August in Sardinia.

Sardinia, Italy

Worldwide financial crisis? Recession? Drastic cuts in consumer spending? Definitely not in Sardinia. We arrived in the north of Sardinia, Italy in early August. We had heard about August in the Med, and while last year in the Balearic Islands in Spain seemed very busy, it was nothing compared to what we were about to experience.

The number of boats, and the size of them, was mindboggling. Thousands of mega yachts, hundreds of feet long, with every toy and amenity you could possibly imagine – jacuzzis, pools, water slides, jet skis, ski boats, sailboats, helicopters, treadmills on the top decks with views of the sea.

In researching the largest of the yachts that we saw, we found that it was 387-feet long, carried 37 crew, 5 administrators,14 passengers, and two 35-foot tenders (dinghies), one designed to act as a limo, the other a sport boat.

We had seen large yachts all over the Med, but we had never seen so many in one area. While the initial cost to build one of these floating mansions is astronomical, the running and maintenance expenses are unimaginable. We called a Sardinia marina to see about docking Berkeley East in August and they wanted 500 Euro ($750 US) per night for our little 54-foot boat. We’ll let you do the math for the docking costs of the 387-footer. But perhaps even billionaires have their limits, as we saw always saw that boat at anchor. Or maybe it was just too big for all the docks.

Costa Smeralda (Emerald Coast) is the main Sardinia cruising ground for mega yachts and it is easy to see why, the landscape is gorgeous with pink granite, junipers and pines. It is one of the few famous places in Italy with little history, as it was developed just a few decades ago as a millionaires, billionaires playground. Porto Cervo is the harbor of choice for the mega yachts. We could not anchor in Porto Cervo and docking was out of the question, so we slipped into Cala di Volpe, just south of Porto Cervo, and went over to see how the other half lives.

Porto Cervo was nice, nothing over the top. But we were there in the quiet of the afternoon and it is supposed to come alive in the night. As we drove back to Cala di Volpe, we were speechless when we saw the coast and the harbor full of incredibly beautiful yachts, both power and sail.

And Berkeley East was right there too. While she looked small by comparison, we thought she fit in nicely. It was a spectacular sight. But as impressive as the super yachts are, they come with large high-speed tenders that are constantly in motion, taking guests to and from the docks for touring and partying, so life near these beautiful beasts can be very uncomfortable.

We searched northern Sardinia for a more peaceful environment and even though it was August, we found stark contrasts to Costa Smeralda. The La Maddalena archipelago is a vast marine reserve with seven principal islands and very strict rules about visiting. We didn’t have a permit and didn’t know how to get one, so we took our chances and anchored in a large bay on Isola Razzoli.

All of these islands are low lying, composed of red granite, with little vegetation, surrounded by interesting rock formations. The bay was crowded, but the boats were smaller with no real mega yachts. There was no frenzied activity there, everyone seemed relaxed. As we sat listening to our Italian music, we could hear the Beach Boys and Chuck Berry coming from Italian boats across the bay. We were the only American boat there and were greeted warmly by passersby. At one point, we found a dinghy at the stern of Berkeley East with people taking pictures of themselves with our flag. We spent a nice day here and expected it to be a nice night, but at five o’clock, boats started leaving the bay in droves. Within 30 minutes they were all gone, except for a few that were on park moorings. The permit, the moorings, we realized that it was the only way to stay overnight in these islands. Luckily, we were close to the mainland so we quickly pulled anchor and found a new harbor for the night. We did this for several days, and it was actually a great way to see more of Sardinia. One anchorage in the park during the day, another anchorage on the mainland at night. We did finally figure out how to get the right permits, but found that in August, it is nearly impossible to get one of the overnight moorings.

One of our mainland anchorages, Cannigione, showed us yet another side of August in Sardinia. In contrast to the barren rocky landscape we had been seeing, this area is fertile and green.

The village is small, but full of life with Italians on holiday. We spent an evening seeing the town, it wasn’t historic, but it had charm, along with the best marine store and fish market we had seen in months. We found a band setting up in the square by the church and picked a front-row seat at the Mexican restaurant. As we ate fajitas and guacamole, while listening to the band sing Irish, Spanish and Reggae songs in Italian, we thought Sardinia in August was pretty special and couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.