CANVAS ARTS and MORE EAST WINDS, Days 24 and 25

CANVAS ARTS and MORE EAST WINDS May 17 & 18, Days 24 & 25

After the 11 hour day including 4 hours of driving on Wednesday we needed to take Thursday slowly, but we did more jobs, maintenance, cleaning and organising. The final job was heavy duty sewing of replacement plastic hooks and eyes to the sail cover using tradition sail maker’s art with large needle and sail maker’s palm to pass the heavy duty thread through the plastic and the canvas. Hard work but job done !!

It was a pleasure to prepare the bed with new summer weight duvet, duvet cover and pillow cases from Ikea. Many boat owners take older bedding from home to the boat, as I have done over the years. How nice to buy something new for a change specially to use on the boat.

More low pressure systems are moving across the Mediterranean in a north easterly direction passing south and east of Malta bringing us and Malta strong East and NE winds. This is not ideal weather for sailing to the Northern Ionian along the Italian “heel” so we are happy that they pass while we continue preparations and wait for the motor to be fixed. The expected gale force gust did not materialise today.

This fish is BIG. The Mafia boss fish I think. They love to shelter in the shadow under boats.

Still no solution to the motor repair under the warrantee yet. I went twice to the boatyard office today, also contacted the Parsun dealer in Malta who was able to tell me the nearest one in Italy, almost 800 km away. Apparently to get a warrantee claim started a Parsun dealer must inspect the motor. The yard manager will call the Southern Italy dealer to discuss on Monday. Will I have to drive to Napoli, or take a ferry to Malta just to get a dealer to look at it? I hope not. I really regret not buying a Honda or Yamaha with their strong dealer networks. It is all down to money. I would have had to pay about double for an electric start from these trusted brands, which I did not have at the time.