[in medias res] olbia

coming into the port of olbia, where we saw an incredible number of giant ferries in & out all night. this is how your fish are farmed:


one of the ferries with a warner bros. obsession (well, most had it!):


why. yes, of course you can play tennis on board:


is it a communications tower? an airport runway marker? it does have a red light on top.


nope, it's only the world's largest sloop (single-masted boat). est. 200 feet long, and taller mast. carbon fiber hull - yes, that's what they make racing boats out of, which are maybe 50 feet and have a hull budget of around 300 million. can sail 17 knots. crew of 15. the boat behind her was pretty, too.


and just for scale, here's us and another 40 foot catamaran sailboat in our parking spots for the night:

[in medias res] ouch!

a perfect outline of a cute but feisty little purple & brown jellyfish. i guess i got in its way.


and finally, a great day of sailing with winds around 20-30 knots. the windsurfers and kitesurfers were having a ball.

[in medias res] golfo de orosei

at arbatax, where the line begins (and ends!?)



my birthday dinner, with b & v and fantastic lighting.


a cloud in the sky!


our captain


staring down a ferry ... those things MOVE and they're BIG.


an (abortive) attempt to get the spinnaker up


another perfect day ends

day 10 - aug 14th

we were up very early for my flight, and b & v walked me to the bus stop across town. upon arrival we realized we had no idea how i was supposed to buy a ticket. i managed to ask an old woman in very broken italian, and she pointed back down to the center of town at the train station. ack! barbie ran back, and arrived with my ticket only 30 seconds before the bus did. the bus took me through the locals part of town, which looked really nice to explore, and the olbia airport was cute, small, clean and nice. i struck up a conversation with a german family who gave me some touristy ideas, and after a very short flight, and an amazingly easy experience with the berlin metro, i arrived in corinna's local stop! she and daniel picked me up at the station and we went home for lunch, and then they took me out for a bit of sightseeing. we took the tram to alexanderplatz, then walked around the city, went on a city tour boat which was very neat, walked to and then up the reichstag, and had (of course) schnitzel for dinner.

of course, by the way, german taxis are mercedes ...

the pics:
the tv tower, corinna's favorite, which one can see from her balcony if one stands on a chair:


and the red hall (what's its real name?):
and the old palace, in the process of being torn down, and currently a topic of great embarrassment to the berliners i talked to. you'd think no other city in the world has ongoing construction!
from the boat tour, which took us on the spree through town, including all these neat government buildings. this is one door down from the most expensive daycare in the (city? 5 mil euros, i think they said), the one where diplomat kids go.
and, of course, the reichstag. you don't see people playing frisbee on the white house lawn, is all i'm saying. we went up for the very cool building and interesting history panels, where i started learning german history ... and the brandedburg gate, which is now (since 9/11/01) closed to vehicle traffic, a great improvement!


walking along saw this fantastic grafitti (i think i offended corinna by taking a picture, but daniel helpfully recommended that i put the camera through the fence for a better photo - thanks!). it was amazing art, and then after dinner i realized how good my instincts were - this is the side of the tacheles building, which is the place to be for policital art in the city. it feels like a place folks are squatting, but i'm not sure they are. there's studio space and gallery space and there was a contsant stream of tourists in on thursday night.
looking down at the backyard from the top floor, where there was a 2 euro party in the back. the place was packed 30 seconds before i snapped this, but then the crowd all moved out at once - maybe to a dance floor or something?

here's the inside main stairwell. wish it were in focus.

day 9 - aug 13th

though it was in the bay and the water didn't look particularly inviting, we swam down around the corner and saw some of the coolest things on the trip! tons of sea cucumbers, giant clams, abalone shells, a little freshwater river coming in with hermit crabs and baby flounder.

we made our way in to olbia, passing the giant ferries and cruise boats we'd seen last night.

how our fish are farmed, right along with boat repair shops:

there's more in this older post, including the largest sloop in the world.

i really like this picture
and this old man was fishing right there for these little tiny fish. when he caught his first one he took out a plastic grocery store bag, headed down the steps to the water, filled it up and put the fish in. then he brought the bag back up and hung it inside this little hole in the cement dock, and proceeded to fill his bag with fish.



we went into town, a touristy place but not as fancy as the last one, and had great gelato and a late night, and realized i'd lost my wallet. last used for postcards it ottiolu ...

day 8 - aug 12th

we had a fantastic day of fast sailing around a point, with the wind at 20-35, and sailing up to almost 8 knots. we anchored behind a little island, which was beautiful and let us watch the windsurfers, but was ultimately too rough.


we moved out and around another point into the outer bits of the olbia bay, the only natural port on the island. got in late and watched the kite surfers for hours - very cool!
and then another crummy sunset.

day 7 - aug 11th

we got to swim again, and i soothed my new burn with hydrocortisone. v & b before we left:

we had excellent sailing at 7 knots all the way up to the port at ottiolu, which was jawdroppingly expensive and a fancy tourist area. it felt like epcot. we had a great dinner and gelato, and wandered through a tourist market where i bought some nice and only slightly overpriced bracelets. lots of big islands around, with this one we could see from miles and miles: