janeandrogersadventure

We go West to Isola di San Pietro

The layers of mountains in the morning light on the southern coast of Sardegna

We sailed out of Cagliari having safely deposited Chris at the railway station. Cagliari is very central and offers great sea, land and air connections around the Mediterranean and beyond. Very quickly you can be back into Europe.

So now we are going to head to Spiaggia Zafferano to meet up with Sailing Yacht Ambra – Biggi and Torsten – who we met on Sicily. They are enjoying their summer and preparing to sail the ARC ( Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) in November – Las Palmas in the Canaries to the Caribbean. It’s a very popular race for cruising yachts and a great way to sail as part of a group. It was fun to catch up with them in Zafferano 🥂

Porto Pino is just around the headland and we will head there just to see the long white beaches that everyone talks about.

Porto Pino – a large crescent shaped bay with sand dunes. Just over the dunes and accessible at the western corner a river into a lake where the village sits.
Porto Pino and the lakes behind the dunes. Great windsurfing and kite surfing here

We will sail around the next headland – two islands lie off the bottom west corner of Sardegna. Antioch which is joined to the main island by a causeway and then Isola di San Pietro – Carloforte.

Carloforte

Carloforte is the town of the island and it is very nice. With quite a different flavour it was built by the Genovans in the 1400 and 1500’s. Different food too – a combination of Ligurian and African with a big emphasis on fish – especially Tonno- tuna – and the red variety which is highly prized. As for the vegetarian- it’s more tomato and mozzarella for me!

Colourful buildings in all the streets and paved streets with very small stones
Fish traps- handmade – for all sorts of fish and crustaceans

When we planned this trip – over the last 2 years – we decided on a clockwise direction. Travelling up the west coast is not so usual and it is mostly ‘wild’ coastline with huge cliffs and few anchorages or ports. But there is good weather and we can make our way west and north.

Masua – a giant standing stone just off the coast. We are here on a mirror calm day which makes it even more spectacular.
And right next to it is Porto Flavia – a doorway in the cliff face – built in the 1920’s to facilitate the loading of minerals and stone onto waiting boats. 800 metres of vertical and horizontal tunnels – a human engineering feat in itself

Tharros – an archeological site is our next stop. It is the remnants of a city built by the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC but it was a site already inhabited by the Nuraghi. Both Sardegna and Corsica have prehistoric sites that archeologists continue to discover. The giant standing stones, towers, crypts and wells are to be found all over both islands. The Spanish – Catalans – are also old inhabitants of this west coast and much of the language, food and building reflects their culture.

The Spanish tower at Tharros – sunset
The peninsula at Tharros looking back to the Spanish Torre and salt lakes behind.
The ancient ruins at Tharros – yachts can Moir on buoys in the bay.
The beach on the coast at Tharros. One side is into the bay which is shallow and extremely salty – called the Mare Muerto – Dead Sea – and the coast side just 200 metres over the sand bar is beautiful clear water.
Tharros
02 Aug This entry was published on August 2, 2022 at 6:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.

Leave a comment