LINDA - Hi de Hi from the partially unlocked Thésée crew. We have a slight improvement on our freedom this week and the happiest one of us all is Saffy who had her first outing outside of the marina for a number of weeks. She was the happiest doggie in the world and celebrated by showing her appreciation with not one, but two poops, the second on REAL GRASS.... she obviously couldn't resist.
Returning from the poop outing
We still have to wear masks if we go out of the marina and this week we were given real masks. They're on the large side as you can see from the picture above. Actually mine just hangs round my chin, so some adjustments needed.
Shouldn't that be thumbs down?
The week actually started with a haircut for Saffy. She hates it but this time she was quite calm. I'm not very good at it but getting better each time. She is fine when you do her body, but legs and head are proving difficult, so we have to be patient and do a little at a time.
Dad.... help me
On the woodwork front, Dean has made himself a holder to rest his drone controller when he's flying it. He looks a bit like he's going to sell ice-cream. He's been practising a lot with the drone and reading all the instructions (yes really) because he wants to fly it from the boat when we're at anchor. He has been able to get the drone to follow him down the quay, and also to do a 360 degree circle around him. He gets some super photos from up in the air. I told him to be careful as we don't want USS Mount Whitney thinking he's a James Bond. One of the things he's been practising is returning the drone to himself and plucking it out of the air. This is impossible if you have both hands controlling and holding the base unit, hence his new holder means he can have one hand free for the drone.
Looking pleased with himself
Test run
Flag pole being carried
The helicopter crew got a great view of Thésée
Dean took a photo of me checking out everything that was going on, and also of the confusing red and white 'H' flag.
Shorts on, no cardi, must be summertime
Notice the red/white H flag
Dean and I went to the hardware shop and left her on guard then came home to this, snoozing on the job. She said she was only closing her eyes for a few minutes. Captain Saffy we'll let you off now you're a very OAP. Maybe you could raise some cash for the NHS by walking 119 laps of the marina??
..... er, who goes there?
Now what else have we been up to?.... ah yes, i went in the lazarette. That's the storage lockers at the rear of the cockpit. I've never been down there before and it's always strange to see Dean disappearing into them from above. There is so much space down there and you can actually go into one and come out of the other. In this photo you can see we're both in there and there's still room to move. This is where we keep the extra cans of fuel and it's also where you would fit a generator if you had one, or maybe a watermaker.
Here i'm sitting in the starboard lazarette looking across to the portside
The heating ducts.... i think
Looking upwards out of the locker to the bimini
And finally, Anna (the marina owner) sent us all some lemons this week from the trees in her garden. They are whoppers and we were all wondering what to make with them. Has anyone ever made limoncello? We're so happy to be 'stuck' in such a wonderful family run marina. Our 6 month berthing contract ran out in April and Dean had to go and pay for another month to take us up to the middle of May. They very kindly charged us on the same daily/monthly rate as we paid for the winter months. How brilliant is that?
Tuesday 12th May...
LINDA... Hi yes, it's me again, with the weekly update. So who do you want first? Me or Mr C? Let's see the order of the photos...
Well Dean's obviously feeling a bit colourful, either that or Thesee is turning into a disco. Here is our new lighting set up for beneath the cupboards. We used to have just white lights but now we can have anything we want....we're sticking to pink at the moment. This photo is testing the lights before he sticks them up...
Testing 1,2,3
Port side mood lighting
Not very weddingy
Lights glued and stitched ready to go under
There you go, we have underwater lighting
Sorry, a bit blurry, but you get the idea
Poser!
Saffy's been in her favourite spot again, i think she's just making sure that we don't go out without her. The weather's getting pretty warm, so we put the bimini up and she has plenty of shade now.
This is the life for me
Still guarding but more like a trip hazard nowadays!
Running short of jobs to do, Dean adjusted the hydrovane and raised it up two inches. It's supposed to be about one inch above the waterline, which it was at one time, but we've added weight in the rear lockers since then, with chain and fuel and it was just in the water. He gave it a quick once over whilst he was at it. All done now.
Gently easing the hydrovane up a little
One inch above the waterline now
Close up
The galley has been busy this week. Using up the lemon's we received, i decided to make Lemon Curd. That's a new one on me.
Step 1
That was easy, it tastes real tangy too
On board USS Mount Whitney it looks like they had an emergency drill. The helicopter is still here and they've been doing some maintenance and testing on it, as one day it took off and hovered just above the deck for about half an hour. Oh well, it passed some time for us having something different to look at. We observed that the H flag was flying so we're pretty sure that they must use it as a sign for helicopter movements now.
They don't seem to be standing 2 metres apart
This photo shows the rotor blades tied down
during a spot of windy weather
Well Dean notices every change of noise that goes on in the boat. Here's a report from him to tell you what happened next...Well here goes. When the one charge controller for the Duogen and the forward solar panel dump's its excess amps to the heat sink I can hear a noise from the controller. No problem, only that I haven't been hearing the noise for about a week now. Of course the Duogen has no blades on at the moment because we're plugged in. Any way I checked the forward panel and discovered that it was only producing half the voltage. Bugger! Once I had the connection box apart I discovered that there was a small diode gone inside. I decided not to mess about so ordered a replacement panel which hopefully will arrive in the nest couple of days.
Checking the diodes
Disconnecting the old panel
Making sure the plug and wire will pass through the deck gland
Taking up the old panel
Slowly does it
Nearly there
And it's off
Now just to clean up a bit
The panel was still stuck down quite well after 5 years in all weathers, not too bad I suppose.
Back in the galley, i'm at it again... Homemade chicken and mushroom pie this time.
Reading the instructions
Ooh i'm very pleased with that
Din Dins
..... and Lemon Curd tasting
I did get a lovely surprise when i woke up on Wedding Anniversary Day though, a very nice gift wrapped potted plant waiting for me on the dining table. I don't know how Dean snook that in without me noticing, but he is now forgiven for the wire, batteries, and cable ties, i thought i was getting.
Over to Dean for an explanation of this next job...We had some rain the other day and I spotted a drop come from one of the hatches. Once the rain had stopped I had a quick look and realised that the gasket had crumpled. I had a bit of similar type material tucked away so I made a couple of new ones that I hope will be OK. Just need a bit of rain now to check.
Cutting the new gasket
Old crumpled gasket
Olio di Teak
I ordered some more teak oil from the chandlery last week but of course "Domani"
and 22 euro for half litre! I asked at most of the local hardware shops to no avail but then remembered seeing another shop on one of our walkabouts. Good job I can speak fluent(ish) Italian. 7 euro signore, that will do nicely thanks, Cioa Grazie.
As a special treat for Dean i made his favourite Trifle for pudding to celebrate our Anniversary.... It's not as good as our 'Thesee' wedding cake but it taste's just as nice.
No sherry 😥
Next week, I hope we will be able to report on some information regarding when we will be free to get going. The season's plans probably won't go as we hoped but there's a lot of options we can have up our sleeve..... hopefully..
Tuesday 19th May...
LINDA - Good good good good good good good news.... As from yesterday we have been partially unlocked. We can now go out of the marina without wearing a mask, but we still have to carry one and use it in shops. The new rules state we can meet friends but still have to stay one metre apart. The best news is that we are almost certain that we can move on from 3rd June, and as we believe the marina rates will sky-rocket that's VERY good news for us.
Earlier this week Dean was self-amusing by taking apart last week's fault solar panel. He replaced the faulty diode with a quick fix to see if it worked, and indeed it did seem promising, but once we hung the panel outside to check, it went back to being faulty. Back inside, he removed the rest of the workings just to be nosey really. I guess it will have to go in the bin once he's finished fiddling about with it. We are still awaiting delivery of the new solar panel and hope it will arrive very soon.
Testing Testing 123
A close up of the diode nitty gritty
The panel now hanging outside in the sun, but not working
Dean had promised to have a look at David's (Eternité) rev counter and give it a bit of a service, with the use of my cotton wool buds i might add.
So the marina has been getting quite a makeover, and this week they also raised some country flags along our quayside so it's looking pretty colourful. We decided to send some photos to the grandchildren as a bit of a quiz. Would you like to play too?
Our friends Phil & Cris on Bora La in Sardinia also had good news. They have been given permission to sail across to Gaeta and join us in the marina. They have been trying to get permission for a few weeks now, and apparantly not only our marina was involved in this, but also the Gaeta harbourmaster, and the Mayor too! Phil & Cris are currently en-route and we expect them to arrive sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Also we had the arrival of this classic motoryacht this week. We seem to think it was here last year when we arrived, so i don't know where it has been all winter. Still, it's nice to see some boat movements happening. It does in fact feel quite weird and we have been asking ourselves will we remember how to do it?
The motoryacht has a British Ensign
There were a lot of helicopter movements going on this week on board USS Mount Whitney, it's getting to be the norm, and i don't think it's worth taking any more helicopter photos.... do you? Then yesterday morning the ship departed just as we were returning from the supermarket. We've been tracking it on Vessel Finder and this morning we see that it navigated the Bonifacio Strait between Corsica and Sardinia so it must be heading over to Spain/Gibraltar/or maybe into the Atlantic. We'll keep tracking it, and report back next week.
Now that all the shops have re-opened we were able to get Saffy to the vets for her Rabies booster injection. Not that anyone has ever asked to see her pet passport at any port since we left the UK, but we had to get it done as we are thinking it may be possible to go to Malta at some point and 'apparantly' the paperwork needs to be in order. Yes, we've heard that one before!
Tuesday 26th May....
LINDA - It's well and truly summertime here, and we are feeling quite nice. In a way we have commented to each other that it will be a shame to move on. Quite a stark difference to our feelings last November when it was 'orrible. Nevertheless, we will be moving on, and at the moment our planned departure date is 4th June. Fingers crossed that the Italian government don't change their minds and reel everyone back into full lockdown. As far as we can tell, things are going quite well here and all the shops are now open. However, masks still have to be worn when you are in enclosed public places..... like shops.
Our neighbour Bob on Windarra has acquired a second-hand watermaker. I don't know all the ins and outs really but i do know that they can seize up if not been used for a while. We nearly bought a second-hand one a few years ago in Gosport. When it transpired that we knew the seller and his boat was in the same marina as ours, he did his best to indirectly talk us out of buying it off him. That made us quite hesitant about going down the second-hand route. Anyway, back to Bob..... Dean was lending a helping hand trying to get the thing started....and before we knew it all four of the guys were involved.....
Bob & Dean trying to un-seize the watermaker
Now they're all at it
Moving on, we've got some more flags....this week's quiztime for Thésée Followers.
So like i said the weather has really warmed up, and last Wednesday we had a massive influx of jellyfish in the marina.... Thousands in fact. They're only tiny and i wondered whether they were newly hatched....or whatever they do. You know, a bit like when the flying ants all appear on the very same day of the year.
I hope you can make the them out from this next photo...
On the same day at about 8pm, our friends Phil & Cris on Bora La arrived after their 36 hour crossing from Sardinia. We were all looking forward to seeing them again and waited for their arrival at the end of the quayside.
The self-distancing welcoming committee
Here they come
Exhausted but happy to be here
Can you fit in that space?
Easy peasy
So next day it happened to be Phil's birthday, and Cris made him a birthday cake. We all had to joke about it as their boat is soooo big he didn't even realise she had made it!
You're how old???
Phil wasn't the only one with a birthday this week. Next one up was Cindy.
Happy Birthday Cindy
Apart from watermakers, jellyfish, and birthday's, the only other high point was that we had our first ice-cream in months, from the kiosk across the road. And boy, was it delicious. There'll be lots more ice-cream eating from now on.
To finish off the week, and not having too many photos, we decided to take a picture of each other this morning drinking coffee on our patio (aka the cockpit).
1,2,3, breathe in now
It's a hard life
Wednesday 3rd June...
SAFFY - Mum and Dad have been so busy this week getting ready for our summer holidays. So busy in fact that they've hardly had any time to take photographs of me, even though i had to suffer another haircut, and then being home alone whilst they've been out victualling so i have plenty to eat whilst we're on the move. Today they went to the butcher's shop and came back with all this meat. I hope it's all for my dinner.
Nicely packed and dated by Dad and his special machine
There is quite a lot going on here on the water with new superyachts arriving every day. Mum and Dad have been getting me up early as there's a lot to do, and the first job everyday is my walkies. One morning we saw a diver in the marina checking the lazy lines and mooring chains.
This yacht just arriving from Malta
Diver in the water
Dad was getting worried that his new solar panel had still not arrived, then all of a sudden here it was. I think he was relieved, but didn't smile very much because when he opened it he saw that the connector wires had a different fitting to what he was expecting. He said it would still work fine, but it means the connectors cannot be hidden, and therefore look messy on the deck. He seems to be quite fussy about things like that. I'm sure he will come up with a bright idea to make it look better.
Finally the solar panel delivery
Well wrapped
The messy connectors
Checking it fits
Almost finished
Saturday night i had to let them go out for a special treat because the bars and restaurants have re-opened and there's a lot more people about in the streets and around the town. Me, mum, and dad are really going to miss this place. The marina has been so good to us, we can't think of a better place to have been locked down in.
Ant & Cid on the night out
The rest of us social distancing on a separate table
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