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Off the boat early to get the ALFA bus to the airport (runs once an hour leaving the stop near the old town at 30 minutes past the hour, but remember to buy your tickets before you go for the bus)

Standing at the bus-stop thinking that a hard hat might be a good idea, as branches awere getting blown off the trees, wether forecast has started warning of impending Severe Gale Bf9, good job we are going home, assuming that the airport is open..

Onto the 737 and up and away. Garmin takes a bit of time to lock on to the satellites but comes on line as we pass Corsica and confirms our position. I hadn’t realised the mountains there were so high, but there is already snow on the tops.

Hit the French coast at Antibes and I’m running out of charts…

Back to find London in the grip of a blast of Arctic winds, you could see the Italian passengers wince as they opened the door…

Pity it was just a week due to lack of vacation time but I will probably think of contacting Tim again next year when I have more time available..

We are a day early getting into Alghero but the Friday morning dawns to the howl of the wind and the worst set of frapping halyards that I can ever remember.

One of these days people laying their boats up for the winter might remember to tie the * things off, there will be some people trying to sleep in the marina.

Anyway the Mistral has arrived as predicted and it builds through the day until there are actually little white horses inside the harbour, and the wind is coming across the breakwater not through the entrance.

Walk around to the seaward side of the town wall and then you really feel it…

Oh well a good chance to explore the old town of Alghero and do more window shopping, Christmas is only a month away after all.

Exiting the Fornelli Passage we picked up a good West South Westerly wind and could sail close hauled down the west coast of Sardinia, freeing up gradually as the shoreline truned more towards the south.

As we came south the cliffs of Capo Caccia seemed to get larger and larger and we spent a fair amount of time looking for the two outlying islands of Isola Piana and Isola Foradada.

The problem is not seeing them but rather identifying them as actually not being parts of the main cliffs.

Piana has only a narrow channel between it and the main island which you can spot until it is abeam of you.

Foradada is obviously an island when coming down from the north but as you get closer to it the channel seems to close as the cliffs overlap.

These cliffs are high! The light on Capo Caccia is over 185 metres above sea level and that is a low section compared with the cliffs north of it.

Eventually we round the cape and its a direct run into Alghero with the wind swirling around as it bounces off the cliffs and down the bay east of the escarpment.

Tim has the same attitude to rigging jibe preventers that I do, try to tell me why you shouldn’t have them and I will explain why you should.., and on that run in they came in particularly useful.

Another sunset, but this time astern of us and its back to identifying the navigation marks against the shore lights again for another hour of night sailing.

We turn the corner and run dow to Alghero

A waypoint to clear the track up a bit..

Looking at the chart Sardinia appears at first to have a long promentary at its North East corner. Look a bit closer and the last 10 miles or so is actually the Isola Asinari, or the Island of the Donkeys.

Between Sardinia and Isola Asinari is the Fornelli Passage, an interesting little channel that cuts  twenty miles off the passage from Stintino and Alghero.

Getting through simply involves using two sets of leading marks, picking up one set ahead to get through to the centre of the passage and then doing about a 95 degree turn when the second set line up astern of you.

Couple these with a channel that has only three metres of water in places and that is if you keep exactly to the transits, and it can be a daunting trip.

We came through into a fairly smooth sea state west of Sardinia, but imagine what a two or the metre swell could do to the depth in the passage…

The Italian Water’s Pilot comments on the fact that there are lights on two of the marks but says something like "this passage is terrifying enough in daylight without trying it at night"

In fact given a benign sea, clear visibility and a bit of research into how to identify the leading marks it is actually a fairly simple bit of pilotage, but that is easy for me to say having had Tim showing us the way through.

Another day of little wind and over 40 miles to cover to get to Stintino.

Motoring with a little help from the odd breath of wind every now and again.

Plodding along with only a sighting of a few dolphins to break the monotony.

Then the sun started to drop towards the horizon and it was obviously going to be a night arrival in Stintino.

Sunglasses on against the glare and it was a question of whether the low lying penninsular would come over the horizon before the sun hit it.

Coming into the harbour there were a lot of small fishing boats also coming in at the same time, and an interesting job of working out who was going where and where the outer breakwater was against the shore lights.

Having spent Tuesday morning exploring Bonifacio we set off at lunchtime intentending to visit the Madellena islands.

Wind was relatively good for sailing but then the weather lady on channel 68 (all day weather for Italian waters) started talking about the probability of a Mistral coming in by Friday with a Bf 7/8 from the West or North West.

With this being only a short trip Tim decided that going further east was not a good idea as we needed to get back to the west by the weekend, so we diverted into the marina at St Teresa Gallura.

It is well worth spending some time exploring the old town of Bonifacio.

Getting up from the harbour involves a fairly stiff climp up a pedestrian ramp that show signs of being quite old. Going up it you find it easy to stop to look at things, as you need to get your breath back!

At the top of the ramp you can get a good view of the overhangs on which much of the town is built.

Monday brought a smoother sea but very little wind, so our passage to Bonifacio proved to be more of a motor than a sail.

Bonifacio is a lovely little town to explore, perched behind its walls on top of a prometeryry of over-hanging cliffs.

The harbour is a long narrow inlet behind the prometery which in time erosion might well turn into an island.

Erosion must be a worry for the people of Bonifacio as so much of the old town is now on cliffs where the sea has eroded the base.