At 2.30am on Friday morning Jo, Liz and I stumbled into the car and weaved our way along the A-SomethingOrOther, bound for the neon climes of Stansted Airport. Seven hours later, having failed to win the cost of our Ryanair flights on a scratchcard (because we didn’t buy one) we landed in Alghero, Sardinia. Having made short work of a four foot focaccia en route at Jo and Liz’s favourite foccaceria, we headed for Marina Di Sant’Elmo. Liz reliably informs me that it’s named after a Bruce Springsteen song…..or maybe a film. At last we reached Nimmie, blue hulled loveliness that she is. Twenty minutes later, deliriously tired, I was asleep and an hour after that the girls gave in too, having dismantled, polished and reassembled the boat in their usual way. We awoke refreshed to start planning our weekend sail to a cove. The planning went well. We managed to order cocktails, seafood and a lot of quaffable wine. The evening was considered a great success.

On Saturday morning we had a mutual moan about squeaky ropes, stared into the distance at breaking surf and reviewed the 15 weather forecasts that said it was perfect for sailing. A sense of apathy prevailed, possibly linked to the cocktail menu the night before, however the skipper rallied the crew, the mainsail was hoisted and off we sailed. We stayed on one tack for the whole passage until we arrived, with a couple of reefs as it was fairly breezy. Everything went smoothly and we marvelled at how lucky we’d been with the weather.

Log: Departed Alghero 1200, Arrived Alghero 1205,
Distance sailed – 3 nautical inches

What actually happened:
It all looked a bit rough out there.
The crew were feeling a bit lazy.
The skipper declared she couldn’t be bothered (but we reckon she was scared).
….so we put the sail up…and down….moved forwards 3″…and back 3″….that’s all.

An afternoon of sleeping, shopping and drinking to drown sorrows that Italian sizes are just wrong set in, followed by an evening of great food, warm gin and BBC iPlayer. Home comforts after a long hard day.

Ship’s Mouse aka Jo Plumbe