August 2017

Well, staying on a yard in Sicily is quite an experience. It was a nice yard near Palermo.
It is the yard Motomar at Fossa del Gallo. So if you ever need some repairs, don’t go to them!

For example;
I wanted a quotation for the work I wanted to be done. Just to get an estimate of the costs. I begged for it for a week. But everytime the manager Mario responded: “ I have it tomorrow”. Eventualy I stalked the man. And I mean realy stalking. So he went to his office and I sat in front of him. He stepped into his car and I jumped in. I did this for 2 days from 9 AM until 11 PM. And then finally I had my quotation. He gave me an estimate of 22.800 euro’s Way to much! But I thought, now I have an estimate for the insurance and they can start. The Italian way of working is quite different from what I am used to. Talking, putting some tape on the boat, remove it again, putting it on again, talking to some friends, remove the tape again and so on. The thing is, as long as your boat is on their yard, you pay for every day. So I was pushing all the time in the best tactical way as I could. On the 12th of August I declared the boat repairs finished. They objected, but I persisted. I could bring down the costs to 16.500 euro and payed by internet banking and showed them the payment. That was not enough. They had to see the amount on their account. That meant another couple of days waiting. I objected in front of some customers and argued that I had never experienced such a hostage situation before. He was embarrassed. I could see that. That felt good.
Finally the boat was launched the 15th of August and I left straight away without saying goodbye.

I had  already bought provisions, so I could leave for Zakinthos right away. A 5 day travel on my own. I was very excited about that. Especially the sleeping……. I have a very powerful audio system. So I created an alarm on my phone, connected it to the audio system and every hour it went of very loudly. Now I could sleep every time without worrying. This worked very well. And I must say I did get enough sleep. The only setback was my arm. I stressed it to much I think and I think it is a bursitis. I will try to give it enough rest and it should pass, I hope….

First I sailed along the north coast of Sicily passing the Lipari Islands, went through the Strait of Messina and then East to Zakinthos. Sometimes there was no wind at all and other times it was very strong, but the boat held very well and I broke my speed record again. Now it’s 10.5 knots!

I arrived at Zakinthos on Saturday and Ellen would arrive on the airport on Monday morning. So I went for a quiet anchorage south of Zakinthos. Lovely. Just laying still, no need for a watch and have a long sleep. Sunday in the afternoon I departed for the port of Zakinthos. The engines run well, but one engine seems to give the boat no propulsion. I checked the gearbox. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then I checked under water and I saw one propeller was gone! How the hell….
I managed to get the boat to the port on one engine and called the port agent for some assistance. He had an engineer standing next to him when I arrived, but I knew this will mean some extra waiting days in the port. Shit. I phoned Ellen to bring her the bad news. She still was determined to fly to Zakinthos and we spent a couple of days on the Island.

Rented a car and drove around, which was at some spots spectacular, because there where a lot of fires on the Island.

We did some shopping, eating and bought very nice local olive oil.

Finally on Saturday the engineer had received all the parts and mounted everything while diving.

He also repaired my outboard engine and I was very excited to have a decent powerful engine for my dinghy.
We left straight away for the neighboring Island Kefalonia. We passed the famous Blue Caves!

Airplanes flew over us to get water for the extinguishing work. (Can you see the mast just behind the plane?)

We both longed for some silence around us. We found a beautiful spot.

And had nice food.

And did some repairs while trying to spare my arm ……

PS

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