Cagliari - 21 September 2021
It was all happening today, hopefully our last day of preparation. We were up and going early, to go to the municipal market to buy more food. The supermarket we went to yesterday was fine for everything except fresh food. As it turned out the market was almost next to place where we had gone to get the soldering iron, we had walked past it without realising what it was. Inside there was a huge range of bread and cakes, fruit and veg, cooked and fresh meat of all types, and cheese. We walked through deciding which stalls the go to and then started buying on our second pass. We were a bit concerned that we had not seen any fish for sale, but when I asked one of the stall holders, he directed us downstairs, which was entirely dedicated to fish. We were already carrying our dirty laundry, and the laundromat was near to the market, and we wanted to just make one trip, so we staggered on under the weigh of our purchases and dirty clothes.
At this point it started to rain, bad news. Anyway we made it as far as the laundromat, arriving shortly after 9:00. I left Tricia to sit with the laundry and rushed back to the boat. We were expecting riggers to arrive to perform a check on the rigging. We were concerned that 2 years of sitting doing nothing may have taken its toll, and on the journey so far, we had put no pressure on the rig. We had not taken any wet weather protection, so I trudged back carrying all the food, to be there by 10:00 when the riggers were due. At five to ten there was a phone call saying that the weather was too bad for them to come, and I could only agree. I certainly would not like to be up a 24 metre metal pole while there was thunder and lightning in progress. All we could do was wait for the weather to clear and hope.
Eventual everything fitted into place. Tricia was back with our clean clothes, from the best laundromat we have found for a while and the rain stopped. Once their lunch break was over, the riggers came and were quickly about the job. We certainly prefer to have professionals do this sort of check, they are much more likely to spot problems with the joints connecting the mast and the stays than we are. Their verdict was that everything was in good order, but “sporco” which means dirty. This was not a surprise given where the boat has been. They did a great job of getting the wind measuring instruments at the mast head working as well, and checked the lights. The guy who went up the mast performed the trick of changing which line was supporting him, while up the mast. We have seen this done before, but it always leaves me mightily impressed.
There were two other jobs that we wanted them to do, they said they could not do one, but called someone else for the other. This guy came and fixed the cockpit speaker for the VHF radio, something that has always been temperamental at best. We have the main VHF radio below deck, but it is hard to hear when on deck. The model we have is not made anymore, but they work an exchange and recondition service. Fortunately the speaker he installed was the last one he had. Anyway the result of all this is that we can now easily hear the radio when we are on deck.
The final part of the the day was the arrival of two friends who would join us for the crossing to Sicily. They have both sailed with us before and it is always reassuring to have more than two people on board when doing overnight sailing, the trip to Sicily is expected to take around 30 hours. They flew in to Cagliari via Rome, such being the restricted nature of international travel at the moment. They arrived in time for a great meal of local tuna from the market.
We are (just about) ready to go if the final check of the weather forecast is ok.
Steve (and Tricia)
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