Sardinia Channel, November 2008
A good sail at last
November 20, 2008
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.

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