“Man Overboard!” They cried with joy as I swayed precariously, flailing my arms in a desperate struggle against gravity, and then stretched backwards into the sea. “Man Overboard!” As I spat towards the surface, they shouted again in case I was too busy to hear them the first time. I pulled myself back onto the board, my eyes burning from the salt and the trunks hanging halfway behind me. He wasn’t very dignified. But of course, this would be one of the highlights of their trip.
My family and I were in northeastern Sardinia, an Italian island with rugged wilderness that makes it perfect for outdoor breaks. We were in the bay of Porto Pollo, a world-class water sports centre, where windsurfers accelerated and kiteboarders leaped high, battling the accelerating winds in the channel between Sardinia and Corsica. Porto Pollo caters for novices and experts alike, and four of us – mostly in the novice category – were spending the morning in the hands of instructor Jonny.
Monika and our six-year-old twins, Matty and Kitty, bundled up in life jackets and settled into a canoe as wide as a whale’s back. I was perched on a paddle board the width of a dental floss.
Or so it seemed to me. Jonny had told me it was a super solid starting board so it was really hard to fall off. I took an instant dislike to Jonny. He had bright eyes, a specially designed stubble, and hair that stood out in curls that fell over his shoulders. Here I was, explaining to my wife as I stared at her across the sand, that I was a stereotypical surfer guy who was more concerned with the shampoo than the substance.
“Do you see the rock in the distance?” Jonny asked in his deep voice, pointing to a rock jutting from a headland across the bay. “We’ll go there.” And so we bolted off the beach, Jonny leading the way, paddling lazily, the rest of us paddling frantically behind like clumsy ducklings.
At first the water was flat and I was pleasantly surprised by my progress. I kept my paddle strokes close to the board, just like Jonny had shown me, and remembered to change my hand positions as I moved from one side to the other. But the farther I got from the shore, the rougher the sea became and the more shaky my progress became.
And then the ‘man overboard’ started. A man fell into the sea. Two men fell into the sea. Three and four. A motorboat passed a hundred meters away and I waited dejectedly for the water to reach me and the inevitable man at number five out to sea.
Ahead, Jonny continued calmly, occasionally dropping to his knees to ride a rougher wave, then nimbly rising to his feet, like a dummy of a ship upright and motionless. His tanned, muscular back looked like it was carved from polished wood. I straightened my back, trying to forget that it probably looked more like margarine than mahogany, but the effort threw me off balance and I fell again.
Beside them, Monika was keeping the canoe on course with little fuss; The twins were rowing cheerfully with the sticks they found on the beach. As the rock approached, the breeze brought the scent of pine trees and the tinkling sound of cicadas, and in a last, arm-aching effort to escape the current’s conveyor belt, we circled the headland and entered a hidden cove.
Everything was calm here. We dragged the boards and canoed out onto a crescent of fine sand, and the kids immediately got busy searching for treasure among the rock pools around the edges. The clear water in the bay was veined with dancing streaks of sunlight, and from it rose several smooth sandstone rocks, bone-coloured and filled with pits like eye sockets.
Cliffs climbed around us, cars circled towards the open sea behind us. You can almost forget that there is such a thing as open sea. No wind, no breaking waves, no people on speedboats. It suddenly dawned on me that I had somehow misread Jonny. This was the real Jonny.
“A bat!” cried Kitty as a large butterfly flew past and Jonny laughed. “I love children,” she said. “Lockdown was terrible for them, like growing trees indoors.” As we rested and the sun warmed our backs, I spoke to Jonny and he told me about his life on his family’s small farm in Southern Italy, pushing aside the layers of judgment I had wrapped around him. “I spend a few months teaching water sports, but most of the year I work on the farm. We have 4,000 olive trees and our friends help produce olive oil. A nice, quiet life.”
It was time to go; Jonny had a kiteboarding lesson to teach. He spent a few minutes tidying up the bay, bagging up a few pieces of plastic that had been weathered and dragged onto the beach, and then we started paddling. I was now more stable on my legs and had learned to anticipate patches of turbulence. I would come a long way.
We returned to the sea frequently in the following days. The kids took windsurfing lessons on small boards with the ever-patient Anya; Anya took them for a joyful spin on her expert board and, holding on to her legs, sped along the seaside.
We took a snorkelling excursion from the port of Santa Teresa Gallura, sailing over the waves of the zodiac, before anchoring near Punta Contessa, which our guide Chiara described as “the mountain under the sea”. While the children paddled around the boat like dogs, I followed it into dark caves and crevices, looking for moray eels. I was watching the damsel fish dart among the swaying stems of a white sea plant called the mermaid wine glass.
The call of the land is also strong in Sardinia and is deeply steeped in tradition and history. The hilltop village of Aggius has been a center for weavers for centuries, and among its cobbled streets we found Gabriella Lutzu in her workshop, pushing and pulling colorful threads of wool on a wooden loom. She was weaving a rug in her hand and knitting it line by line. “It takes Gabriella all day to make that little strip,” I said to Kitty. She thought about the magnitude of this for a moment. “So Gabriella doesn’t eat lunch or dinner?”
Most impressive of all are the numerous archaeological sites scattered among sun-baked vineyards, Bronze Age castles with towers to climb and secret corridors to explore, and ceremonial stones with patterns carved by hands long ago and traceable even by today’s fingers. . “Imagine how old this is,” I thought as I gazed at the arched entrance of an ancient burial chamber called the Tomb of the Giants at Arzachena. “Is he older than you, dad?” wondered Matty. “Yes, he is older than me! It’s been here for 3000 years!” “Bigger than my grandmother?” He asked. “No, of course she’s not older than my grandmother,” I assured her, because everyone knows that your grandmother is as old as the sea.
Fundamentals
Planet Travel Holidays (planettravelonline.com, 01273 921001) is an award-winning ATOL-affiliated specialist in luxury ocean sports holidays and offers personalized trips to Sardinia. A week’s package with accommodation a short drive from the water sports center in Porto Pollo and beginner instruction (including equipment hire) in paddleboarding, windsurfing, foiling, kiteboarding or scuba diving is available from £1,400-2,000 per person (flights not including).
Bronze Age Sardinia
Bronze Age archeology can be found all over Sardinia and there are said to be as many as 7,000 sites in total. Dating from around 1500 BC, these structures were the work of the Nuragic people, a civilization that flourished for 1000 years until it was conquered by the Carthaginians and then the Romans. The island was located on several trade routes, and the Nuragic people appear to have become wealthy by selling valuable raw materials such as copper and lead.
The prosperity of these ancient islanders is reflected not only in the sophistication of some of the decorative and religious pieces they left behind (including bronze figurines), but also in the sophistication of the buildings in which they lived and the places where they buried their dead. The most interesting is the so-called nuraglarIt is native to Sardinia. These round towers (resembling chunky stone beehives) were built in the heart of villages, and their precise function is unknown: they may have been residences of village leaders, fortified defences, temples, or areas used for meetings.
Nuraghe La Prisgiona in Arzachena – 25 miles south of Porto Pollo – offers a magnificently well-preserved example: nuraghe It reaches a height of 6 m and contains steps and various rooms. A pair of small side towers surround it, while beyond are the surviving walls of around 100 village halls. These include huts grouped in small clusters connected by paved walkways, probably used by different craftsmen to make goods sold outside the village. There is also a well with ornate jugs placed there as part of some kind of ritual ceremony, archaeologists say.
Nuraghe La Prisgiona is one of seven sites that make up the Arzachena Archaeological Park, including the nearby Giant’s Tomb, a horseshoe-shaped, covered, stone-corridored site (single site entry €7) [£6]combined ticket 25 € [£21]Children under 12 are free).