We cannot stay in bed too long on Thursday because at 10am the plumber
is coming to look at our water heater.
So it is up before 9 and breakfast with Buck’s fizz for Richard’s
birthday. We are certain we won’t
find a lobster to cook ourselves today.
The man in the boat across the way says the Italian restaurant on the
port (reckoned by everyone to be the best local restaurant) does spaghetti with
lobster and have a lobster in their tank.
So we will try there.
The plumber comes. He
speaks very limited English. The
boss who comes with him speaks good English, but he only stays long enough to
explain what we say is the matter.
The plumber has a young mate who understands more English. From the outset it is clear that we
have finally got a workman who understands the water heating system and can
work out what is the matter with it.
But it is all very frustrating.
He spends all of the morning changing hoses, and cleaning out the
various pipes. He thinks that may
be enough. By lunch time he has
run the engine for half an hour and although the water might be a tiny bit
warm, it is not working. He then
tries something else and leaves the engine for half an hour to see what
happens. The water is definitely
warmer and for a moment we think it may be good enough. But, no, it really isn’t hot and the
warm water dissipates almost immediately after it is run for a minute and the
cold water fills the tank. The
boss comes back and tries it and says he is not satisfied with what has been
done. Other than buying a new
water heater, he suggests that they disconnect ours and take it away to
refurbish on their work bench.
They will bring it back in the morning and see if it works. So we agree to that. For a few minutes I think that having
disconnected the hot water tank, they will have to turn all the water off and
we won’t have anything to wash with.
However, the plumber can bypass the hot water system and we do at least
have running cold water for the night.
After lunch the lady with the laundry comes. She is only charging 18 euros. I feel so bad about that I give her 20 and tell her to keep
the change. The washing isn’t
perfect. My really stained tee
shirts have not come clean and her ironing is not up to my standard. But it is all done and we are well
ahead of the game on the laundry front.
Something I do not have to worry about for a couple of weeks, anyway. We have also had a delivery of fuel
from the fuel tanker, so that is all good for the next leg of the trip.
Having had lunch on the boat and sorted out laundry, water heater and
fuel, we now want to go into town.
Unfortunately the weather has deteriorated and it is raining. But unabashed we walk out of the marina
and find the bus stop that takes up into the town. The problem is that we don’t know where to get off the
bus! We ask the bus driver, but he
speaks almost no English. One lady
passenger says she is going where we want to go and will tell us where to get
off. So we follow her. I am unconvinced we are in the right
place, but another younger woman says she lives locally and will take us to
where we want to go in the historic centre. And she does!
The plan is to walk from the old town down through the newer part,
through a railway park and then to the marina. We do that. We
stop for an ice cream in a café on the way. This is not Italy, so the ice cream is not homemade. It is Ben and Jerry’s!
The railway part is odd, but interesting. It is built around an old railway line. There are old engines and rolling stock
dotted around and an old station building that is a café. It is however quite a long walk back to
the marina. On the way back we
stop at the Italian restaurant to see if we can get lobster. We can’t. They don’t keep it and only get it if you order a day or two
in advance. They suggest they can
do King Crab instead and show us a summer truffle they have picked. So we will
eat there anyway.
So we laze around the boat a bit.
We have one more technical problem which Richard tries to deal with in
the afternoon. When he took the
whisker pole down yesterday it came off its track. He thinks he can sort it out himself, but finds that he
cannot. So we may not have a pole
to use for a bit.
We shower and dress and then drink the rest of the Champagne. Richard is in a bit of a tizz because
he cannot find his glasses. I am
sure I saw them on the chart table, but they aren’t there. When we decide to do a codeword puzzle
while drinking our champagne, I realize I can’t see the print clearly. So I take my glasses off to clean them
only to realize I have put on Richard’s glasses by mistake! He didn’t even notice I wasn’t wearing
my own glasses!
We are both a bit tipsy by the time we get to the restaurant. We have great trouble deciding what to
eat. We think about their pasta
with the fresh truffle, but they want 60 euros for that and we find that
outrageous. So in the end we
decide to split a half kilo of grilled giant prawns as a starter and have
fillet steak for mains. The prawns
are OK but I think they are frozen and the flesh isn’t as firm as it ought to
be, though they are tasty. When
they bring the main out we find they have only served us one portion to
share. However that is a blessing
because it is a huge lump of steak and we could never have managed one
each. In fact the meat is very
good, tender and tasty and cooked perfectly. We had mentioned this afternoon that it was Richard’s
birthday (when trying to persuade them that we wanted lobster), so after the meal
they bring us a desert on the house with a birthday candle in it. Very sweet.
Back to the boat, worse for wear, so I didn’t post last night.
Today we expected the plumber at 10am again and hoped to have a bit of a
lie in especially after our excesses of yesterday. But he comes at 8:30!
Richard is still getting dressed.
He gets right down to work.
Yesterday he was complaining that the water heater was very old (as of
course it is -13 years), however today he says having worked on it, it is a
very good quality heater and he has made it like new. And lo and behold, after running the engine for only 15-20
minutes we have quite hot water! I
can’t really believe it. I still
wonder what will happen later. But
we are assured that it is now working properly. So we have hot water!
Will wonders never cease.
We expected a big bill for this work. Two men have spent the best part of a whole day working on
the thing. So we are shocked when
we are only asked to pay 140 Euros including parts and a whole can of
anti-freeze with anti rust to put in the engine!
We can’t really work out what to do for the rest of the day. We need to shop. I didn’t provision yesterday partly out
of not wanting to mess up Richard’s day and partly because I did not know what
would happen with the water heater.
Also it really would be nice to have the whisker pole track fixed. So Richard goes to the marina office to
see if they can arrange someone to look at the broken rigging. They can send someone at 5:30pm. So we will stay for the night and set
off tomorrow.
While Richard is doing that I start to sort out the boat and then go to
get my good prescription sun glasses and find they are not in their case. I search the boat up and down and
cannot find them. So we have another
glasses crisis, but this time they are not on my or Richard’s nose! I am really upset. These are terribly expensive glasses
and it took me years to find a suitable frame. I cannot imagine I could have left them anywhere. I wouldn’t have worn them to the
restaurant because it was after sunset when we went. I don’t think I was wearing them yesterday in town because
it was raining! I have a vague
recollection of taking them off in our cabin after lunch when I was putting
away the laundry. But there isn’t
much I can do now.
So we go to the supermarket to buy food for the next few days. We will not be anywhere that has water
or electricity for some time. We
will probably be anchored most of it, so we need food on board. While we are walking in that direction
Richard offers to walk up to the café where we had our ice creams yesterday and
see if I left my glasses there. I
agree and return to the boat on my own with the shopping.
Back on the boat I empty the fridge and re-stack it. There are no sunglasses inside, not
that I expected there to be any.
Richard comes back and says that the café was a very long walk away on a
hot sunny day and they don’t have my glasses. He goes off to a chandlery while I take apart my cupboard
where I put the laundry away in the hope the glasses got in there by
mistake. But, no they aren’t
there. At the last minute before I
leave the cabin I decide to look in the suitcase we keep our underwear in. I put that away too when we received
the washing. And hooray! There are my glasses. When Richard comes back he doesn’t even
notice I have them on!
So all is looking good now.
We have food, glasses, fresh water and hot water. We finally get around to washing the
boat. It is very dirty and there
are marks from where the water came out of the solar lamp that fell in the sea
that we cannot get off. But we
look much better. The rigger comes
and it seems he can do the repair within an hour or two. He will go away to prepare a new
line. So that looks like it will
be OK.
We are having the couple from two boats down for drinks. It is all a bit of a rush, but we get
organized in time. We have a nice
chat. They are going where we just
came from and we are going where they were. So we exchange experiences. Just as they are about to leave the rigger comes back and
fixes the line and track. That
only cost 30 euros.
So we have dinner on board.
I make a squid dish. We
must get ready to leave fairly early tomorrow.
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