Sunday 10 May 2015

Well, we arrived in Sicily on Friday evening.  The flight was OK, despite being run by Ryanair.  We got out of the airport in good time and found our hire car.  They didn’t have what we ordered, but instead we were given a Fiat 500!  Talk about being small.  We barely got two of our bags in the boot.  Well, we have brought too much, but isn’t that always the way with me?

We got to the boat by 10:30pm.  There wasn’t much to do at that time of night, so we just unpacked and made up the bed.  It is warm and balmy, so we just flaked out.

On Saturday we began to take stock of the situation.  It is not good.  A great deal of the work we expected to have been finished has not been done.  For instance, the new solar panels are not installed.  The wiring has been done, but there is no sign of the bimini, on which the panels are to be mounted, or of the panels themselves.  We think that nothing has been done to the furling mechanism for the genoa (for non-sailors that is a barrel with ropes that lets the foresail in and out).  We have also found another problem.  The toilet isn’t working properly.  It does not take water in from the sea.  For the moment, in harbour where we can get fresh water to use to flush it, it does not matter, but it must be put right before we go.

As we have nothing to eat on the boat we go down to the café for an Italian breakfast.  On the way we speak to the marina staff.  They are very nice, friendly and try to help, but it is chaotic.  They have arranged for the diver to come on Monday to clean the hull, the propeller and the bow thruster and check up on what is going on below (for those in the know, looking at skin fittings and anodes).  But we can’t make contact with the man who is supposed to be doing the other work.

Another thing we have noticed is that most of the boats that were over wintering here and whose occupants we knew have left.  So we are one of the last to get away, if and when that happens.

On Saturday we had hoped to keep our hire car until evening, but on enquiry we find that there is only one bus back to the marina from the airport and it leaves at 2:15pm.  So that means a mad dash to a local supermarket to try to provision the boat for the next few weeks.  I really didn’t have time to do a full inventory and find that I have failed to buy a number of essentials.  As I unpack the shopping Richard rushes back to the airport with the car to return and get the bus back.

The boat doesn’t look too bad, but the Sahara sand has got to it.  The gunwales (sides of the decks) are full of red sand and the whole boat in and out is a bit gritty.  The pilot books don’t warn you about this but we were warned by the local representative of the Cruising Association.  So we have lots of cleaning to do.  While waiting for Richard to get back to the boat, I manage to have a very thorough clean of our cabin and the heads (bathroom and toilet to you landlubbers).   There is usually some mould around after a winter in the water, but it is not too bad.

Richard gets back at about 4:00pm.  He was the only one on the bus, which was due to leave just 15 minutes after a flight from Rome arrived.  The flight was half an hour late and despite the bus waiting 15 minutes after the flight arrived, no one turned up!  Not surprising really.  Only passengers with hand luggage would have stood a chance of catching that bus.  So, Richard said it was more or less like a taxi and it took him right to the marina entrance. 

When he gets back we decide to take a walk into town.  I am too nervous to try the bicycle.  The weather is lovely.  Clear blue sky and quite warm - about 25-26 Centigrade.  On the way there we stop in the phone shop that has opened in the marina and get our internet hub charged up.  It is only for one week, because of the strange charging system, but it does mean we will be in touch for the next seven days.  With a great deal of luck we may get to Greece by then, but I wouldn’t count on it!

In town we look into the local shops.  Not much there.  We still need to do more shopping.  We might have to use taxis.  We stop at my favourite ice cream parlour and I have my first coffee granita with cream!  Divine!  We decide to go out to dinner and book at a local restaurant that R tried when he was down here on his own in March.  So we shower and go to the restaurant at 8:30pm.  We are nearly the first there!  We have a nice fish dinner and then get back and collapse in to bed.

I slept fitfully having dreams of all sorts of disasters and spent most of the night in a panic.  I wonder if it was in anticipation for today’s horrors.  We have got down to doing the real work on the boat.  I have been below most of the day cleaning.  I have done it all except the forward cabin, which I can’t do until we clear out the ropes and sails.  Richard has spent a great deal of the day washing the outside and trying to get rid of all the red sand.  He has also taken all the tape and bags off the winches etc, which we covered to protect them against the sand.  But that has left sticky marks of its own, so maybe it was not a complete success.  One small brighter note: the wrapping around the winch on the mast seems to have been removed and then put back again, suggesting that the furler may have been serviced after all.

By afternoon the problems started to arise.  First, Richard tried to fix the toilet.  He took the whole thing apart and stunk out the newly cleaned heads.  He thinks one of the valves needs replacing, but he does not have that spare part.  He therefore had to put the whole lot back and hopes to get the right part at the chandlery tomorrow.  I think it might be best just to get the man who is doing the other work to do that job too.

Then Richard decides that he will start to put the mainsail on (the genoa waiting for the furler to be serviced).  He proudly tells me that the main halyard (the rope that pulls the main sail up to mast) went on like a dream.  But I am a bit confused.  Before we left he took our good new dynema halyard off to protect it from the Saharan sand and put on the old one to hold the passarelle up.  But the passarelle is still up and the old rope is attached to it and goes to the top of the mast.  Then Richard realises that he has attached to halyard to the wrong bit of the mast.  It takes him some time to work it out, but he has put it where the lazy jacks should go!  This is where real disaster struck.  It taking down the halyard he broke the small line that takes the rope up the mast!  So he cannot put up the lazy jacks.  He thinks the only way to put it right is to go up the mast and try to drop another line down the hole.  I am unconvinced.  I think we need a rigger to put it right.  That is yet another job that will have to be done before we can get away.

So we are fed up.  We hoped to leave here by Tuesday, but that seems almost impossible in the light of the new problems and the lack of activity on the work that should have been done before we got here.  Oh, the joys of sailing!

We should have been on a virtuous diet day today.  But with all the traumas, we have opened a bottle of local red and are drowning our sorrows.  We shall see what we can organise tomorrow, but I can’t see us leaving before Wednesday at the earliest!