Olbia, Sardinia

When I flew to Sardinia, Chris and Desi stayed for a day and so we used the hire car to go and explore inland Sardinia. 

Our first stop was a walk around Tempio Pausana to the north west of Olbia for coffee and to visit the cathedral.

There is a lot of cork oak grown around here and many of the trees have had their lower bark completely stripped off in large sheets.

The extraction of the cork is carefully regulated by law and can only be done once in a decade. The first extraction is done when the plant is at least 60cms in diameter and this first lot is known as "male" cork which is used in construction for insulation and sound proofing. After that comes the "friendly" or "female" cork which is used for other products

This was a shop in Tempio that sold just about everything made of cork. Really not sure about a cork dress but lovely designs!

Next stop was just north of Tempio at Nuraghe Majori for a real meat feast lunch at a very hidden away restaurant.

This cold meats and cheese platter was just for starters!

Nuraghe Majori is a dwelling that is an incredible 3500 years old!

The Nuragic civilisation developed during the Middle Bronze Age (1600BC) and they built about 7000 of these nuraghes on Sardinia. 

Inside the nuraghe is a colony of Lesser Horseshoe bats - one of the world's smallest bats weighing only 5-9 grams.

A piece of cork oak bark as it has been removed from the tree. 

After Chris and Desi left, Dave and I went to explore the area south of Olbia while we waited for Katy and Irvin to arrive. We first anchored in Liscia delle Saline, just outside Olbia and were treated to a fabulous spectacle of very accomplished windsurfers. The winds were strong in the afternoon and they raced along at great speed, some doing jump turns. This girl in particular was amazing.

Like a flock of butterfly wings fluttering in the sunshine.

 

A good opportunity to practise with my camera!

From Liscia delle Saline we sailed further south to Porto San Paolo.

We had a message from Peter on Rocko One to say that he had seen on "No Foreign Land" website that we were not far from him. Catherine was away playing violin in an orchestra in Salzburg and Lyon so we went round to join him. We anchored in the bay outside the small harbour and Peter came over for dinner and then a BBQ. We took the dinghy ashore and found a lovely, pretty town with very useful shopping.

Back to the boat to strip down the outboard and resolve the problem of the oil leak (or so we thought but actually it took several attempts as the epoxy was inferior and didn't set properly. Having bought a new tin in Olbia and redone the rocker cover we hope it will last until we can get a new part)

Not always blue skies and sunshine!

While we were there we had 40 knots of wind which put the Rocna anchor to the test but luckily it held. The sea looks flat in this photo but when Catherine returned and we were invited over for dinner we had to postpone as we didn't want to leave the boat in case she dragged and didn't fancy going in the dinghy in such choppy waters. We did, however, have a lovely meal with them the next day.

We sailed back in to Olbia along the channel for commercial ships. All of the Moby passenger ferries were decorated with similar cartoons.