Exploring the gulf of Cagliari

‘The gulf of Cagliari extends from Pula on the west, to cape Carbonara on the east side, a distance of twenty-four miles across, and about twelve in depth, with good anchorage all over it, after getting into soundings.’
William Henry Smyth, Sketch of the Present State of the Island of Sardinia

Our first week afloat on our very own boat.

Preparing

Lots of preparation, organisation, thought, willpower, dreams, and getting our priorities right lead us to this moment; most of which likely little conceived from the outside. All the work over the past three quarters of a year lead us here. We stand in front of our very own boat, we wriggle out of the backpacks’ straps, shed off the luggage we have trailed behind us on the pontoon, slip off the shoes, grab one another’s hands and step on board. ‘Lindarella’ it says boldly on her stern, and Lindarella she will remain for the time being. The registration forms are not yet through, and she bears the name of her previous owners, René and Linda.

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Our first week afloat

The work of the last months finally pays off… we have a boat, and for the first time we can go and sail her!

We were quite anxious: how would we really find her? How would we find her manoeuvrability? How would we handle the responsibility? But in the end: it was a great and very satisfying experience!

We were happy to share our first few days aboard with our sailor friends Francesco and Eliane who also flew out from Switzerland to join us. It was great to have their company and their sailing experience, and we can only thank them for their patience while we were trying to solve little problems and find things amongst the many tools and spares we helpfully inherited from the previous owners.

After they left us on Tuesday morning, we had a few days to carry out some more maintenance activities and take her out by ourselves. Having already got to know her a little, we now felt prepared to handle her ourselves, and we worked very well together despite some challenging conditions as more variable weather set in.

Here are some impressions of our first trip from my phone: better quality photographs from our real camera to follow!