Punta Testiccioli

People presume we are Italian because the Irish tricolour hanging on our stern looks just like a faded Italian flag. So as such, we have returned ‘home’ to Sardinia and are in the Maddelena archipelago national park.
We want to get into a small harbour in Isola di Spargi which is very crowd so we act like locals and muscle our way in, “Ciao, Buongiorno!’’ We drop anchor right in the middle of a glut of boats and hang tough for a while. Soon our brass neck pays off and one by one all fifteen ribs, a catamaran and a motor cruiser, the tourist boat and three yachts all leave. ‘Peace at Last’, by dinner time we the harbour and the surround hills all to ourselves.
Over the following two days only a handful of boats visit because there is strong westerly wind with gusts of over 30 knots. We are safely tucked in here and we watch the swell and white horses rise in the channel just beyond the rocks astern of us. We have no worries because Ronan has found a mooring block underwater by the pier that we run a line to. With that tied off at our bow as well as our main anchor and a stern anchor we aren’t budging.

I enjoy a quiet wander ashore stopping now and then to smell the sweet scent of the myrtle bushes. I hear a persistent buzzing raising above the usual din of the cicadas and eventually locate the source in a little bush nearby. I bend down to see a bumblebee held in the tight grip of a Praying Mantis. It’s incredible to see this natural event close up; The bee has no chance, his time is up. I swim back to tell the rest of the crew but I am distracted by a little congregation of fish at a rock - different types all swimming together. I grip onto the rock to get a closer look and am startled when there is movement near my hand. I pull back quickly and refocus - I can now see an octopus camouflaged and tucked into a crevice. I wait and watch and he waits too, just for a little while. Then stretching out his tentacles one by one, he climbs to the top of rock and swims away with his band of merry fish following behind.

The next day I bring the rest of the crew back to the same spot hoping to find him and I am surprised he’s not there. Luckily Colm finds a different little fellow under a small rock on the sand. This octopus has managed to hide everything under the rock except one tentacle which is how Colm spots him. When we dive down to get a closer look, his eyes peep out over his tentacle.
One morning Colm and I swim into the beach with a dry bag packed with long pants and runners so we can venture up the narrow little path into the hills of wild bushes. We are armed with sticks in case we come across the wild boar we have seen wandering on the beach. We are half disappointed when we don’t meet him and half relieved.
We trek right to the northern end of the island climbing granite boulders, whacking bushes and exploring derelict structures. We find a shaft going down into the depths of the rock. Braving the rusty ladder we go down a few steps into the darkness below. We could go further but the Mammy in me says ‘no’. As we continue on our walk we muse about what we might have found down at the bottom.
We enter an abandoned house and follow it all the way through to back door. It leads us to a ravine of granite boulders which ends right down on the northern shore. We find a shady perch on one of the boulders and look across at Corsica and watch the swell roll through the Bonifacio straits.
Our time here in Spargi is particularly sweet because we had the place nearly to ourselves in high season. The wind eventually dies off and the crowds return, it is time for us to be on our way.Read more