Spoiler: this travelogue has absolutely nothing to do with Hape Kerkeling, the Way of St James or self-discovery. But a hell of a lot to do with self-definition.
The colourful medieval houses of Bosa are enchanting without any official bans on the use of toilet stone colours. Even blind Italians probably have more reliable good taste when it comes to choosing the colours of their houses than Germans do when it comes to shoes in general.
Castelsardo, which is on the way, has changed a lot since my last visit a few years ago. The little girl’s comment on the oil-on-wood works in the castle’s “art museum” is enchantingly short and to the point: “bäh”.
We don’t arrive at our destination for the day, Badesi, the Citta del vino, until the evening. Badus Appartments upgrades us to a top panoramic apartment. You can almost jump into the 80 cm deep children’s pool from the balcony. A lemon tree grows in front of the bathroom window.
Our little frostbite jumps into a very cool pool for the first time in the evening. As a thank you, she gets the holy trinity the next day. In the morning, we bathe in light rain in the hot thermal springs by the river at Coghinas. In some places, the water comes to the surface painfully hot. The river steams in mild rain.
At lunchtime we continue to the nearby kite spot, the Valledoria lagoon. Once again, there’s not enough wind. I’m delighted to see the Swiss foil kiter who supposedly died in Chia alive again in front of his monster camper. In the lagoon, the little one continues to frolic in the water.
In the evening, the Smurf gets another round of swimming in the hotel pool. She doesn’t care at all that many children from other countries don’t understand her sometimes minute-long stories – and it amuses me deliciously. It makes me ponder the meaning of words – and ask questions about the path and destination. However, the little girl’s true heaven is three days of non-stop pasta from the only kitchen on the trip.
On the last day in Badesi, only Porto Pollo, just over an hour away, promises any wind. This is where I started kitesurfing in Sardinia many years ago. Even though I’m not particularly fond of stubborn winds and waves from all directions, at least the wind in Porto Pollo is usually the strongest in the whole of Sardinia.
Unfortunately not today. The promised 26 knot peak only comes through briefly every few minutes. That’s not enough for the 10-knot Core XR. I simply don’t fancy another emergency kite on 13m². The little one tents happily under the kite. We watch other Swiss kiters at the family kite shooting tournament.
In the evening I want to fix a small problem with the blog: the mobile version no longer works. A different theme doesn’t fix the problem either. After switching back to my own theme, the whole sidebar is missing. No problem. Quickly empty the database and import one of the numerous auto-backups from the server. At least that’s the simple plan.
Then the disaster begins. None of the numerous database backups on my root server at Vautron is complete. All 750 travelogues from 18 years are gone. Panic. Trembling. Cold sweat. Hectic analyses and searches for solutions, as well as a night walk, don’t help until four o’clock in the morning.
If I have a life’s work, it’s the blog at kitesurf-reisen.eu. It easily takes 1,500 hours of work. Maybe even double that. I write purely for the sake of enjoyment and have always done so without any profit motive. Helping and entertaining others are the only goals. My blog is sacred to me.
Without a child, it was nice to think that something of mine would remain when I was gone. Now with a child it’s different. I started dreaming about her reading our shared story to her children. How she sees me. Something my own father never allowed.
That’s not going to happen now. “I’m off then”, says the blog here and now. I very rarely cry. Tonight, it’s doing me very little good.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.