Bosa - Saturday / Sunday - 4/5 September

 I’ll write for two days, as it’s really been cleaning, cleaning, and starting to work through the testing of some of the boat systems.

It did strike me as quite incongruous that I still have my sparkly acrylic nails on, for the wedding, whilst I had my head and shoulders down inside the cupboard in one of the bathrooms to reach down towards the bilge to clean there. Sailing is so glamorous (At times)!

Although inside the boat is nowhere near as dusty as we feared it might be, there are just some places that need more attention than others. I suspect the one regret that Steve may have about my having done the Clipper race, ten years ago, is my insistence on doing a “deep clean” at the beginning and end of every voyage. Robin Knox-Johnson demanded it on the Clipper boats, to reduce the risk of the crew getting ill due to festering dirt. So this is much more than wafting the duster round; everything is thoroughly cleaned from the ceilings, right down to the bottom of the bilges.

We are tackling the more unpleasant jobs in the early morning while it is cooler. We have an hour or so of downtime or siesta after lunch, to keep out of the early afternoon heat, and then do something more fun in the later afternoon. There is something quite satisfying about sloshing water around on deck.

The weather is fabulous. It’s been in the mid twenty degrees every day and drops to something that makes sleeping very comfortable, at night. 

There is always someone in swimwear, basking on the foredeck

It being Sunday today, the locals drive down the river, from the centre on town, in their motor boats, to go round to the beach in the next bay. How wonderful for the family to enjoy this in September. They all come back up the river again around six in the evening, when the sun is casting long shadows.

There is a grocery shop, less than five minutes bike ride away, called Nonna Isa (grandma Isa) that prepares delicious Italian food that you can just reheat. We are living off this at the moment; enjoying a wonderful dinner, every night, whilst not having to cook.

Steve & Tricia

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