It’s Monday afternoon. One week since our arrival and we still don’t have the PCR test results. We stay quarantined. No sightseeing and enjoying the little town of Carloforte.
We develop the creepy feeling that we’ll soon leave Sardinia without having had a chance to set foot on land.
Itching to get going, but our repairs, which began last September, are not finished as off yet. Hard to believe. We know. Repairs in France feel more like a Foxtrot:
You think you moved, but when you look back – not really!
One segment of electrical work was done last week and genuine new problems pop up. An Electrician worked on the essential seaworthiness list and several items were ticked off. But, when we used an electrical winch on Saturday, you get it, it failed for electrical reasons. And yes, the electrical winches had never failed us before.
We are not saying it’s not nice here, see the photo at the end, but we rather would be going somewhere.
There is one exception to the Foxtrot rule. That is a company called Thalassa Nautique whose owner Olivier Glenadet appears on time and works super diligently. More about his work in a separate post later.
We have to leave port on Feb 24 because the Capitanerie needs the space. Let’s hope the critical things are done by then.
Is it nice in La Grande Motte? Yes, if you are here voluntarily.
So being in this beautiful anchorage is paradise. Well, not so much sometimes. On an anchorage you need water, right? No problem! We have a water maker, when it works. So we started the water maker and received a “blocked system” message. Ok, get out the manual and see what it means. So after the first start up of the season it needs to be primed? Fine, did that. Start again, but the same thing is happening after a few minutes, and again. So we found the water maker was leaking salt water and not having enough pressure. Tried the 2nd pump and this one seems to work. Not making the advertised 60 liters/hour but better than nothing. Took us 6 hours to resolve.
Next day we find that our bilge pump is not working, tried the hand pump to empty the bilge and it breaks alter a few pumps. Ok, fix it. Again 3 hours later working again on the electrical pump. Martin is able to fix the electric pump with pieces from a coke can, long story, but it works. Another 6 hours gone.
This morning we had to cut our breakfast short. A big thunderstorm was heading our way. We got lots of wind and rain and all our salon hatches began to leak. Have to place bowls everywhere.
We decide to leave the anchorage. The sand from the beach is washing from the beach and the anchorage water is silting such that we were concerned about the engine water cooling pumps. Heading to Port Sant Antoni. This was a good decision. One hour later all the boats from our old anchorage were following and the good spots were gone fast. It is still raining but not that heavy. This gives me a break and I have time to do a little update on the blog.
So that is paradise! There is always something to fix on a boat. I could go on and on about this, but it will get boring after time.
la dolce far niente …
No envy please 🙂