Another beautiful and sunny morning wakes us up – we must be in paradise, surely!
08.15h: while planning our day, we are having our coffee. It’s Tuesday and today we would spend the night in a marina. Mainly to buy some fresh bread, veggies and fruits….ah, we also needed some beer and wine. But also to find out how it works with the radio and registering etc., etc.
We planned to sail southwards, passing the marina where we would spend the night, turn around after a while (depends on the winds) and head for the marina.
Our first choice was the “Marina di Puntaldia”, which lays in the bay called Porto Brandinghi. According to our “bible” it seemed an excellent option, with good shelter, all the facilities one needs, a mini market for shopping, plus restaurants & bars. The price class was a 6+, which means the highest standard, with a fee from EUR 100.00 per night (July-August).
Well, we thought it was worth it, since we would only spend one night in a marina – so, why not spoil oneself a little bit?
Nevertheless, we still had a day of sailing ahead of us! So after WOBBLES, we left at 10 o’clock with fair winds and a sunny smile in our faces!
After 11h we hoisted both sails, the winds had reached a great 7-8.5 knots and we enjoyed another fantastic day on the sea.
While passing “Marina di Puntaldia”, we noticed another marina, a bit south. This one is called “Porto Ottiolu” and after reading about it in “the book”, we decided to spend the night there instead. The price was almost the same: a 6, which means between EUR 70.00-100.00 per night. Lucky we did, as it turned out!
But first we had to accomplish our first tacking – which was around 2 p.m. It went so smooth and perfect, we were almost a bit embarrassed…..Franco would have been proud of us!
Further we went and our next stop was “Porto Ottiolu”.
After a couple of tries, Patrik finally reached someone at the marina, asking if they had room for us. “Yes , of course, we and “Blue Moon” would be very welcome”.
Approximately one nautical mile outside Patrik called again as instructed and the lady said, someone will be waiting for us, showing our mooring. And sure enough, a guy in a dinghy was waiting for us, waving and directing us to our spot (which was C 14).
Everything went fine, Patrik backed perfectly, the guy had meanwhile jumped ashore, in order to assist us with the ropes. And then I messed it all up: I threw the line to the man, he pulled it through a mooring ring, tossed the line back to me and I started to secure it on the cleat – unfortunately from the wrong side of the railing! The guy shouted “No, no, no, signora!” – it took ages until I realised, why!
*arghhh* – so damned embarrassing and unnecessary!! Bloody amateur (me of course)!!!
Anyhow, at 15.20h our cat was secured and we decided to do the registering at once. Then check out the showers, have a well-deserved cold drink, do the grocery shopping and return to “Blue Moon”.
Said and done, we walked along other yachts, passed restaurants, tourist shops, more shops, bars, some pretty terraced houses…..well, we soon noticed that our mooring was about as far away as possible from the registration office. It took us almost half an hour to get there. Incredibly, the bee line between our boat and the office was actually just about 30 metres, but – annoyingly – we couldn’t walk on water and none of us was in the mood to swim over there……So we walked!
No problems there, luckily, we didn’t forget a thing and the lady was very helpful. The fee was EUR 86.22 which we paid by credit card.
Then finally, a big, cold beer for Patrik and an icy “Spritz” for me. DIVINE!
While sitting in the comfy armchairs, enjoying the fantastic view over the marina, we tried to imagine, how this incredibly lovely village must look like in high season. VERY CROWDED! Definitely not a place where we wanted to be!
Then it was time for grocery shopping and after that we went back to our boat, stowing the stuff away. Since we had plenty of time (we decided, we would have dinner in one of the restaurants), we wanted to have a “spacy” shower tonight, at the marina. Which obviously meant, another loooong walk to the other side again (the showers were just beside the office, hahaha….).
Never mind, a bit of walking felt quite good and the showers – although some parts were under construction – were very clean and spacious. Half an hour later we were on the way back to our boat.
While passing different restaurants, we tried to decide at which one we would have dinner. We choose “Nautilus”, because they had the biggest selection with vegetarian meals. The outdoor area looked very beautiful, just a few metres from the water and some yachts!
It became dark when we arrived at the restaurant and we took our time to select our dinner, while enjoying a glass of prosecco. The staff was super friendly and courteous and helped us to choose a suitable red wine.
All in all, it was such a romantic evening with a fantastic candlelight dinner. At the end we ordered espresso, accompanied by a very tasteful grappa!
Afterwards, we were actually glad to go for a stroll and just after midnight we were in our bed. Happy and full of unforgettable impressions!
Good night world – sleep tight!
