Spring adds new life and new beauty to all that is. It is time for us to say goodbye to Sardinia

.... and just like that the winter is already over. We love the smell of Spring and seeing the blossoms everywhere. Now that Spring is here, it is time for us to set sails.

The flag of Sardinia (4 Moors) and Corsica (1 Moor) is a symbol of freedom.

Originally, the meaning of the Sardinian flag was related to the war events of the Kingdom of Aragon, that ruled Sardinia from 1324 AD to 1479 AD. It is said that the four heads represent the four victories achieved by the Kingdom of Aragon against the invading Moors. However, the legend gives another meaning to the Sardinian flag and makes reference to the celebration of the victory that king Pietro I of Aragon achieved at Alcoraz in 1096 AD.

The trees are in full bloom.

It was nice spending time with Karin and Heinz. These two lovely people have been enjoying a liveaboard lifestyle for the last 12 years! They have also volunteered to assist Caroline with boat parking exercises to get her confidence up and given us maps, great tips and must sees for the Adria. It was a pleasure to meet them. We hope that we keep in contact and hopefully see each other again somewhere, sometimes .

At various restaurants. The first one below is at an Brazilian churrascaria restaurant. Rosi and Otti joined us on another occasion (they have been living this boating lifestyle for 16 years). It looks like we are really newbies with our 1 year.

We frequently visited a little Thai restaurant to eat a spicy Tom Yum soup. The cook pictured on the photo gave us some Lemongrass sticks to put in a glass of water to grow roots and to subsequently plant them in our pot on the boat. She also gave us wild Asparagus she picked in the wild, about 30 Minutes from Cagliari.

Being in the same spot for a longer period meant, that we were able to book dental appointments. This was a new experience. I (Caroline) have never had a procedure done with a blue plastic bag stretched across my teeth. Seems the benefits are that no instruments can fall down your throat and that the filling dries/holds better this way.

Some roses for my birthday and a Mirto (Liquor of Sardinia) for good Health

A visit to the Sunday market - at the cheese and sausage stand.

Well, this can easily happen on the boat when a hatch has not been closed and it starts raining. Or, like in this case, Sven decided to hose off the boat but forgot to close the hatch (again!) before doing so. To top it all off, I was still lying in bed when the freezing cold water came pouring in!! And I got hosed off further when I screamed (he thought it is funny but I didn't -it was 8 degrees outside and the water was very cold)!

The butchers and grocery stores often have full pigs on display and you can just buy some pieces of it. On the other picture below you can see some sea urchins. Various sea urchin dishes are on offer eg spaghetti with sea urchin meat, which is a traditional Sardinian speciality (we have not tried it).

We decided to do another walk before leaving. We both struggled a bit since we have not done a lot of hikes during the winter period. Checkout the "heart" cactus 💖

It is so good to see all the flowers coming out.

This beautiful dog followed us on our hike for 4 hours right to the top and enjoyed the views with us. He even wanted to jump into our car at the end. We were very sad... the dog as well (or maybe because he didn't get a treat at the end). We would have honestly given him a tip, but he did not have a little money collection bag on his collar.

We also decided to discover the underground of Cagliari, which included old caves, cisterns and crypts.

Sven before and after (working on the boat and us going out for dinner later).

We have been getting ready for our departure. We fuelled up the boat, cooked many meals to freeze and also did the provisioning. Then waited patiently for a good weather window to sail from Sardinia to Sicily (approx 30 hours). The wind was either too strong, no wind at all or waves and wind head on. This is our 3rd overnight trip. We normally take 4 hours turns during the night. The next day always feels like a hangover.

It is always easier to do the provisioning in bulk while in a marina and carry it across our plank to the boat (not always easy when you have your hands full), but easier than doing it with our dinghy. We are never sure how long we stay on anchor and what we can get where.

We stored long life items (incl. 60 blocks of chocolates 😏 in various storage locations. We will get more fresh veg and fruit along the way.

We have a water maker / desalinator on the boat. However, this desalinated water does not contain any minerals or salts. We use it to cook, shower, for tea, coffee etc but cannot drink only that all day. That is where below stack of sparkling mineral water comes in...

Once we removed all cartoon boxes, we mark the dates on the the top of the items. This way we don't need to search the hard to read expiry dates...

We have been staying in a Marina with a security gate/key pad to enter our platoon. On our second last day before our departure we had an unwanted person on our boat. We were already in bed when we heard somebody walking onto our boat. We confronted him. As he wore a hoodie and a Covid mask we could only see his eyes. He is/was of European origin. The security camera later revealed that he climbed around the security gate, walked randomly on the jetty, then decided to board our boat. We are glad that we were home, as loosing items before our departure would have been a pain. He calmly stepped off our boat - again climbing the security gate - rather than just opening the gate which is possible once you are inside....

Sundowner / Farewell organised by Karin and Heinz on our last night in Sardinia 😊

Our fluffy travel companion that always makes us smile

(never let age extinguish your inner child)

❤️ Sending our love to you our families and friends ❤️

❤️ Thanks for being part of our adventure ❤️

❤️ We love getting your comments ❤️

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

❤️❤️❤️

❤️