All Roads Lead To Rome

Finally the time has come for Jay Sea Dee to head back into humanity and into mainland Italy. So many decisions to be made however. First was determining if we should get more fuel. We looked and looked again at the fuel gauge and determined that we had JUST ENOUGH to get us to Rome which was about 130 miles away. Being the prudent sailors, we decide to stop in Porto Vecchio to purchase fuel because you should always have more than JUST ENOUGH fuel. And because of our history with the winds we were sure to be motor sailing with the wind on our nose. With our tanks full we leave port around 1pm.

I am sure it is due to the fact that we purchased more fuel that this was our luckiest crossing ever as the wind (which was forecast to come from the East) clocked around a bit more and came out of the South. Swoosh went the sails and off went the motor…we were sailing with the wind on our beam!!!!

Next, John deploys the fishing equipment, what the heck, right? Around 4pm…FISH ON! Being totally unprepared for the zzzzzzzzzzzzz sound we heard and ALL sails up, we just looked at each other in disbelief for those few brief seconds and then went off and running. I instantly became photographer, helmswoman, bartender and instant sail admiral. John must have fought that fish for a half hour before we could see its face. John went below only for a few seconds to get the gaff and gloves while I held that rod with the face of determination. Then I was back at the helm while John keeps telling me “Left, Hard Left” which the boat only goes so far left but you have to see the loop-de-loops on the GPS…pretty darn hilarious. Finally this darn fish which we could see was a fairly good size tuna was tiring out. John hands me the rod and gets the fish on gaff…we are home free…or so we thought. I start pouring the Grain Alcohol down the fish gills to kill it by alcohol poisoning and then in an instant…IT WAS GONE???!!! IF only you could have seen our faces. We just couldn’t figure out what had happened and I was already counting on tuna sashimi for dinner. As John was putting away the rod and lure we realize the lure had busted. Totally unbelievable…

But the trip wasn’t a total disappointment…we were back to sailing and the sunset was another of Gods gifts. Plus a whole bunch of dolphins gave us our sunset show. So all in all a great trip and we are in Rome baby. Just one more thing…don’t forget to change the courtesy flag..again.

Rondinara…one of our postcard picks

Yes, back in Corsica, France as we head to Rome.  Way back when as we first arrived in Corsica and looked at all the cool postcards, Rondinara was tops on my list.  It was pretty much as the postcard pictured it although I wasn’t expecting the cows again.  The water was an Emerald Green shade of warm, refreshing H2O.  You could see everything down on the bottom at 20 feet below. 

There wasn’t much on shore, just a beach bar with beach chairs and umbrellas to rent.  But the people kept coming and coming.  It was packed but we were warned about July and August here.  We saw a bunker of some sorts up on the hill and decided to deploy the dinghy and hike up to it to check it out.  There were no signs or tablets explaining its past but we enjoyed it anyway.

A Billion Dollar Inventory

Yesterday we sailed from Ste. Marie Navaresse back to Tavolara Island. We passed Cala di Luna which we were hoping to stop at along the way and do some dinghy cave explorations but it was PACKED. That really surprised us since the only way to get there is an 8 mile hike or by water…but the ferries just kept coming. We just enjoyed the view from the boat:

Last night we enjoyed another gorgeous sunset:

Today we had a very nice relaxing sail from Tavolara Island to Cala Di Volpe on the mainland Sardinia. We could see a lot of power boats from way in the distance and were wondering why it was so full here. Well, they have Mega Yacht Mooring Balls here so the Big Ones come here to moor. The number 9 and number 11 biggest personally-owned boats in the world are here. The #9 boat is called Al-Mirqab and is owned by an Arabian business man. Put all the boats here together and the price tag is well over a billion dollars. The funny thing is that this big boat only holds 10 passengers but over 20 crew. The one downside to this beautiful place is all the traffic from the tender boats (of which some are bigger than our boat) is rocking and rolling the “small” boats like us in the anchorage. Look at the play toys they have. John finds it great people watching through the binoculars!!! He is sure he spotted George Cloony and Kevin Costnar already….yeah right :)

The beauty and the beast.

Today is the last day of our road trip.  We left the Alghero area which was a hustling big city.  I wish I had planned more time to visit there.  We drove South along the West Coast of Sardinia today and it reminded us a lot of the California coastline.  It truly was a beauty.

 

Several of the towns we drove through had real works of art on the sides of buildings and fences.  This one was as we entered Tavola.  Apparently Sardinia has a history of Vendetta’s amongst family groups.

We found out that Sardinia is the second largest producer of cork products in the world.  The only cork I have seen was made into souvenirs.  Today I finally noticed an area where the bark had been cut away from the trees and had John stop the car.  Yes, it was a cork tree and there were several large pieces laying around but I only took a small portion…what would I do with a large piece of bark??  Actually some stores sell it as serving trays.

I have to add a comment about the driving here on Sardinia…it is truly a beastly thing.  Not only are the roads so curvy I almost got car sick but the drivers coming at you take up more than their share of the road…WAYYYYYY over the white line.  Then if you aren’t going twice the speed limit, they tailgate you until you are or you move aside for them to pass.  Today as we stopped at a gas station to refuel the rental car, I took a picture of the reason for all this chaos.  Only in Sardinia have I seen a BAR at a gas station…talk about drinking and driving????  The gentlemen that gave John directions yesterday were at a gas station having a drink but I thought nothing of it then.

All we found were tombs

Today we drove from Cala Gonone, up the East coast of Sardinia and to Capo Testa, the extreme Northern area.  Our guidebook gave us vague descriptions on how to do this 1.5 km walk through the forest, wildflowers, and up to the lighthouse at the cape.  First thing was you had to find a the wooden sign that said “Ente Foreste”(Photo #1).  Well, there were at least ten of those so we picked one that looked like it had a great trail through the forest up to the lighthouse…and after walking at least 1.5 km, we realized it wasn’t going in the right direction and we turned back the way we came…bummed out.  The guide book we were following told us about this Roman quarry where the granite was extracted to build the columns on Rome’s Pantheon.  So we looked for the “Colonne Romane” sign and found one posted with the “Tomb Gigante” sign (Photo #2 and #3) so we pursued.  Notice the barely legible words on photo #2 (Tomb .6d).  We lost the Roman Column signs after that and yet we persisted in driving up and down the road several times to no avail.  But…we found the Giants tomb and were very inimpressed (Photo #4).

   

After our unsuccessful start we went ahead and drove to the lighthouse in Gallura.  Then we got out and hiked around the granite formations.

The next half of our day we spent driving on the coast road to the West part of the island near Alghero.  I had read about another tomb site with 37 tombs near our hotel.  We were having no luck finding this site either when John actually stopped and asked directions from local Italians to get to the Anghelu Ruju.  It cost us 10 Euro for both tickets and an audio guide.  The tombs were carved by the Ozieri Culture between 3300 and 2900 BC and reused again until 1500 BC by the Copper Age culture.  The tombs were dug so there were many different rooms and then sealed with a small stone door.  They were discovered in 1907 by someone looking for construction material.  They found shell and stone ornamental objects like necklaces, etc.  They also found vessels, stone and bronze weapons and Goddess-like idols which accompanied the dead to the after world. 

How to track down a bandit…

First thing is you get to Sardinia where they are known for their “Bandits”.  Then you go to the town of Dorgali in the Hills.  Then you go down a dirt road for miles and miles.

At the end of the road, you look down into the tombs that were created in 3300 BC.

And there you go…you found the Bandits of Sardinia.  But be careful, they are armed and dangerous:

Road Trip in Sardinia

John and I needed a sea legs break so we decided to get into a port, leave Jay Sea Dee, rent a car, and head out.  We started in St. Maria Navaresse on the East coast half way down and got to Cala Gonone.  It doesn’t look very far on the map but we went through the Golfo Orosei National Park and the roads were very curvy.    

As you can see we also had to deal with “Free Range” cattle and Sardinians in the roads…part of the fun I guess.  The country is very rugged and has cliffs and valleys like the Grand Canyon. 

We stopped at a Nuragich Site.  A Nuraghe is a stone tower made without mortar by aligning heavy blocks in circles of diminishing circumference so that they form a truncated dome that supports its own weight.  This comes from the BC time frame.  John and I were given a map of the village which spreads over a mile or more.  We made one wrong turn and ended up hiking twice that distance over sharp lava rocks and in 30 degree celcius heat with NO WATER…BIG MISTAKE. 

   

The scenery is fantastic!