Equinox_2019

Pretty well everything is done, and initially it was a fairly relaxed day. We were planning to go for a bike ride in the afternoon, but decided to not go ahead with this as the wind picked up steadily.   It funnelled down the river, and there were quite strong gusts, causing Equinox to both swing within the berth and roll a little.   All of this was pushing us back and the stern was much closer to the pontoon than it had been previously. None of this was helped by the marina having asked us to give one of the lazy lines, securing the bow, to the boat that came in next to us.   There was no way of pulling Equinox forward on the remaining lazy line, so after a discussion with our Dutch neighbours, we managed to secure the bows of the two boats together, reducing the swinging. We consulted the marina staff and changed the time of the lift out on Wednesday to a time that the wind was forecast to have dropped. During the evening, the wind continued to rise and we...

The list of outstanding jobs is continuing to diminish and we are now confident that everything will be ready for the lift on Wednesday.   One of the biggest jobs remaining was to put a wood treatment onto the decks.   This I have done before. It is a long process of basically painting it onto an already damp deck, twice.   This is best achieved on hands and knees.   While crawling round I contemplate the romance of being a boat owner.   The glossy pictures never seem to include one of you in rubber gloves, and protective goggles, squeezing into difficult corners to be able to paint wood preservative on the deck. I was pleased when the second coat was finished and I could tick that one off. Most of the remaining jobs are now time specific, things we can only do at the last minute. As we were under less pressure, we were able to go for a bike ride again on Sunday. We cycled along the riverbank road into the larger part of Bosa town and s...

We have cracked on with the preparations, steadily knocking jobs off the list, so this has been the focus of these two days.   We have been cleaning and stowing equipment and have got out some things from their usual resting spots to be put away more permanently for the winter.   I was pleased to note that our foul weather gear has been completely unused this year, just T shirt and shorts for months, although we have resorted to jumpers in the evenings when it cools.   For the most part, as our photos will show, we have had blue skies and very little rain.   It did come down for about 10 mins a few days ago, but I can’t really remember the time before that.   A far cry from the weather that we hear is being experienced at home.   We will miss the warm sun, just remind me why we are leaving this glorious sunshine and heading for Britain in winter? Friday was enlivened by the yard lifting a very old, large, wooden boat for winter storage. The boat fi...

We decided to have some time off from the work list, so we took the delightful journey upstream, about 2km, in the dinghy, to the centre of Bosa. In the town itself it is like going back in time 50 years. The cobbled streets are similar to Alghero, but the heavy doors and lack of shop windows, typical of hot countries, can’t have changed in decades. It is full of charm. We walked the steep alleyways and steps up to the castle, from where we had spectacular views up river, across the valley, and down stream to the marina and the sea. The ground and soil looks poor here, so the river valley seemed to have no crops, but mainly olive trees. We found a traditional restaurant, where could eat outside in a cobbled street. The menu had several typical Sardinian dishes and we were able to enjoy their delicious food. On route back, we called into the panereria (bakery) and bought some more grisini (bread sticks). They are wonderful; a world apart from the ones we buy at...

Wednesday was taken up with cleaning, including the Bimini. We just have to scrub these things by hand, so it’s rather laborious, but satisfying to see the result. We now have top afternoon temperatures of 23C, with clear blue sky and a light breeze, so perfect conditions for getting things dry. In the early evening through, we needed some exercise, so set off to walk the cliff path, that we have seen lots of people traveling along. We had a fabulous time, in the late afternoon sunshine, enjoying the beautiful scenery. Some of the high cliffs were vaguely reminiscent of Mount Rushmore. We ended up at the highest point, where there are radio masts, before it was time to turn back so not finding ourselves up there in the dark. Distance covered today 0  nautical miles Trip distance covered 549  nautical miles Distance covered 2019 1602  nautical miles Tricia   (and   Steve)

As we have now arrived at our destination and are focused on preparations for returning home, we will cut the frequency that we write the blog to alternate days unless there is something interesting to report. We have prepared a list with about 80 jobs on it that either need to be done now or planned for the winter months, and I am sure that there is not too much that I can say that will make, for example winterising the toilets, sound exciting. It is good to have time to go through the list methodically, and not to have to rush.  So, Monday morning we started on the list.  A priority was to find out what the problem was with our windlass, as the anchor chain was not put away properly.  It wasn’t my priority while I was dragging the anchor up by hand.  A guy from the yard came, and brought with him a service specialist in our brand of windlass from Alghero. It turned out to be a broken connection, but not in any of the places that we had tried over the we...