When Richard first said “let’s buy a boat and go sailing”, I immediately thought of sunbathing on deck, meeting other like-minded people for cocktails, and pottering around little markets buying up local cheeses and specialty breads.
As regular readers will know, boat life hasn’t been like that up until now. We arrived in Sardinia on Saturday, after a tranquil crossing and an engine battery problem (the problem was it wasn’t Eveready).
Alghero is a delightful place. It is a medieval walled town with an attractive historic centre, although we are both concerned about the number of shops selling red coral jewellery. It has great bars, open sea view restaurants, and delightful trattorias tucked down side streets.
The port itself is vast – it can take over 2,000 permanent berths, and there are lots of visitors’ berths. We walked around some of the port a couple of days ago, and I thought I might need to call a taxi to get back, and we’d not done the half of it. We are berthed up in the part of the marina that is actually in front of the historic centre (the town quay), so we can just jump ashore and head up to the bars and restaurants.
On the Saturday we arrived, we headed up into old town for dinner. We found a great bar with a comfy sofa to watch the world go by, but it was impossible to get served. The table next to us was waiting as well, so in the end, we headed off and found an even better spot, but a slightly less comfortable sofa. We drank some local spumante secco. Very delicious and quite low in alcohol.
At about ten-ish, we walked off to find a restaurant, and chanced upon the Trattoria di Mirko, down a little side street. A really friendly, elderly woman served us. I started with something I’ve never had before: deep fried sea anemones. Crispy on the outside, and soft in the middle, with a lovely sea flavour. Richard also tucked into them, and he also found they had a slight, pleasantly acidic, overtone. What a find. Apparently, they are very popular around this part of the Med, but need to be stored in salt water, as they deteriorate quickly. Richard had a monkfish starter, then he had black ravioli, and I had spaghetti with lobster. We were both so shattered, so we didn’t linger for coffee.
Sunday was a lazy sort of day, we found some Sardinian food shops open, plus the fruit and veg market, and pottered around buying up stuff for dinner. Later on, we popped back to our new and now-favourite bar for another glass of spumante. The owner recognised us, and told us he’d overcharged us for last night’s drinks, and so tonight’s were free. We had wondered about the bill but let it go; but how kind and honest of him. Dinner (back on the boat) was fantastic, local ravioli with olive oil and basil, with some hard local, unpronounceable cheese grated over it.
Monday, I had plans to sunbathe on the foredeck etc. It was not to be. We knew the electrician was in the marina, and would call to take a look at our electrics and batteries. A morning for doing stuff on the boat then.
When we left Port Ginesta, some guys on the fuel pontoon helped to stuff the dinghy down into the locker. You know what’s coming next… it was time to get it out. For those of you who haven’t seen the boat layout, this locker goes right through into the cabin store room below. That is, it’s very, very deep! We could pull it out, or get into the store room and push it out.
Of course, shoving a 38kg dinghy in, is much easier than trying to get it out. We tried all sorts of things but there was no way we were going to succeed as the band around the dinghy just wouldn’t fit up through the gap. Eventually I said to unroll it and push it out bit by bit as it would be easier to squeeze bits together rather than compress the whole thing. Richard reluctantly agreed, but added in a rather narky tone that if this didn’t work there was no way we could get it out once unravelled. Hmm.
But hey, girl power (and a lot of boy power), and we managed it. We (Richard) now had to inflate it, then deflate it half way and re-inflate it. Why? [Ed – to get the thwart in] Dunno, but the book said we had to.
Just when the dinghy was inflated on the bathing platform and now blocking covering the complete entrance on to the boat, the electrician, called Mauro, turned up (of course). He did all sorts of tests, but came to the conclusion that we had probably had a duff battery. He is going to pick up a new engine battery and then replace our temporary one back into the domestic battery pack.
After he left, we turned our attention back to the dinghy. It took us a while, but with the help from an electric winch (oh what a joy this is), and a hoist (made out of some washing line, that Richard had brought from Aubeterre, thinking it might come in useful), we got it hoisted on to the fore deck.
I can now tell you’re worried that there’s not going to be room for me to sunbathe. The truth is, I didn’t get a chance. After a few minutes to recover, we headed out again with a bag of washing. It was actually only half of our laundry basket, but as the coin wash was quite a way away, we didn’t want to be weighted down with all the wet washing. We agreed to do the rest on the following day. I only tumble dry undies at home, and didn’t want to put nice bedding, shirts etc in a tumble dryer. While we were out, we found an ironmonger’s which sold us the boat tools, so a useful trip. It also sold huge old lady-style wheelie shopping trolleys. I wanted one for the laundry, but Richard is too fashion-conscious and chic for that.
We carefully followed the picture instructions in the laundrette, and manged to turn our euros into grenotti (tokens) for the machine. Six euros it cost – blimey!!! We actually had the option of having a washing machine on board, but we were worried about the power it would chew through. An elderly Italian couple sweetly hovered nearby to help us. Back at the boat, we pegged out the washing and turned it into a Chinese laundry.
As you can see, life is a real social whirl: we have pottered around Italian markets now, and sipped cocktails in the old town. I just haven’t got a chance to sunbathe on deck yet.
A xx