Farewells, Lists and Sing Songs

The months of March and April fly by.  Each day there are lists to tick our way through and jobs to complete.  We get grumpy with one another and tired.  At one stage Pippy thinks of keeping the lists to go over later and pat ourselves on the back.  How can there be so much we did not do over the winter??  However, as they are all done they are thrown out with relish.

The marina is suddenly alive with cruisers returning to their boats, provisions and equipment being wheeled along the pontoons.  The activity is feverish.

Tracy on At Last cannot believe she is on her hands and knees scrubbing.

 

There are dinghy leaks to fix, fenders to clean, sails to drag back out from down below and re-rig, cockpit speakers to repair and rewire from the switchboard, watermaker commissioning to complete, sat phone to get up and running (a nightmare which is not completed until the day before we leave thanks to Ceese on board SY Beau - the techo wizzard!), dark blue sides to wash and wax and polish.  (Richard stands in the dinghy with the electric polisher while Pippy holds the lead on deck.  OSH NZ would definitely not approve), AIS to install and wire the antennae to the arch, … a chain plate under the sink needs cleaning up as is green with verdigris, the fridge needs a new thermometer and it takes three different models before it works right.  Each time it is a battle to get the fridge repair guy back to the boat to finish the job.  Everyone is fighting for his services.  We lose count of the number of times Richard goes up the mast.  Our anomometer has given up working during the winter gales and we have to replace it (Euro 300).  The expenses mount up.  The technician who installs our AIS slices through the cable to the VHF and we have trouble getting him to fix it.  Finally Mike on Rio Luna is kind enough to rewire and solder it up again.  His camera repair skills come in handy on the marina!  Another ‘last day’ job.

We all work hard and party hard.  The music night is a great success. 

The assistance and support we have enjoyed while here is extraordinary.  We have been fortunate to be part of a wonderful community and will miss everyone.  The goodbyes start as boats slip away.  Soleil San Fin is the first, then The Southern Cross, then Freebird… we try not to cry.

Then its our turn and we follow Freebird out the morning after...

The Summer Cruising Begins

On Thursday 3 May at 0830H we extract ourselves from Marina di Ragusa.  By the time we leave, we have pushed so hard through the final ‘list’, we leave with a feeling of achievement at jobs well done but feeling quite exhausted.  It is a beautiful calm day, not a breath of wind and these conditions are with us all the way. 

The boat is laden with provisions and very down on the waterline, so we will be self sufficient during our planned time in Tunisia where we will haul out and do the antifoul.

We do manage to motor sail for a short time in the middle of the day, but it is short lived.  However, its not such a bad thing as we spend the day running through the on board systems both old and new and checking that everything works as it should.  The new AIS unfortunately is no longer overlaid on an Open CPN chart Despite fiddling around for quite a while there does not seem to be any way of fixing this.  We did upgrade our charts the day before we left and obviously this has affected the read out on the AIS.  Despite this we are pleased to still be able to plot all the shipping around us (lots!) and know exactly what our closest point of approach (CPA) will be at least an hour in advance of such event.  Its just great to have this on board as well as radar for use on night passages.

The new watermaker gets a run in and produces several bottles of drinking water.  We have full tanks, so no need to put any into the tanks at this stage.  (This drama to follow…)  All appears to be running normally.

Sails - tick.  Engine - tick.  Electronics - tick.  Memory (both of us) - tick!