Friday, March 23, 2007

After 3 weeks

The gale subsided by Weds night, the seas subsided by Thurs morning and we’re in a light breeze but very cold, about 8-12 dC.
We have been here 3 weeks today and on Envoy 2 weeks. Today is the first day we feel we are pretty organized, ready to go and the list of “urgent” things to do is dwindling.
Wayne & Pat left 2 weeks ago but have continued to provide much advice via text, phone & email as we simply ran out of time to go through things before they departed and our only voyage with them was from the travel lift to our berth.
So we’re now fully provisioned, all checks completed and on Monday or Tuesday plan to leave Ostia and coast hop South towards Sicily. The weather is still very unsettled in the region so we’ll be watching this pretty carefully in fact I’ve spent several hours today researching the various ways to get good forecasting – there are plenty of these including vhf (continuous), ssb, navtex and various internet sites not to mention the Mark 1 eyeball.
The marina chandlery has been extremely helpful and helped us to sort out our gas bottle situation and marina power cables among other things.
Di & I have been well and very busy, pretty much going from 0700 to 2000 hrs before relaxing with a chianti and pasta !
Will post more news on leaving Ostia.

3 comments:

Chris O'B said...

Great stuff guys. Well, the journey is "on" and Envoy sounds like a great vessel. I'll bet that Di is revelling in the amount of room - especially compared to the early days of MoCruiser! Good luck and best wishes on your fantastic adventure. Sorry I couldn't/didn't catch up with you both before you left. Say "Hi" to Santorini for me - it's my favourite island outside of NZ.

Chris O'B

Unknown said...

Sounds like you are having fun Laurie. Best wishes from Southern Star in Bayswater!

Ruawhetu said...

Hope you can keep up the rate of postings - have you got any way of mobile-connect to laptop on the boat, or are you still finding an internet cafe ?

One of the things we liked about Turkey was the way you tied up to a town quay wall, and then asked the vegetable shop proprietor if you could use his internet (which he had between the potatoes and the melons) Many of them have put in the system near where boaties berth because where there is business, the Turks will meet it.

Have been studying the Cruising guide for the whole Ionian and Pellopenese and as time gets closer to June, will start looking at our options. In the meantime - have a great trip and fill us in with all the details of the places you get to.

Kevin & Di (2)