Sailing in Sardinia

As places to spend a week sailing, laughing with friends and generally relaxing and having a jolly good time go – well, it doesn’t really get much better!  Mr P and I have both spent many years sailing on big boats and so we were thrilled to be invited to sail on Bella Nove at the Rolex Swan Cup in Sardinia.

The stage is set

Bella Nove is a very elegant 48 foot Swan yacht.  Nautor Swan are famous for making beautiful and comfortable yachts and for putting on rather splendid regattas in fabulous locations!  We were based at Yacht Club Costa Smerelda in Porto Cervo.  According to Wikipedia it is the most expensive location in Europe, so thankfully the yacht club was in a different part of the town to the shops which are full of luxurious goods!

Proof – should it be needed – that I worked at breakfast time!

I was particularly lucky to be able to go – firstly it was originally going to just be a boys trip, but I decided that I should ask if there was space for me too (and happily our owner said yes) – as now we are in the latter stages of the year, if Mr P had swanned off (haha) to Sardinia without me I would have been stuck with unused holiday (and probably a sulk).  Secondly – September isn’t a quiet time at work so I happily agreed to take my laptop and work from my sun-terrace when necessary, which proved to be a lot less time-consuming than I had nervously expected!

Horror of horrors at 5am! I’m not sure i’m part of Generation Easyjet!

For some reason, British Airways don’t fly to Sardinia and so we booked flights with Easyjet!  I haven’t flown with Easyjet for longer than I dare to remember and tried to focus on the fact that it wasn’t Ryanair!  I do have one tip for Easyjet though… If you think you can get away with it then don’t turn up early at check-in at Gatwick, cut it fine and make a fuss on arrival that you might miss your flight.  We all dutifully arrived early and quietly queued, only to see late arrivals swept through in front of us rather than being asked to join the queue!  Happily we managed to get within our bag weight limit – which was a relief as travelling with sailing kit and on a 20kg baggage limit each was more challenging than I would have liked!

This island I would actually like to buy!

The flight was actually rather pleasant, after we had stocked up on Pret food and drink before boarding.  I particularly enjoyed the views down across Corsica which looks stunning and has left me wanting to see more of this area.

It was midday somewhere…

Once we arrived at our yacht we knew we were in the right place for the week.  The rest of the crew were great and our hosts for the week greeted us with Aperol Spritz’s!  What a perfect start!  Set up perfectly for lunch, we never did make it sailing that day – but we spent plenty of time ‘crew-bonding’ in the bar and then over dinner – a key part of any sailing regatta! Especially a gentleman’s regatta such as this!  Many crews forget this!! 😉

Quiet evenings

What was particularly great about this particular group was that everyone got on fantastically.  It really made the week – we laughed so much and just generally had a good time, whilst gelling as a team as the week went on!

Our steed – Bella Nove

After our practice day and once we were all confident in our roles, the Yacht Club hosted an evening drinks and canapés party. All very civilised.  Rather pleasant drinking fizz and taking in the view!

And so to the racing, after all – that was the reason why we were in this gorgeous location!  Looking back across the 4 races (we lost a day due to too much wind) it was very apparent just how important practice is.  We had plenty of moments of excitement, but on the final day we smashed it, got everything right even when things didn’t go smoothly and came 4th in our fleet of 21 – smiles all round!  The sailing area is stunning, the races are coastal races and so when not looking at sails and ropes, it is great to just enjoy the scenery.  The area is very rocky and so the navigator has to judge just how close he dares to go to them!  The windiest day was fantastic fun – sailing off round the Maddelena Islands and then back through ‘Bomb Alley’ (the Bonifacio Straits) at pace!  We definitely  had some moments of excitement, but a good day on the water is always one that can be debriefed time and again in the bar!

Champagne Sailing

Normally on a trip I’d have seen the whole island.  But this wasn’t what this trip was about.  We did have 2 lay days – one was enforced due to extreme wind (the Mistral arrived) and the other was due to lack of wind.  We definitely made the best of them! On one occasion we motored the boat around the coast to a quiet anchorage and had a lot of fun in the sea and enjoyed a few beers on the boat!  We were really rather privileged to do this given the part of the world we’d arrived in!

I’m very nervous when it comes to being in the sea, but the clarity of the water and the colour was just incredible!  Even better than what I’ve seen in the Caribbean!  Click to enjoy diving practice!!

On the other lay day we had a bit of a ramble up a hill to find a view – mostly to ensure we stayed out of the bar but also it was good exercise too!

View back down to Porto Cervo

One evening Rolex threw a bit of a party and we had a lot of fun!  It was also the 21st birthday of one of the crew, so it was a big and late night (setting us up perfectly for the final days racing where we got our best result!)!  We were bussed out to a 5* beach hotel where there was buffet food and drink.  I learnt a lot in Sardinia about how to carry lots of drinks in plastic cups at the same time (always free beer after sailing, it was all about acquiring it in big enough volumes to keep the boat happy)!  Fantastic laser show and an awesome video of the event that was shown on big screens!  A good fun evening with plenty of dancing and catching up with friends!  Funny moment when one of our crew accidentally accepted a prize on behalf of our boat (including acceptance speech) only to find out afterwards that it wasn’t our prize!

The end of the week came around far too quickly, doesn’t it always!  I haven’t sailed for a while and I neither expected to have so much fun or be able to do what I needed to do on the boat how I did.  Smiles all round!

Sailing is best enjoyed with like-minded souls! Happy Sailing!