetta last October and decided to stay put! He is in the little marina here but we are anchored around the corner. We have had our mail sent here and are waiting for it to arrive.
The local mayor has his boat in the same marina as Peter and they have become good mates and Peter has the use of the mayors old banger (one of several vehicles he owns) It 's a very old Fiat Panda with room for one person in the back, mainly because the front seats are rusted into fixed positions and can't be moved forward, so Alan has to sprawl across the back seat as there is no room for his knees otherwise. Luckily Sant Antioco where Calasetta is located is a very small island, so a tour only took about half an hour and the main town of Sant Antioco is about a 10 minute drive away. It's main claim to fame is a Lidl supermarket!
We have been surprised at how much windier and cooler it is here than in Mallorca. There is a wind called a Mistral which funnels down from the French Alps and keeps Sardinia quite breezy, we have had 20-25 knots most of the time we have been here, other friends who are on the north coast have been having 35 knots! On the plus side it is pleasant for sleeping and there are no mossies, but getting ashore in the dinghy can be a soggy experience.
Calasetta is a small village with an old look out tower on the cliff and mainly modern buildings. It has a commercial harbour where the Ro-Ro's (roll on roll off) car ferries ply a constant trade day and night from both the other island and the mainland and the local fishing fleet hang out. Ashore there are a couple of small supermarkets, several excellent gelaterias and several overpriced restaurants (where for some reason pizza is only cooked in the evenings) some excellent fruit stalls and a small but interesting market on a Wednesday morning. Siesta time is taken more seriously here than in Spain and everything shuts from 1pm until 5.30! This makes finding a shop open a bit tricky for us, as by the time we get ourselves together and ashore everything is ready to close and by 5.30 we are thinking of a G&T and relaxing for the day:)
Once our mail arrives we will look at moving on but are not sure where to. We would like to get to the north of the island as we have a friend of a friend who lives here we would like to meet and also another Aussie boat we know from Panama is also up north but we need to see if the winds will co-operate. Otherwise we may just head for Sicily and then on to Malta and Greece. We are now in August which is the silly season in the Med as most European countries have the whole month off and anything that floats in on the water. We would like to avoid the most popular places during August if possible. So the plan is that we are heading for Malta in the next few days.
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