Sat 27 Sep was Grand Final day in Melbourne and the Hawks were playing the Cats. As Greg is an ardent Hawthorn supporter we awoke early enough to find out about the score during the game by Susie texting us the results until Greg found the footy results on the Blackberry. We listened to the last quarter on the computer, very excited when Hawthorn's captain kicked a goal that cinched a win. We celebrated with breakfast at a dockside cafe before driving to Golfe Aranci for a bit of sightseeing and then into Olbia to find out about train tickets for the Whitelaws departure to Cagliari on Wednesday.

Celebrations continued over lunch at Cafe Matteolli in Olbia and then with dinner on board that night. We had quite a party with dancing and singing, including Greg teaching Sarah to jive.

It was about 2.00 am when we finally went to bed so Sunday was a very quiet day. Steve, Sarah and Greg went to the beach for a while and we just had a pizza for dinner at a local cafe/ristorante.

We had decided that we would make Porto Rotondo our base during the Whitelaws' visit so that we could tour by road when the weather wasn't suitable for touring on the water. Monday's weather had improved enough for us to go sailing and drop anchor at Cala di Volpe to enjoy lunch in the cockpit. Sarah and Steve swam but the rest of us were content to just bask in the autumn sun. The scenery in that area is really quite special, with the rugged hillsides along that part of the coast and small islands not far off shore.
We all thoroughly enjoyed our sail back to Porto Rotondo, with Steve in his element at the helm. Dinner was at one of the local cafes where we tried a Sardinian dessert of mascarpone with little stick-like biscuits of crunchy nuts and a Sardinian honey so rich it tasted like caramel. Yummy!

Tuesday Sep 30 was even warmer so we opted for a return to Cala di Volpe for Melissa to join in the swimming. We all agreed that we have never seen water like it anywhere else in the world - crystal clear and beautiful blues and aquas. There was no wind for sailing back but the late afternoons are much cooler now even without a breeze.

While the Whitelaws packed I prepared Chicken Cacciatore for dinner. We finished with strawberries and ice cream and retired relatively early due to the Whitelaws' crazy departure time the next morning. The 7.44 train from Olbia to Cagliari!

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