Thursday 5 September 2019

A day in port.  It was a crew change day, with Giorgia leaving us and Teresa arriving. 

It started with a guy coming down the pontoon while we were eating breakfast on deck.  He asked if we would be interested in buying some local cheese.  When we said we would, he went away to get samples.  It transpired that he was a local shepherd, and was also the cheese maker. He brought back 4 different varieties for us to try, and the strongest was selected.  He then said that the amount were wanted to buy was less than the minimum quantity, but we noticed that his partner was having the same conversation with the boat next door, and we agreed to buy jointly, which seemed to work for everyone.

Chris and Giorgia headed for a beach, while Tricia and I attended to chores. We had been told that we could get the laundry collected and returned after 24 hours, however, when we took it to the office, we discovered that the woman who did this was out of town for the day so it was not possible.  There was however a launderette in the town, where we could take our washing. We duly did this, and with mixed success.  We had been told that detergent was included in the price, so did not put any in. However, it became evident that none was dispensed, so we had very nicely rinsed laundry, rather than properly cleaned.

Giorgia headed off in the late afternoon, to catch the bus to Alghero and her flight. All went smoothly as far as I know.  

Later we had to meet Teresa, another friend from the sailing club, who has been with us before. She was arriving at Olbia airport on the north east of Sardinia, and we had originally expected to meet at a place called Porto Torres. It has not had good write ups and so we had chosen not to go there, and now had to update Teresa’s transfer plans. The marina said that they had a courtesy car that we could use, and so we arranged to use it, with the plan that Teresa would take the train to the nearest largish city, Sassari, and we would drive over and collect her.  This all seemed like a very convenient solution to the plan. All was going well until we were stopped by the police as we drove in to Sassari, who told us that the car was not insured, and this was a “very big problem”. It was late in the evening and although we had phone numbers, the office at the marina was long closed, and there was only a night watchman on guard duty. We phoned Tricia was we had left at the boat and asked her to go and find the guard to see if he could help. Neither spoke much of the others language and Chris and I were only doing slightly better with the policeman. Eventually his partner spoke to someone on the phone who knew the marina owner and it was agreed that we would just finish our journey and return to the marina with Teresa. The rest would be sorted out between the marina and the police later.  Poor Teresa was by this time standing outside the deserted station, with only a message saying that we were near, but delayed and dealing with the police.  All was well in the end, we found her and drove carefully back to the marina, much relieved.

An interesting day.

Distance covered today	0.00	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	0.00	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	1249.00	nautical miles
Steve (and Tricia)