Sailing and Climbing in Sardinia

Part I: Honolulu → Sardinia (where, like in The Hobbit, there is a lot of detail about traveling to my destination. It is easy to skip).

This adventure begins, as all adventures from Hawai‘i begin, at the airport getting ready to fly in an entirely unsustainable way to the other side of the planet. Because I’m living my best travel life for this trip, I’m also choosing to begin this story in the airport sky lounge because there are mimosas there.

So, sailing and climbing in Sardinia!

This trip emerged from clicking a random ad on Facebook and all the marginal and sketchy possibilities that clicking a random Facebook ad entails. The company was offering sailing/climbing tours in Italy and I’ve always wanted to combine sailing and climbing, so I was interested.

I figured after watching a 30-minute YouTube video about the adventure that it must be at least marginally legit, or as legit as an effort coordinated by climbers is going to be. It seemed that designing such an elaborate method to scam me out of not that much money was unlikely, though given the extensive nature of some scams perhaps I should have been more wary.

Anyway, I took the leap and signed up. In retrospect, there were some, let’s call them literary devices in the advertisement – like there would be multipitch options (there were not) and that we could use a spinnaker to sail (we did not).

Still, the basics of the trip turned out to be right on target.

At the time I signed up (almost a year ago), I ambitiously planned a full month in Europe that would include unknown travels and hanging out in random places because I thought I would be on sabbatical and writing a book. This trip was to be my treat for having just gone through 4 years of full-time work and part-time law school during a global pandemic, plus having graduated and taken the bar exam.

I like treats! They are highly motivating.

As it turned out, by the time September rolled around, I no longer had time off because I wasn’t on sabbatical. That is a different story. As a result, I was now traveling from Hawai‘i to the other side of the planet for a 10-day trip, several of those days spent on planes and waiting in airports.

Because of the "post-pandemic" travel horror stories, I carefully staged my trip to travel from Honolulu to Seattle on the first leg, where I stayed with my family for three days before getting on a plane to Rome. Then from Seattle to Rome, where I booked a hotel close to the airport so that I could spend the night there before the last leg of the trip from Rome to Olbia on the island of Sardinia.

Fast forwarding through the three days of hanging out in Seattle, I got on my flight to Rome. Because I was in treat mode, I had booked a first-class ticket between Seattle and Rome. When I booked it, flights were super cheap – by the time I took the flight, the main cabin was more expensive than my first-class seat had been.

As I settled into my luxury first class-lay back seat, I looked forward to trying whatever chia pudding was as a breakfast.

I'm typically a traveler who checks all her luggage because I hate having to lug (is that where the word comes from?) my crap around the airport with me. However, back to the horror stories of travel in the post-pandemic, nobody is working world, I managed to pack all my climbing gear and clothing for a 10-day trip into a backpack and a small carry-on. I did end up regretting this because more clean clothes would have been nice.

After much gnashing of teeth and bringing not one, but two, extra bags from Honolulu to Seattle with me, I actually settled on bringing my newly repaired mid-1980s REI backpack on this trip in part because it was slightly smaller and so fit better on the plane. Also, if it gets lost I don’t really care. Only after packing it, and the night before I had to get up at 3:30 am to get to the airport, did I realize it is so old there is no place in it for a much newer invention -- the water bladder. Also, my brother just told me about taking his 30-year-old backpack on a backpacking trip and the straps falling off from age immediately. In case you were worried for me, my backpack held up.

There isn’t much to say about airline travel – there were movies, there was food, there was my 8-volume epic fantasy series by Sarah Maas on my kindle. After an uneventful trip from Seattle to Boston, despite the short lay over time, I made it to my connecting flight and got to enjoy seven hours of first-class bliss on Italian airlines.

I was provided with a glass (emphasis on the glass) of the most excellent prosecco.  

This glass is nicer than any I own

 

The flight attendant did not sneer in my presence at my 30-year-old backpack but instead found a place to stow it, possibly where no one could see it and be embarrassed for me. Also provided was a nice leather satchel with a face mask, toothbrush, toothpaste, and because this is an Italian airline, perfume. I was provided with slippers, a pillow and blanket. There was a three-course dinner menu and a wine list! Let’s just say as a bit of foreshadowing that the accommodations on this plane were way nicer than the sailboat to which I'm going. For one thing, the climbing and sailing guides made us cook our own food.

As you can tell, I'm easily impressed by moderate luxury. It probably comes from finding a tent to be a reasonable place to sleep – or as I did for the following week, the bow of a boat on a cushion.

My strategy with this trip was to leave ample time between my flight to Rome, my flight to Olbia, and then onwards via taxi to Portisco where the boat was ostensibly harbored. The upside of my plan is that I made it to Olbia with all my baggage. The down side of my plan is that I spent a lot of time in airport hotels with nothing much to see and nowhere to really go.

Upon arrival in Rome, I disembarked, was immediately impressed by the Foosball table in the airport.

 

However, nobody seemed inclined to play.After leaving the secured "don't leave anything behind because we don't let you back in here" part of the airport, I went to find a taxi to take me to the hotel. I had booked the hotel because it was close to the airport and I didn't want anything to get in the way of my getting on my other connections. Outside the airport, like all other airports in the world, was a line of taxis. I showed them the hotel that I wanted to go to and they said to go to the next row where "local" taxis were.

I went there.

They told me I should walk to the hotel and not take a cab. I feel this is a European version of capitalism where money is secondary to other priorities like not making money.

Now, the travel agent had said it was a mile from the airport which, while I am all for walking, seemed a bit far to walk in the heat, with no real idea where I was going, and also after a long flight and with all my luggage. However, it was also clear that the taxi people were not going to take me there. The driver attempted helpfully to tell me how to use the skywalks in Italian and that these would get me where I wanted to go.

I didn't really understand what he was saying, but at least it was daytime and if I couldn't figure out where the hotel was I could always come back and plead with a different taxi driver to take me there.

I walked up the stairs into the skybridges and low and behold, there was a sign for the Hilton.

 

Skywalk to the Hilton

I wasn't sure if it would be the same Hilton I had booked, but I had nothing better to do than follow the signs. After multiple walkways, the skybridges did indeed dump me out at a Hilton. That Hilton had a reservation in my name BUT because it was only 7:30 am, I couldn't check in. I ate breakfast, I read a lot of my book, I drank some tea, and finally around noon after pestering them multiple times, they let me into a room.

The airport also had trains into Rome and I considered taking one in the afternoon. However, when I opened my wallet I learned that my driver's license was gone. I hadn't been in the country for more than 6 hours and I had already lost a pretty critical form of ID, more importantly, critical for actually driving when I returned to the United States.

The last time I had seen it was when the person at the money exchange desk had asked me for my passport and driver's license. Now in retrospect, I didn't remember her giving me my driver's license back. So, instead of trying to go to Rome, I had to figure out how to get back in to the "you can't come back here" part of the airport. I knew that if I didn't do it now there would be no way I'd ever get it back later.

So, I took the skybridges back to the airport and made my way to the exit for the international departures and found someone guarding the area. It turns out there IS a way back into the one-way exit part of the airport -- it was a reverse process where I had to scan my bag again and then they just let me loose in the baggage claim area without any escort or anything.

I retraced my steps to the exchange kiosk I had used and sure enough, they had my driver’s license! I was happy.

They were happy.

Not because I got my license back, but because by showing up I had saved them a lot of paperwork.

With that big adventure completed, I spent a bit of time figuring out how to get to the part of the airport where my plane would depart from the next day and then tried to stay awake as late as possible to work on getting onto this time zone.

I woke up at 3am anyway.

My flight for Olbia didn't leave until around 2pm the next day, so I spent most of my day reading. Upon arriving in Olbia, from what I can tell, the main point of arrival and departure for the island, I repeated the "you are too near the airport for me to take you to your hotel” conversation with a new taxi driver. This time, fortunately, he was a good capitalist and so he took me, but charged me the flat rate of 15 euros. I was grateful not to have to walk with all my luggage.

And with this incredibly detailed narrative of nothing important, tomorrow will be Day 1 of the trip (sort of, because mostly tomorrow is getting from Olbia to where the boat is harbored). We will spend the night on the boat tomorrow and take off first thing in the morning.
 

Part II: Sailing and Climbing in Sardinia (the part where there is much single pitch sport climbing that isn’t really all that interesting to anyone except possibly other sport climbers who want to go to Sardinia)

Day 1 (on getting to and embarking on a sailing trip with 10 strangers)

Day 1 was yet another mostly waiting game. I decided after looking at google maps that it would not be wise to go to the boat early and wait there until we could "check in" because there appeared to be no there there and nothing around the marina where one might be able to hang out. The dock appeared to be some sort of random small little harbor. However, that meant that after checking out of the hotel at 11:00, I still had four hours until the taxi picked me up.

The fun began later that day when I showed the instructions to the taxi driver and it turned out there were two sets of instructions. The first, came in an email and said the meeting point would be the Marina dell’lsola and that we should look for the boat named “Tabarka.” It came with GPS coordinates.

The second was in a PDF that had been attached and was titled “Please Read It Carefully Before You Step on Board” in capital letters. This document said the meeting point was the Portisco marina.

I had thought maybe Portisco was a region or area but the taxi driver said that Portisco and the Marina dell’lsola were entirely different places and I had to pick which one I wanted to go to.

I picked the one with the GPS coordinates, but was now even less sure I would find the boat.
The taxi driver took me on increasingly small and winding roads, but heading in the general direction of water. Then, we hit a locked gate and I began to doubt I was going to the right place.

Locked Gate

Also, I wondered how I would retrace my steps if this wasn't correct and I was dumped in the middle of nowhere by the taxi.

The taxi driver, I assumed at the time because he felt sorry for me, called the number on the gate and was let through.

Then, there was a second gate.

Another gate

And a third gate, that I could have sworn I took a picture of but now cannot find, making this one of the most secured small marinas in the middle of nowhere I’d ever been. 

 

When we hit the end of the small dirt road and I had to get out, I was still not sure if I was in the right place, but there were a lot of people and boats around so I wasn’t at least entirely alone.

It is a very small marina

I took my backpack and small carry-on and walked towards the pier. It did seem possible that a boat by the name of Tabarka might be lurking somewhere out there.

My first order of business was to find the boat, just to confirm it existed, since it was still too early to get on it.

I walked all the way to the end of the pier. There were lots of boats getting ready for something but I didn't see the one I was supposed to get on. The instructions had said our boat would have a flag for the “Vertical Sailing tour” tied to the boat mast.

This was not true.

I walked back towards the shore and finally asked someone who said, yes, indeed the boat was there -- I just had not seen the teeny-tiny name on the aft when I walked past the first time.

You can barely see the name of the boat -- right side of the back

The folks prepping the boat kindly allowed me to drop off my luggage. Then, I went for a walk and settled at what appeared to be the club house until we could check in after 6.

Scenery around the marina

At the club house I met the first two members of our crew to be -- Dan and Tom. They had also just met. One concern I had when booking this trip was that seeing as I was coming by myself I would be on a boat with others who came with climbing partners OR, even worse, that I would be on the boat with a bunch of 20-something European backpackers and be the really old lady.

Fortunately, neither of these things were true (except the part about me being a really old lady).

Dan, it turned out, was a 20-something backpacker, but he was the only one on the trip. Both Dan and Tom and come solo too, so I was not alone in being alone. Technically, I had met GiGi, the professional sailor who was the sailing captain for our trip when I dropped my stuff off. He had just finished racing a really nice and fast sailboat the day before and he gave me a hat – the Viriella. Sailing for us was going to be a let-down, given the quality of sailing he was used to.

The skipper

Sometime after 6 PM, we headed back to the boat and met the next three members of the crew who had arrived - Kelsey, Jackie and Katie -- all from San Diego and all bad-ass military women. Along with Tom, they had had a nightmare of a trip getting there, with days of lost luggage and the need to purchase climbing gear to replace what didn't arrive.

We were still waiting for three more -- one, another woman from San Diego, arrived back at our boat after having been to our boat, told she was on the wrong boat, gone to the other boat, then because someone else wanted to be on that boat, came back to ours. Her name was Wehtahnah and, like me, had come alone. Finally, the only non-Americans on the boat – Laura and Nathan, who were from England, and while they didn’t say it, I’m sure they were initially overwhelmed by being around so many Americans.

If this were a TV show, at this point in the trip, I’m not sure what type it would be. Needless to say, this first night required 11 strangers (9 passengers, 1 climbing guide, and 1 sailing skipper) to get to know each other and also figure out who was sleeping where.

The first group activity was getting the food for the trip from the car to the boat and stowing it away.

Food stowed away

The first of many differences between Italians and Americans is that they allow bananas on sailboats. Actually, this seems to be only a Hawai‘i superstition, but in Hawai‘i you would never put bananas on a boat.

There were bananas.

I didn’t eat any, just to be safe.



The other thing about Italians is that dinner is a thing, but it doesn’t happen until much later in the evening than what most Americans, myself included, are used to.

Time is different in Italy.

The decision was made to go to a restaurant up the hill from the marina and eat there. We all walked around the three gates and up the hill to a restaurant where we drank the local red wine and had our first dinner together.

Another fun international travel experience is figuring out bathrooms. I was once outsmarted by a toilet in the Tokyo airport. Here, it took me a bit to figure out how to turn on the sink. I swear I hadn't drank that much wine yet.

On this note, I never did figure out what the steps up to the counter at the check-in for the Hilton were for.

  

Back on the boat after dinner came the discussion about where everyone was to sleep.

Some of this had occurred earlier, but with the full crew now present it was now important to finalize the sleeping arrangements. Also given we ate dinner around 10PM, it was getting late. There were 11 of us and five rooms that could sleep two each. Four of these rooms were essentially double beds. One of the cabins was smaller with bunk beds much smaller than my first-class seat.

Gigi said he would sleep in the main area and forego a cabin. Being married, it seemed logical that Laura and Nathan would share a room. Kelsey, Katie, Jackie and I had initially determined that I would share the bunk bed room with Jackie and then Kelsey and Katie would share a room. Tom and Dan were assigned one of the aft cabins, but Tom immediately elected to sleep upstairs on the deck. That left Wehtahnah and our climbing guide Albert, whom we called Albie, in the other double-bed room. This seemed awkward and so Jackie moved over to share the room with Wehtahnah and I shared the bunk-bed room with Albie. 

 

The very small cabin with bunk beds.

            

As someone already prone to hot flashes, it turned out that taking the top bunk in a coffin sized room with only a small window made for a very hot night. I’ll just call the experience swamp sleeping. 

 

Sunset the first day

Day 2 (on cruising/sailing to our destination) 

The Italians like to talk about time and being on time, but that was usually just talk. Still, the goal had been to set sail around 7:30 am and we did indeed get off to an early start.

Our boat was a 50-foot cruising sailboat with a rolling jib and a mainsail that just dropped into a canvas bag. We had a dingy attached to the foredeck that we would use to get to shore and mostly we all sat under the back awning while Gigi drove the boat or put it on autopilot. In other words, there wasn’t a lot of actual sailing to be done.

Our first day out, we motored out of our slip and headed towards our destination, about 7 hours south. We
put the sails up for some of the time. It turned out that there was another boat of climbers that shadowed us the entire trip and as the day progressed it became a race between the two boats.\

 

The other boat -- we did learn they had air conditioning, the bastards

Evidently the plan had been for the two groups to combine in some fashion, but this never really worked out. On this first day, we just wanted to beat them to wherever we were going.

The scenery was fabulous with lots of cliff lines and beautiful ocean views.

Around mid-afternoon we arrived at our first climbing area. The plan was to attempt an amphibious landing instead pulling into the harbor and walking the 15 minutes from town.

We were going to climb in and around the cave

We got all our climbing gear into our backpacks and because I was in the first dingy shuttle I do not have pictures of what turned out to be a failed attempt.

Gigi getting the dingy ready for the first beach attempt

We motored towards our potential landing site, but the waves were choppy and there was no beach to speak of. This meant that somehow we would have to get off the dingy and scramble onto rock ledges with waives causing about a 2-3 foot surge. I knew for a fact I would fail miserably at this and fall into the water with all my climbing gear. 

Fortunately, after much discussion in Italian, which I hoped was a conversation about how problematic our current course of action was, Gigi, who was also the dingy driver and responsible for the boat, vetoed our landing operation and we abandoned that plan and went onwards to a different bay for our first day instead.

We motored a bit further down the coast to a beautiful bay, Cala Fuili, where the water was much calmer and Albie said it would be faster if we swam to shore rather than to wait for the dingy.

 

This is Europe, so I didn't notice the naked woman

 

He said they would bring the climbing gear in the dingy. Having just experienced getting into a dingy with a full pack, I wasn’t super keen to try that again. However, I had also not really done much swimming in the last… decade? Still, I was in Italy and it seemed relatively easy to swim to shore. I figured why not -- and jumped in the water along with most of the rest of the folks.

Once in the water, it was a bit rougher than I thought it would be.

And farther to shore.

Also, the beach was made of rocks, not sand, and I’m not graceful getting out of the water under the best of conditions.

So, this turned out to be a really bad idea.

Nevertheless, the mission was accomplished and I floundered my way up the beach like a seal. Sadly, our first injury of the trip happened when Kelsey, one of the toughest women in our group, broke her toe on a rock getting out of the water. However, since she is a marine she just went ahead and hiked and climbed on it the entire time anyway.

Once we finally made it to shore and got our gear, it was already almost 5 PM so there wasn't much time to climb or else, we were told, Gigi would be mad. Gigi isn't really the type to get mad, but he was responsible for the well being of the boat and this meant we had to do what he said. Fortunately, the climbing was right on the beach and so we all got about 3 easy routes in before the sun started setting. This was really the “do these 9 people actually know how to climb” day. It turned out we mostly did, even though Albie wouldn’t let us clean the anchors.

Once we were all back on the boat, we motored into the harbor where we made our first dinner together.

 

It turned out that the climbing guide, Albie, was the son of chefs and imparted to us his very specific ideas about how to cook pasta. He talked me through how he makes a simple tomato sauce which includes sardines. I asked if he put wine in his tomato sauces and after consideration, he said “why not,” but then later declared it “a disaster.” As it would turn out, that in addition to the food (that list of which seemed sort of random), the Italians had loaded the boat with wine, beer, prosecco, and water. As a result, we did not run out of alcohol, but we did basically run out of food. Albie did have to go buy more bottled water later in the trip and declared that we drank more water than any other crew he had ever seen. Of course, he could somehow go an entire day without any water. This must also be an Italian thing.I headed off to bed before the young ones. Only to wake up stifling hot in what I swear was over 100 degrees in the minuscule cabin holding two people at 1 am.

Swamp cabin.

Day Three (on adventures getting on and off a boat)

We had a boat call of 9 am so that we could motor to the sailing area for the day. We mostly made the boat call, except that there was a mission to town to buy drugs for Kelsey’s broken toe. Well, for her, so she could better tolerate her broken toe. There had been some discussion about finding a doctor, but she said it wouldn’t do much good anyway because there isn’t much to do with a broken toe.

Once we set sail, we motored down the coast more amazing scenery.

 

It turns out you can't really do panoramics while moving

The waves were not as choppy today and so we were, first, able to come closer to shore to be let off and, second, didn't get soaking wet getting off the dingy.

Getting on the dingy with our backpacks -- it always took two trips.

 

Today we hiked about 2 miles inland along a rocky road to get to our climbing area. The other boat went somewhere else.

Our ride anchored out there

 

We always looked a bit weird since everyone else was sunbathing

Me on the hike

We were to eat tonight at a restaurant by the beach and were told the bring all the stuff we would need for that as well since we would not be going back to the boat. Since the initial instructions had said to pack light and not bring extra clothing, my plan was to wear what I was climbing in. Given we were not going back to the boat, this became everyone else’s plan too.

 

Another thing about Italians is that they don’t seem to eat much except for dinner late at night. We were on our own for breakfast, but there was not much around for lunch. I had brought some snickers with me for which I ended up being very grateful.

We hiked to what turned out to be a "secret" area set by the Albie, meaning it was not in the guidebooks. The climbs were really nice and fairly easy.

Today we also were given brief climbing lectures on “why do you Americans set up back-up gear on anchors when you should be comfortable with a single locking carabiner as an anchor” and “this is how to avoid back-clipping” and “this is how I want you to change the anchors if I choose to trust you to do it today” and “Italians invented sport climbing and so we know best.” 

Albie providing sport climbing knowledge

Given that we were a group of 9 climbers, we actually got in quite a few routes. We climbed all day and as we were leaving the area, we couldn't remember if we had cleaned the last climb of its anchor and Albie had already left to catch up with those in front. So I climbed it quickly to discover that we had not left anything. Meanwhile Dan and Wehtahnah spent the time trying to scare away the little semi-feral pigs that were interested in our backpacks.

 

The hike back was about an hour and because we had not had lunch, most of us were pretty hungry. We got back to shore, where despite the remote location, we were to have dinner. However, it turned out that we had to wait for the other boat of people who had climbed somewhere else today for dinner and they had not arrived yet. So being very hungry and thirsty, we ended up at the bar drinking and eating potato chips. 

Unexplained outbuilding at the restaurant

Finally, the other group arrived freshly showered and wearing clean clothes. Evidently their instructions for the day had not been the same as ours regarding when to arrive and how to pack. The dinner included multiple courses -- pasta, roasted pork (with the head still there) dessert, plus an aperitif that kinda was too sweet for my taste. There was lots of wine.

Our group is in the front.

We got the head of the boar

 

Walking back to where we were to get shuttled back to our boat, the sea was calm and the moon was bright. In addition to not wanting to wake up in a swampy tiny cabin again, the night was simply too beautiful to spend down below. So I drug my mattress to the bow of the boat and settled in for a night under the stars.

It was a perfect end to a beautiful day.

 

Day 4 (on crimes against Italian food)

Upon waking up and dragging all my bedding back downstairs, we figured out breakfast and coordinated our day.

We left the harbor and motored to a place where we were instructed we would be swimming for the next few hours, possibly because the place we were to go was in the sun and so the goal was to wait until the climbing was in the shade, but I'm not sure.

 

I swam.

I read.

It was beautiful.

There was an interesting coastal hike.

 

Cool caves

Then we went to Bella Luna and disembarked onto a beach with a lot of tourists and boats that had disgorged more tourists. Our climbing attire and backpacks made us stand out for sure amidst the nearly naked and literally naked beachgoers. I don’t know where the other boat went today but they were not around us.

Looking at where we were going to climb -- but the water was beautiful too!

I'm leading this -- and it looks easy but it got quite steep

Jackie on the same climb -- you can see it is actually sort of steep

We hiked to the side of the bay and climbed some razor-sharp limestone there. The hardest I led was a pretty vertical10a/b with lots of space between the bolts that felt a lot harder than the grade. Nathan, who was leading a climb next to me, took a bad fall and hurt his shoulder. Our second injury of the trip.

We were called back to the boat sooner than we wanted because the weather was changing and we needed to spend the night in the harbor again.

I made a pasta mixing pesto with tomato sauce which is evidently not done. No Italian had ever heard of doing this and there was much judgement.

While we were drinking and enjoying our collaborative and anti-Italian meal, the other boat of people did yoga on the pier and went out for dinner.

I don't think yoga on the pier is a thing here

Being in the harbor, we were able to disembark and go for gelato.

Nathan, Laura, Gigi, and Tom - coming back from Gelato - possibly my favorite picture of the trip

Then we stole some wine from the other boat while they were gone, making us the more deviant of the boats and definitely not the yoga-doing boat. And just for clarification’s sake, I did not steal the wine personally.

It turned out I am on a boat of people who like Karaoke and so there was much singing until after midnight.

Day 5 (on hitchhiking as part of a guided tour)

We went back to Cala Fuili and got dropped off via dingy again. 

 

Heading towards shore

This time, however, we did not stay on the beach but hiked inland where there were thousands of climbs awaiting us.

We also, at this point, had figured out how to coordinate lunch for everyone so for the first day had actual sandwiches.

Yes, it took us a week to figure this out.

The climbing today remained pretty casual, fun limestone, in the 10ish range. Because Nathan had injured his arm, he and Laura didn’t climb but instead did a hike along the shoreline all the way back down to Bella Luna where we were yesterday and back.

Katie climbing next to me

Looking down from my anchor

Tom climbing next to me

Tom again

Dan- Photo by Katie -- she is a much better photographer than me

We climbed until the early evening when Albie became a bit worried about getting us back to town because the boat was not coming to get us. Thus, we either had to hitchhike or walk. Yes, this tour comes with the optional hitchhiking or find your own way back to the boat option. While we were only a few miles from town, it would have been tiring after a long day of climbing to have to walk back with our climbing gear.

Italian bridge engineering/Looking back at the bay where we had been climbing

Fortunately, Albie was good at flagging down the cars of strangers to put us in and there were still people in the parking lot who agreed to take us into town. My car was a little thing driven by some Italians from northern Italy here on holiday. We packed three of us and our big climbing packs in the tiny backseat and they drove us all the way to the marina.

Looking for rides

When we got back to the boat Nathan had made caprese (except we didn't have basil on the boat), which was super wonderful since in addition to about 10 pounds of olives, mozerllea and tomatoes were the most abundant staple. Given dinner wouldn't happen until much later, having some food prior was a life saver.

 

Nathan and his creation

We ate our second meal at a restaurant. Everyone but me had brought nice clothes for such an outing. Such clothing was not on the instruction sheet so I had not brought anything and thus was a bit bedraggled. 

 

Our table -- the other boat was at a table behind us

Welcome to the story of my life. Bedraggled.

The potential fish for dinner were brought out and Albie coordinated which ones we would eat. 

 

Showing us our potential fish dinner

When dinner was finished, I again went to sleep on the bow of the boat only to be brought awake around 2 am or so as the storm came in. There was thunder and I could see lightening in the distance and then rain started. Fortunately, there was a space for me in the back of the boat and so I drug my cushion back under the awning and slept for the rest of the night only moderately damp but still not as damp as I would have been had I stayed in the swamp room.

Day 6 (on climbing sea caves for photo ops)

We awoke to good weather as the storm passed by early morning. This was to be our last day of sport climbing because our final day as we headed back to our starting place would be a via ferrata.

We packed our gear and headed to a sea cave about 15 minutes out of town. It turned out to be the climbing spot where we had first attempted to land. While I had feared the limestone would be polished and difficult to climb, most of the routes we had done during the trip were the opposite – quite sharp with really solid holds. Not so in this cave. I’d imagine that being close to town and with a wall of fairly nice and moderate routes, this was a destination. Needless to say, while the ratings were “easy,” the polished nature of the climbs made them feel insecure and I did not like them.

Cool cave features

However, towards the end of the day Albie led what amounted to a traverse across the side of the cave that went up and to the mouth of the cave, allowing the climber to be lowered into space with the backdrop of the ocean behind them. He had led the climb so that one of our group could follow him. It goes without saying that I immediately wanted to lead it as well.

Which I did.

I'm in the middle there

Somewhere in this photo too

Looking towards the anchor

Last moves

 

The climb was a super fun, big holds, slightly overhung adventure and the best climb of the trip. Also, my last climb given it wasn’t going to get any better than that.

 

The photo op while being lowered

 

Walking back towards town

Once everyone got back on board, we motored/sailed towards our last destination -- a via ferrata of unknown difficulty on an island off the coast of Sardinia.

 

Laura and Nathan

We anchored and made dinner of rice and vegetables because we were running out of food and this was almost all that was left. Then we drank prosecco and sang Karaoke well into the night in a calm bay under a hazy sky.

Jackie and Kelsey

Dan and Jackie

Gigi and Albie singing something Italian

The other boat was anchored nearby, but was quiet and was clearly not having as much fun as we were. Maybe they had done more yoga.

The other boat

Day 7 (on via ferrata’s)

There had been much discussion about if Kelsey would be able to do the via ferrata with a broken toe. Albie, as the guide, and thus the one semi-responsible for us was against the idea. However, the rest of us were entirely fine with her going and banded together to make sure she could. She had, after all, been hiking and climbing on the toe all week, albeit a little less than if she had full use of it. She had also been painting these lovely watercolors of the climbing areas being also an artist.

In the end we agreed to leave earlier than the original plan to give us more time to do the via ferrata and go slowly. In actuality, I don’t see that we would have gone faster than we did even if everyone had full use of all their limbs.

The via ferrata went up the mountain on Tavolara Island. It was called the Via Ferrata degli Angeli and while I don’t speak Italian, even without Google translate it can be seen this has something to do with angles.

Helpfully labeled at the start

This is the google version

It looked like this

The other boat was going to be doing the via ferrata too and they had dropped some people off closer to the start of the ascent and had popped their dingy in the process. We felt superior for still having a fully operational dingy. As a result, our group got to the place where you begin to clip in to the wire railings that have been installed to ensure that nobody falls off the mountain first.

 

A little lowering was involved to get to the start

Basically, a via ferrata is a way of doing exposed scrambling up a mountain without the fear of death. In mountaineering we would just solo this type of stuff, but the via ferrata makes it easier and safer. If something is a bit steeper, then metal bars are installed to step on. There is a bolted wire guardrail that you clip in to as you progress and if you were to fall (nobody did) you would just dangle there or slide down and take out everyone behind you until you were all dangling. We initially made sure each person was on their own section of the cable. However, the other boat of people was not doing this and so they caught up with us quickly and then we let them pass so we wouldn’t hold them up.

Getting ready to start up -- you had to use that dead tree

The scenery was marvelous, the weather fantastic. 

 

On our way up

Tom as we waited our turn to get on the next section

Dead tress were "in"

We topped out around lunch time and were able to enjoy the view while we ate our pesto and tuna sandwiches. Italians may judge putting pesto on things that are not pasta, but when you are down to your last loaf of bread, a few cans of tuna, and pesto, that is what you eat.

 

 

We also learned that Laura was afraid of bees.

Then, it was down the other side, which turned out to have a bit more exposure.

Albie said this was the best place to get a photo -- but my phone was kinda foggy from sweat

Tom and I were last on this via ferrata thing -- so I mostly have pictures of him

All told, it took us about 6 hours but everyone made it back with no additional injuries.

The trip was nearing its end and our last stop before coming back into the harbor where we began was to get gas.

 

The hazy view

Marina and gas- why you need a photo of this I don't know.

Upon docking back in the marina, we had to prep the boat for leaving the next morning. Basically, these rental boats turn out to be like AirBnBs – you have to get all the sheets in one place, clean out the kitchen, etc. We re-packed our gear, made sure we all had what we came with (Albie was down one quick draw we never found) and we gave a lot of our excess stuff like olive oil and random cans of food we couldn’t use to the very friendly German family that was next door to us.

Albie was the first to depart – he wasn’t spending the last night with us because he had a plane to catch. Thus, he wasn’t around to watch the crime we committed against Italian food when we made our last dinner.

Our food supplies had been rapidly diminishing as we neared the end of the week and so this last meal was basically an amalgam of all that was left. Also, the other boat had run out of food (even though they had gone out to eat more than us) so we gave them one packet of pasta and an opened jar of pesto. I think that made us even for stealing their wine.

Our pasta dish then included: one can of tomato sauce, one jar of pesto, garbanzo beans (I had thought they were corn), some grilled veggies, both red and white wine because we had a lot left. and then bacon and mozzarella because we also had this left. It was very strange but edible. We also had a giant 3-liter wine jug and a case of beer remaining and we did our best to finish these. 

Katie pouring the big jug of wine

 

As we at our last dinner together we shared our highlights of the trip and our best moments. We kept the music going until almost midnight.

Gigi and Wehtahnah left at 4am to catch their flights.

The rest of us had to depart from the boat by 9am and our taxi to the airport was scheduled for 9:45.

We ate the remaining food -- which wasn't much.

All that was left for breakfast

Cleaned the last of the things, went up to the sailing clubhouse and had some water and chocolate croissants.

It may have been the wine, but was more likely going back to land after 6 days on a boat, but the world was definitely moving. We all piled into a big van that would drop us off at the airport. Laura, Nathan, Dan and I had flights at assorted times during the day and so planned to stay at the airport. Kelsey, Jackie, Katie, and Tom were all spending another couple days in Sardinia and so had plans to do more climbing and approach the areas via automobile.

The rest of the trip was a reverse of my arrival. Olbia  Rome then overnight in the Rome Hilton, then Rome  Seattle. The difference was I checked my luggage because it didn’t matter if it got lost on my way home.

I came on this trip with low expectations– because I’d never gone on a guided climbing trip before, didn’t know anyone else on the trip, and was afraid that spending this much concentrated time with 10 strangers could end up disastrously.

As someone who has provisioned a boat for competitive transpacific ocean races as well as an ocean crossing of 25 days, where there was no option to get more food along the way, there are a lot of organizational things I would have done differently related to food.

However, at the end of the day, I words cannot begin to describe how fun the trip was. Not only because of the climbing and sailing, but also because of the special people on this boat. They were alive with adventure and singing and joy. We were 10 people who clicked randomly on a Facebook advertisement to go climbing and sailing. At least for a short while we became a crew.