Mon 23 Jul to Thu 26 Jul

Monday 23

The beach on La Pelosa is rumoured to be one of the most beautiful in Sardinia (or in the world as the local tourism board claims!) so we caught the bus in the morning to go and see for ourselves. It was nothing short of spectacular with its shallow turquoise bath-temperature water and views of the Fornelli passage. Predictably too it was absolutely heaving. We had a leisurely lunch then at around 1600 went to try to negotiate a decent rate on a couple of sun beds for a few hours. Try as we might we couldn’t get the guy to budge on his 40 EUR daily rate so we declined and thought we’d try our luck just sitting in the shade. Within minutes the same guy with a walkie-talkie came and asked us to move so we found ourselves a tiny spot on the public beach within touching distance of our neighbours. The beach itself isn’t very long and 95% of it has been occupied with rentable sun beds. This leaves a minuscule space for the rest, who are usually larger families or groups of teenagers who probably (and very understandably) don’t want to fork out the money.  If we ran the town we agreed we’d allocate the space 50/50.

In the evening Cass found us a wonderful local restaurant called il Sardegna risto soci who served us six courses of superb and traditionally Sardinian food and wine. It was positioned as small and family run and during the walk up the hill we were a little unsure as to whether we’d be sitting around someone’s dining room table. Thankfully when we arrived there were a few more tables, and a bull dog who’d wandered in off the street and decided to take up residence. Eventually he was coaxed out with some sausage. The food was delicious and just kept coming and we had to be careful not to allow our looks of mild terror to be picked up by the staff when they delivered the next 5kgs of food. If you’re ever in Stintino it’s a must!

Tuesday 24

I took a walk around the village in the early morning in a vain attempt to walk off some of the 10,000 calories I’d consumed the night before. On the way back to the boat I stopped in a bakery to pick up some (diet approved) croissants and it was exactly like the scene from Eat, Prey, Love – a mass of people all shouting orders to behind the counter. After breakfast we sailed from Stintino to Asinara, an inhabited island on the north west corner of Sardinia. Its history is an odd one, known as “Isola del Diavolo” (“Devil’s Island”) it was used as a quarantine location for lepers, a prison camp during the First World War, and then as one of the most important high security Italian prisons during the terrorist period of the 1970s and during the struggle against organised crime. It finally became a protected National Park in 1997.

We had a lunch and swim stop in Cala de Binaco, a quiet secluded bay then early evening motored around to Cala Reale where we were to spend the night. We had a short wander then were lucky enough to find the only bar on the island for a sundowner then Cass cooked us a wonderful dinner.

Wednesday 25

On Wednesday morning we went for a walk on the island before it got too hot, and introduced ourselves to the local donkeys, a lone hedgehog and had a short tour of the local turtle sanctuary. These poor little creatures were in the process of being cleansed of plastic bags in their stomachs and recovering from operations to remove fish hooks in their mouths.

In the early afternoon we had a lovely 4 hour downwind sail to Castelsardo, a very traditional and refreshingly un touristic town set on a hillside with a castle on its summit. After a much needed shower in the early evening we walked through the narrow streets before having dinner (yes, more pasta!) in a local restaurant.

Thursday 26

Today we had to say goodbye to Cass after having spent a lovely week together. On the walk into town to find the bus stop we had lunch in a restaurant overlooking the bay, and were entertained by the very charismatic owner who took a real liking to Tom and insisted on fist-bumping him every time he passed. We said our goodbyes to Cass (after trying to convince her to miss her flight and stay for a few more days!) and motored a few minutes around the corner to drop anchor for the night.