With the kite surfers in Porto Liscia

July 16

I baked my first cake on board yesterday and it turned out yummy! Admittedly it was a shake and bake kind of ready made mixture, but it actually tasted quite good. Even though I did not understand all the Italian instructions, I must have gotten most of it right. With three birthdays in our family coming up soon, this was an important test run. Would the little gas oven in our galley get hot enough and how do you bake something without knowing the temperature? My new friend Anke here in Porto Liscia advised to just go by your nose, which is exactly what I did. If it smells the least bit burned, turn the heat down. And Anke would know, since she and her partner Uwe have lived on their sailboat “Seatramp” since twelve years!

From Marina di Olbia we left early Saturday morning and headed North. The seven and a half our trip was peaceful except for the scare that our bilge pump did not work (after some examination and thinking we realized I hadn’t screwed the filter on properly – phew). We were headed to Porto Liscia, a large natural bay with lots of space and wind, which makes it a prime destination for kite- and windsurfers.

kite surfers in Porto Liscia, Sardinia

Anke and Uwe, German friends of my family, are running a little kite surfing/stay-on-a-sailboat-business and living in Sardinia all year round. They are easy going, fun and helpful and we learned a lot in the two days we’ve anchored next to them.

Sunday early afternoon when the wind wasn’t too strong yet, the two of them took us to the beach and showed the kids how to steer a kite.

Leonie practicing to steer her little red kite.

That’s the first step you take when learning to kit surf. On that part of the beach there are kites in bright colors everywhere. People setting up their gear, untangling lines, pumping up frames and walking backwards into the water eyes up into the air. There are teachers guiding fully harnessed students through the steering motions on land and a handful of zodiac type motor boats floating in the shallow water ready to rescue rookies that have been pulled out of the bay to far.

Sol and Leonie got to practice their little red kite by a freshwater lagoon. After Uwe showed them they quickly learned how to keep it in the air. Once the wind got stronger him and Anke went out for a run and, I have to say, it looks like a LOT of fun. Sol thought so, too. He is wishing for a course for his birthday now!

The windsurfers are all in the western part of the bay and hardly anybody is crossing the line. As we learned, there is an animosity between wind and kite surfers kind of like between skiers and snowboarders. Silly, isn’t it? After a few hours we were ready to escape the sun and go back to the boat. If only the dinghy outboard would start! No chance. Anke saved us from what would have been a pretty darn hard row back by towing us to the boat. And then she saved us a second time soon after when the strong wind had ripped the fender knot open and our little dinghy was drifting eastwards! At least we are always lucky in our little Missgeschicke.

So, the dinghi motor was what Bill spent his afternoon on the next day. And dear Uwe, who was here for three hours, not leaving before they had the problem figured out. In the end it was nothing to do with the starter but with the OFF button.

Uwe and Bill fixing the outboard enging

That afternoon I had a real low. Meanwhile Bill was taking apart the manual bilge pump, which was also not working. This never ending stream of repairs seemed to be consuming all our time and started to feel quite overwhelming.

But then it was time to pack up our potato salad, meet and cake and head over to the beach for our first boater’s barbecue on the beach. Our new friends had set up a little

Grillmeister Uwe

charcoal grill in the dunes and the night was beautiful. Three boats had come together, everybody had brought some yummy stuff to eat and drink, sharing food and stories. Frieder and Hanna, a teacher couple from Germany just finishing a sabbatical year on their boat, told us how hard the beginning was for them and how that is just part of it: fixing things, solving problems, and sometimes they come in a bunch. Needless to say, by the time we said Goodbye and motored back through the still dark night with the crescent yellow moon guiding us to our floating home, I was happy and content and in good cheer again. And now we are off to Corsica….