Fri 20 Jul

This morning we were all up relatively early and settled in the cockpit for breakfast. Our plan was to leave Alghero’s town quay for Porto Conte at around 11am, which was cut slightly short by the arrival of a French boat who’d got wind we were leaving today. The day trip boats had just left so they casually moored up alongside in the vacant spots and helped themselves to their water. Tom and I stared at them, rather stunned, as we’d never be brave enough to be that brazen. Good for them though! When someone official appeared they shrugged their shoulders and gave back the hose, happy because by then their tanks were full.

We picked up some diesel and motored an hour or so to a bay near Porto Conte called Cala del Bollo. We were fortunate enough to pick up one of the two (very sturdy) looking mooring balls so we happily spent the day eating, chatting and swimming. At 18:00 we motored the mile or so to Porto Conto. It’s a tiny and very shallow marina about half way into the bay and we waited patiently outside for the marino, who after trying to rouse on the VHF for 30 minutes needing calling. He came out and showed us into our berth. Porto Conte is the quaintest and most fisherman-like marina we’ve been in so far – and in terms of bang-for-buck the most expensive at 80 EUR!. There’s one very rickety jetty off of which lines hang from old car tyres. We’re lucky to be mooted stern-to with a fantastic view of the bay. We got chatting to our neighbour who pointed us in the direction of the showers, so we navigated the jetty and found the very basic showers. Back on the boat Cass cooked a fabulous pasta and we sat in the cockpit listening to some very loud yet inoffensive 1940/50’s music emanating from the (one) nearby hotel. Either it’s an old movie with no words or a dance class, we can’t tell. As I’m writing this it’s 01:15 and they’re still going strong!