We hoped to get away before 9:00am today,
but we did not succeed. To access
this marina, you need a key fob for which they charge you a 30 euro
deposit. However, the office does
not open until 9:00am so either you have no access to the loos etc over the
evening until you leave or you make other arrangements to return the fob and get
your deposit back. Richard thought
he had done the latter, when he was told he could just call the control tower
on the radio any time before the office opened and they would collect the fob
and return the deposit. But it
took them over half an hour to do so, by which time it was about 9:20. So that is when we set out.
We are going down the coast. Richard has decided that we won’t stop
at the next port which is Anzio (famous for the WW2 landings), but carry on to
a more historic little town called Nettuno (translation - Neptune). We have called up the marina in advance
and they say they will have a berth for us, so we are in no particular
hurry. Therefore we had hopes of a
sail, especially as it was blowing about 10 knots in the marina, which is
fairly well sheltered.
So out we go and we are finally on our
way to somewhere new. We put up
the sails, but the wind is very light and from behind. We are only doing 3 knots, which will
never get us to our destination.
So Richard decides it must be time for the cruising chute. He goes to all the trouble of setting
it up when the wind dies completely.
It has gone from 8 knots to 2 knots in a matter of minutes. And there it stays for most of the day,
occasionally getting up to 5 or 6 knots, but not enough to make putting the
chute up worthwhile.
Thus we have spend a day motoring, again! It seems to be the thing here in the
Med. But the weather is pleasant,
if at times a bit cloudy. I even
get cold and put on a long sleeve top for a while, until Richard persuades me
to sit forward in the sun to warm up.
We get to Nettuno marina and try to call
them up on the VHF as asked but get no reply. However finally a rib comes to escort us to a berth. And—it is an alongside berth! That is the good thing. The rest not so great. We are at the very far end of the
harbour and it is a good half mile to the only gate going to the town. The showers and toilets are always
locked and you have to call the harbour office to get someone to open them if
you want to use them. Also Richard
had a terrible time getting anyone to register us and let us pay. So it is not a very convenient
stop. And it is nearly twice the
price of the last marina – still charging peak season rates.
We decide to do the long walk to get in
to town. So we start to get ready
on board. While I am taking a
shower, I hear a boat engine very close and then hear Richard shouting until
finally “bang” something has hit us on the stern. I have visions of a disaster, but it turns out not to be too
bad. The boat that has hit us is
from the marina. The only damage
done is a fairly deep, but small nick in the gelcoat. The marina are sending someone around at 7:00am tomorrow to
fix it! So much for a lie-in!
We have a fairly successful journey
around town. We don’t actually
find anywhere inviting enough to eat, but we have a nice drink where they serve
a huge amount of nibbles. We
also finally find a real Vodafone shop to sort out our internet machine. The man in the shop speaks perfect
English and while never really understanding why the thing wasn’t working he gets
it going after moving the SIM between a number of different devices! So now we do have internet access
again.
Finally we find a good supermarket and
buy some sausages for a fairly quick dinner to make on board. We have then
spent the evening in the cockpit using our 2nd new solar lamp. Very good they are.
Well must hurry to bed in order to get up
at the crack of dawn for this gelcoat repair.
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