Affitare una Barca (Renting a Boat)

"Little boats should keep near shore"

-Benjamin Franklin

It’s a beautiful, nearly windless day. We wake up early, pack the cooler and drive down to the Carloforte marina. We’ve rented a boat for the whole day and we’re excited to get an early start. We’ll explore the entire Isola di San Pietro from the sea.
We rent the cheapest boat available, a 6-person inflatable raft with motor and tiny sunshade. After completing several pages of documenti, we’re given the standard 3-second instruction speech (“Here’s the key, there’s the ocean”).
Jeff starts the engine and expertly navigates us out of the busy marina. I generally leave the driving to him, not only because he’s a better driver, but also because it gives me the freedom to criticize. If you combine my driving skills (not being able to find “reverse” in our rental car), with my impaired sense of space and direction, PLUS that recent little fender bender, it just makes sense for Jeff to do the driving.
As we leave the marina and hit the open water, we notice a slight wind has kicked up so we turn left and head north up the east side of the island, keeping the wind behind us. We’ll go around the island counter clockwise. The island is roughly triangle-shaped, with Carloforte located near the center of the eastern side.
The waves on the east side are calm, the sun is glinting off the water and the light, refreshing wind keeps us cool and happy. Within minutes, Jenna and Jeff see a huge swordfish jump and splash in the waves. It’s going to be an exciting day. Even the fish are excited.
The oceanfront villas get further and further apart as we leave the village of Carloforte. The shoreline is mostly beach grass and squat pines, with an occasional tiny beach used by the neighboring residents. We putter along, passing the area where, every June, the fishermen lay out vast nets to channel, trap and spear migrating tuna (a technique that has been outlawed elsewhere).
In less than an hour, we reach the northeast tip of the island and begin our tour of the north shore. The terrain changes and becomes rockier and more rugged. No houses here. Halfway along the north side, the rocks along the shore get bigger and bigger, and finally become one tall, continuous rock wall. We begin to see caves at the base of the shoreline, small at first, but gradually becoming bigger, deeper, more cavernous. The water inside the caves looks electric blue and inviting, so we drive our boat into one. Once inside, the air temperature immediately drops. We look down into the fluorescent blue-green water, and stare at wet black walls and ceiling. Our voices echo in the cave. The ceiling drips and we hear the droplets hit the water below. It’s eerie and magical. The cave is so narrow that we have to put the boat in reverse to get back out.
As we continue along the north coast the rock cliffs jut out above the ocean like fingers. Every once in a while, the shoreline takes a dramatic inland turn, opening up to a secluded cove. We drive into one of these coves and drop anchor to swim and fish, and later eat our lunch. I’d never actually “dropped anchor” before. The anchor is attached to a heavy chain that is stored in the bow of the boat. At the precise moment (i.e., when Jeff says), I lift and drop the (really heavy) anchor over the bow and get out of the way as the chain uncoils quickly, following the anchor. I keep imagining that cartoon character getting his foot caught in the anchor chain and pitching overboard.
Jeff and Jenna catch lots of pretty 6” fish, black with yellow stripes that look like they belong in an aquarium. The fish have a dangerously prickly spine, so Jeff removes the hook carefully and drops them back into the water. We jump from the boat into acquamarine water. Jenna does a cannonball. Jeff swims over to explore the rocky shoreline and later swan-dives from a low cliff. We eat my fresh-made salsa with crunchy tortilla chips, cotto e formaggio panini (ham and cheese sandwiches) and “insalata frutta” with local cherries and peaches. Jeff and I drink a few glasses of chilled white Sardinian wine. It’s a good day.
Afterward, we continue slowly along the beautiful and dramatic north shore of the island, and finally turn the corner to head down the angled west shore to the southern tip. The wind picks up here, and the waves get a little bigger. Jenna and I laugh and ride them like buckin’ broncos. We’re in the bow of the boat, to counterweight Jeff and the boat’s engine at the stern, because the boat is so light that if two or more of us are at the stern, the bow tips up.
The waves get bigger still and the boat rocks dramatically up and down and side to side. I turn around to look at Jeff. We both frown, and then Jeff launches into the Gilligan’s Island theme song, “A three-hour tour…” which thankfully makes me giggle. For those who didn’t watch 70’s television (Kerri), the show was about a simple boat trip gone terribly awry.
“Should we turn around!?” Jeff shouts, over the noise of the waves slapping against the boat, the blowing wind and the hard-working motor.
Now, this is the point in the story where I make a very, very bad decision.
“What, NOW!?” I yell back, “But we’ve come all this way!” After all, I reason, we’re only half way around the island and it just wouldn’t make sense to turn around and not see the whole thing.
“It’s probably just a choppy spot. It’ll get better.” I say encouragingly. This, coming from a woman who has almost no real experience at sea other than riding ferries. Jeff looks doubtful.
Jenna and I scoot as far forward as we can to stabilize the boat. I’m sitting on my knees, facing forward toward the oncoming waves, and Jenna is next to me, facing sideways. Jenna has an uncertain look on her face, and I can tell she’s worried because she’s not talking. I give her a reassuring look and tighten up her life jacket. We slip our hands through the rubber safety straps and hang on tightly
Jeff tries to steer the boat as close to shore as possible, but now the waves are hitting us from the side and rocking the boat in an alarming way. He continually turns the boat to approach the waves head on and avoid being side-swiped, and then turns to correct, but this is forcing us farther out to sea each time.
The wind (out of the southwest, which we find out later is referred to locally as the “sirocco wind”) is whipping our hair in front of our eyes, as Jenna and I clench our grip and brace ourselves for the impact of larger waves. The waves are manageable at first, and I’m thinking this should all be over any minute now. Soon though, as we ride up each wave rather than riding back down, we crash down. Flat and hard. The higher the wave, the harder the fall. Bam! Bam! The front of the boat slaps the water hard. The waves are so big now that, as the boat reaches the crest of a wave, my stomach gets that sickening “whoop-see-daisy” feeling. Like the moment after a rollercoaster crests the highest point, and you begin to careen straight downhill.
SLAM!
The boat is now pitching and lurching all over the place.
“Is this all you’ve got?!” Jeff yells jokingly, face to the sky.
I look over to see Jenna’s worried face. “Are we going to tip over?” she asks in a tiny scared voice.
“Don’t worry, sweetie. This will all be over soon. We’re fine.” I tell her calmly. But truly, I’m worried too, and can’t believe we got ourselves into this mess.
I glance over at the rocky shoreline and see how the rolling ocean swells that surround us are crashing against the huge boulders onshore with silent fury, white sea spray exploding into the air and then showering and dribbling over the rocks.
The waves hit us continuously. It’s all I can do to hang on. I decide it’s too dangerous up front and I tell Jenna to go back to the stern with Jeff where she can sit on the bench seat and hang on easier. The stern is little more stable and she’ll be safer. She yells, “No mommy! It’ll weight the boat too much in back!” This is true (she’s smart), but I make her go back anyway.
I sit on my knees as we coast up the next wave. Just as we crest the top, gravity forces my head to lift slightly off my neck and my legs to straighten out, but as we crash back down my butt slams down hard onto my heels. Ow.
I change position and crouch on my feet, squatting, but the next wave almost pitches me over the bow. I try to sit side saddle, but that won’t work either.
“Hang on,” Jeff yells, ‘This is a big one!”
The boat rides up the next wave and the bow tips up so far it feels like we’re heading straight for the sky. The engine makes a weird revving, prop-out-of-water sound as we leave the wave and free-fall to the water with a sickening thud that knocks the wind out of me, forces my jaws to clamp together, and causes immediate neck pain as my head compresses deeply into my cervical vertebrae. OW! Are there chiropractors in Carloforte?
After the next wave, and the next, and the next, I realize not only am I getting the wind knocked out of me each time, but it’s also just too painful to hold my head up and look straight ahead at the oncoming waves because my head is repeatedly and painfully lifted and then jammed down into my spinal column. It feels like I’m being picked up by the scruff of the neck and forcefully dropped onto a hard surface from 6 feet up. Over and over again. I get into “crash” position, with my head between my knees.
“You okay?!” Jeff yells. His face is determined. I know he’s trying to motor through this stretch as fast as possible. He’s an experienced sailor and I know we’re in good hands, but still…
“Yeah!” I yell back, but give him a look that says, “No, I’m not. I’m absolutely NOT okay”.
The boat lurches and tips and whips around wildly as I hunker down inside myself for several long minutes, head down, clutching the rubber straps, slamming down hard with each wave. My head is throbbing, my neck is painfully sore, and my entire body aches from trying to hang on and stay in the boat.
Finally, we reach the southern tip of the island. Jeff navigates carefully around the point, and we start to head north back up the eastern side, homeward bound for Carloforte. The sea swells are behind us now and for a few awful minutes they seem equally as big, but they finally start to diminish and we steer closer to shore. A few minutes later we come around another small point and see a white sandy beach with umbrellas and people. Hallelujah! Land ho! No other boats are anchored in the bay, but we want to stop and catch our breath for awhile, maybe swim ashore and get a beer at the beachfront bar. Relax. But after we drop anchor, we realize it’s still too choppy because the anchor is dragging across the bottom of the ocean. Disappointed, we realize we need to keep going.
The worst is over, though, and we drive a little slower now and stay close to shore. When we finally arrive back at the marina in Carloforte it’s 5 pm. We pack up our things and step onto the dock, grateful for dry stable land. However, my legs are wobbly and my head is dizzy and I still feel the waves tossing me around. We drop off the keys and return the boat a full 3 hours early.
For the next several days, Jenna and I compare notes on our body aches and pains. Luckily my neck pain clears up on its own.
It was fun exploring Isola di San Pietro from a different perspective—but I seriously don’t think we’ll be renting a small boat any time soon.

NEXT UP: Life Aboard Barca a Vela (Sailboat)