Friday 27 September 2019

We were woken early by a large ship arriving in the harbour, their thrusters being rather noisy. It made us aware, that the port is a commercial one, in addition to the small fishing fleet and the marina.

The Sards, we find, are very reserved, but once you manage to engage with them, they open up and are then very friendly. The lady in the marina office gave us her first smile, when we commented on what a beautiful place she worked in.

We had to stay with the boat during the morning, as one of the guys from a local marine services company was coming back with a part to fix the air conditioning. He replaced a broken part, but I was still suspicious that we hadn’t addressed the true problem of how it had burned out. My hunch proved true, when the same problem recurred later in the day, having run the air con for only half an hour. In theory we shouldn’t need it at the moment. When there is a breeze, the wind funnels through the boat and keeps us cool, but in the late afternoon / early evening, when it’s still quite warm, there are also mosquitoes and we like to shut out their access to inside. We’ll have to leave a, hopefully, permanent fix, until the winter now.

Late afternoon, we took the bus to Tortoli, the larger town inland. It was very much a bus used by the locals, rather than tourists. We timed it to arrive in the town when the shops would be opening up after siesta. I liked Tortoli. The shops seemed very nice. The long main street is wide and open. We found a large supermarket off the main road and stocked up with as much as we could carry. The bus timetables at the bus stops are a little confusing, but we eventually worked it out and were delighted not to have to wait too long for the bus back.

A quick wash and brush up and we were out to fetch more water and then head to the Fisherman’s Cooperative. We had read that there was good food to be had there. The wives of the fisherman have set up a restaurant, where they cook the fish. You sit outside at plastic tables, on plastic chairs. You chose your food at the counter inside, most of which is pre-prepared. The pasta dish on offer, they cook to order. We had a proper Italian three courses of anti-pasta, pasta, then secondi (main course). It was absolutely delicious, even better than we expected and very inexpensive. The starter of whitebait, prawns and squid, had the best squid I have ever tasted. This was followed by superb Spaghetti Vongole (with clams), then Sea-bass with roasted vegetables. All this serviced on plastic plates! 

Fabulous.

Distance covered today	0	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	321	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	1374	nautical miles

Tricia (and Steve)