Sardinia

[Bob Cooper]

I've just got back from a long weekend in Sardinia.  For those of you who haven't been there it's a really nice place with some excellent wreck diving.

Five of us set off from Stanstead on Thursday for the short (2h) flight to Alghero and then a 2 hour drive to Cannigione on the North East coast.  We stayed at Hotel Stelle Marine, overlooking the ocean (four star - very nice!)

Friday was dull, raining and a strong wind was blowing from the SE so our diving was a little limited.  We did manage a couple of "emergency" dives which got us used to the conditions (very good visibility but cold water - 13deg).

Saturday was a much better day, sunny with a light wind blowing from the SE.  We dived a wreck called L'Oued Yqem in about 30m.  This is a steamship which was accidentally torpedoed in WWII.  The wreck is about 70m long and fairly intact.  I couldn't resist the temptation to swim straight down the big funnel which in lying on the sea bed.  We photographed the wreck for a future mag. article.  The second dive was a wall dive along one of the spectacular island located off the North coast of the island.  Me and my buddy sat that dive out, preferring to wait to dive the Chrisso on the way back.  The Chrisso, stands on the rocks well out of the water and can be dived without exceeding about 5m depth.  The Chrisso blew up when the skipper was cooking his lunch and was later blown on tot he rocks and broke up.  When we surfaced from ths dive, we found the boat engine refused to start and spent about an hour fannying around before finally hearing it fire into life.

Sunday we did two dives on the Angelica, over on the North East side of the island from Cala Capra.  This is an excellent dive, with some really good swim through opportunities.  Again, we took loads of photo's with me acting as model!

Sunday night was spent in a local bar with some very good live music.  After a lie-in we left for the airport at lunchtime and I was home and unpacked by 10pm Monday night.

All in all, we had a very relaxing and enjoyable trip.  Sardinia really is a nice place and with Ryanair you can get there cheaply from Stanstead.  Ideal for a weekend's diving.  We dived with Anthias Diving who were very good.  This sort of diving doesn't usually appeal to me but I must say I had a really good time and I'd recommend it to anybody.

Bob

[Iestyn]

<font color='#000080'>I dived with Anthias and they were top lads, happy to go out drinking and good friends with Lorenzo the bar owner which helped! Cannigionne is a nice place and is a hell of a lot cheaper than the Costa Smerelda just around the corner which you can get to easily to pretend to be loaded.

Good diving especially the Angelica which is a really nice dive, very intact with easy penetration due to such good viz. They tended to be a bit negative about their wrecks, one we went on was desribed as 'nothing much just a few lumps of metal'. Actually the deck and railings were in tact, bits of the hull could be got in and it had a lot of life, sadly I don't remember the name! There was also more sea life than I'd expected.There's not enough to make it a pure dive holiday but for a nice holiday with some diving or a long weekend it is a great destination.

Can thoroughly recomend Anthias for diving and social life. One caveat, a friend I was with did half of her OW course with them and it took them a long time to sort the paperwork so she could do the other half over hear (she caught a cold halfway through), it did get sorted but was a bit disorganised. I would dive with them again, but if I was doing a course I would make sure I completed it!

[Iestyn]

<font color='#000080'>Oh and Anthias picked us up from the port (don't ask why we didn't fly, its complex) and dropped us back even though we hadn't booked their very reasonable accomodation because we were being budget and camping and they picked us up from the campsite each day. They had tons of nice gear due to some sort of EC grant including DPVs and full face masks but I think they may have given up on some of it as not worth the hassle.

[Bob Cooper]

Bad news...........

Lorenzo has sold the bar.

[Iestyn]

<font color='#000080'>That really is bad news, after he shut up on a couple of nights he drove us to other bars where he was of course very welcome, including a strip club I'm told although I have no memory of it I'd love to go back for a long weekend but so much world...so little time (not to mention cash). I'll just keep my eye on Ryanair in case an unmissable bargain comes up.