36.46.84N 14.32.74E

Well it’s now June and we are still in Marina di Ragusa, working on Wandering Dragon.

During May we have been very busy. Anne has been trying to complete some of the sewing projects. With the warm weather the need for replacement mosquito nets became a top priority. The new improved companionway (front door to non boaties) mosquito net was completed. We then decided to move onto making nice new hatch covers, a cover for the petrol tank and winch covers. Unfortunately this escalated the problem with the sewing machine. We got in touch with the excellent customer support people at the sewing machine company. They made a few suggestions on how to fix the problem, however we have now had to send the sewing machine back for repair. It’s amazing how much time all this has taken up.

While Anne was sewing Stephen was busy polishing the stainless steel outside when he wasn’t required to help diagnose the sewing machine problems. Of course as soon as he had finished the polishing the weather changed to be windy and rainy and deposited layers of salt and sand all over the boat L

One thing we have realised is that we need “weekends” to have a day’s rest. Hence one Sunday we ventured into town where we had heard there was a flower festival,. Naturally there was absolutely no sign of a flower festival so instead we went to our favourite café for “Gelato”. This has led to a new incentive, if we need to go food shopping in the afternoon we stop off for a Gelato on the way up to the supermarket.

We have managed to get to some of the jobs off our list. One of the fittings on the boom was loose, so we have successfully removed the old rivets and put in new ones. Stephen loved this job as it involved playing with two new tools – the Dremel to remove the old rivets and the lazy boy rivet gun for installing the new ones! We also had a couple of bolts holding a stanchion in place shear so we replaced the bolts. Of course this became one of the jobs that created a number more. To get to remove the old bolts we had to totally remove the stanchion. We then realised how much sand etc was in the base so we then detached the guard wire and removed the other 4 stanchions to give them a good clean as well as cleaning parts of the guard wire we don’t normally see. We reinstalled the guard wire tightly which made us realise how loose the wire around the rest of the boat has become. Another job for the list at a later date.

The weather has been pretty good. The first part of the month was very nice. About the middle of the month we had wind and rain, which put outdoor jobs on hold. However it didn’t stop the local Dinghy regatta taking place. In the middle of the afternoon we noticed a number of rescue boats heading out of the marina and returning with capsized dinghies (and the occupants). Stephen went off to the marina wall to get a better look at what was going on.

Dinghy rescue

Last week the wind abated which meant we could start of fixing the leaks in the V berth up front aka Lucy’s leaks ( as we found them while Lucy was staying in the V berth – luckily it only rained one night so she didn’t get too wet). We have started removing the Caulking on the deck which is turning out to be a harder and much longer job than we thought.

Finally it was Yoyos birthday on April 26th. On the appointed day she was very excited and proceeded to run around the boat meowing, playing chase her tail and generally causing chaos. The only real problem was this all happened at 6am! We gave her a birthday treat and she then had a morning sleep.