Olbia, Sardinia

The strong winds continued throughout the night and I had a very restless night's sleep as I was aware of the boat’s more noticeable movement all night. We arrived in Olbia, Sardinia at about 8am this morning and the Mistral winds were now 30-40 knots gusting to about 50 knots which Gavin tells me is classified as gale force winds. There was a yacht leaving the harbour and you could see it battling in such winds. I loved the early morning light on the water, as seen in this image - at home I never get to see sunrises or sunsets as we are too well treed around our area and we not in an elevated position, so I am taking advantage of them on this journey. I have added an extra of the town and you can see the many buoys which are used for farming mussels, which is a large industry here. 

After breakfast we walked into the town of Olbia - I doubt it is a must-see town on anyone’s list but it was charming enough. I think our journey has been planned around certain popular destinations but this one was just a suitable place to stop. It is a ferry port and the harbour was quite busy. After we walked around town for about 30 minutes we had seen all we wanted to see, but the boys wanted to find a beach. We knew there was a good beach about 6km out of town called Pittulongu and we tried to find a bus or a taxi to get there. We noticed a man hanging around chatting to some friends at a cafe and we thought he could be a taxi driver, so we approached him and asked if he knew where we could get a taxi to the beach. He was not a taxi driver, but he very kindly said he would go get his car and drive us there for a nominal fee. We got to the beach where the boys had a swim in the clear, turquoise water while Gavin and I had a coffee at a beachside cafe. The whole setup reminded us of somewhere in the Caribbean, which begs the question of why British people travel all that way, also suffering jet lag, when Sardinia offers such beautiful beaches a whole lot closer to the UK! We then wondered about looking for a bus to get us back to town, but we noticed our ‘taxi driver’ was waiting around near the beach. We asked if he would mind giving us a lift  back to the boat and he willingly agreed - he was so friendly and so chatty, and again we paid him the fee he requested which was very reasonable. An opportunist he may have been, but he was kind and went out of his way to help us. It was a bit of a squeeze in his tiny car with the big boys but that was not really a problem.

Back to the ship for lunch, and then we lay on our balcony on the loungers reading (all cabins on this boat have balconies which is a nice feature). I am now about to go to the gym with the boys, they want me to do some weights with them as they are worried about my lack of muscles, haha!

Today it is Jenni’s birthday - and tomorrow it is Adam’s 21st birthday. Thomas re-joins us tomorrow from his rugby tour and we will celebrate this special birthday tomorrow night. Tonight we set sail for our next stop which is Portofino, Italy. I am really looking forward to that visit.