Porto Longosardo sends more visitors to the La Maddalena Archipelago than any other embarkation point on Sardinia's northern coast — over 180,000 passengers each summer season cross the Strait of Bonifacio aboard scheduled ferries and private charters. The seven principal islands that comprise the archipelago have been protected under Italian law since 1994, when the Parco Nazionale dell'Arcipelago di La Maddalena was established to safeguard 180 square kilometres of granite headlands, posidonia meadows, and marine habitats that shelter bottlenose dolphins, Audouin's gulls, and loggerhead turtles. Every vessel entering the park boundary pays a five-euro conservation fee per passenger, collected at the harbour office before departure. The archipelago's fame rests on its chromatic extremes: pink granite outcrops worn smooth by millennia of mistral winds, and water so transparent that anchorages at Budelli, Spargi, and Santa Maria reveal their sandy floors at fifteen metres. Budelli's Spiaggia Rosa — the rose-tinted beach photographed in countless tourism campaigns — has been closed to foot traffic since 1998 to halt erosion caused by visitors pocketing handfuls of the coral-fragment sand. Boats may approach within fifty metres; the colour remains visible from that distance. Spargi, the archipelago's second-largest island, offers seven named coves, each accessible only by sea. Cala Corsara and Cala Connari anchor the majority of full-day la maddalena boat tour from santa teresa itineraries; their shallow gradients and absence of development make them ideal for swimming stops between ten in the morning and three in the afternoon, when the sun sits high enough to illuminate the subsurface topography. Caprera, connected to La Maddalena island by a causeway completed in 1891, was home to Giuseppe Garibaldi during the final decades of his life. His whitewashed farmhouse, preserved as the Compendio Garibaldino, overlooks Cala Garibaldi on the island's southwestern coast. Most boat tours pause offshore rather than landing; the house itself requires a separate terrestrial visit. Santo Stefano, the archipelago's easternmost island, served as a NATO submarine base until 2008; its restricted military zone now hosts periodic archaeological surveys of Roman amphora scatters along the seabed. Razzoli and the smaller islets of Mortorio and Soffi remain uninhabited, their interiors designated as strict nature reserves where access is prohibited year-round to protect nesting populations of the European shag and Scopoli's shearwater. Departures for la maddalena boat tour from santa teresa excursions operate daily from Porto Longosardo between eight in the morning and six in the evening during the April-to-October season. Most operators schedule returns by sunset, which falls near eight-thirty in midsummer. The strait crossing takes twenty-five minutes in calm conditions; southwesterly winds above fifteen knots frequently delay afternoon crossings, and captains retain discretion to modify itineraries when swell heights exceed one metre in the open passages between islands.