39.12.065N 9.07.517E

We have been settling into life in Cagliari once again. Most importantly we have a spot in the marina that is much more sheltered than last year so hopefully any high winds will not appear to be as bad.

The weather is still warm, however we think it’s cold after the 30+C heat of the summer. The temperature has dropped to the mid 20’s now. Most afternoons we get a thunderstorm or at least some rain. This has caught us out on a few occasions. The main one when we had hired one to the marina cars to go to Carrefour. Just as we were ready to head back the heavens opened. We had to negotiate some serious flooding in the car park!! When we got back to the marina it was totally dry – they had not had the rain at all.

We have managed a few trips out shopping. Gert and Marianne (Cherazada) kindly gave us a lift to Lidl and also to the Market. Anne had a “girls” trip out with Kath (Blue Elephant) and Julia (Wild Oats) once again to Lidl and also to a couple of material shops. We have also used the hire car from the marina to go to Carrefour, Lidl (again) and the outlet mall. Anne now has a lovely pair of long Italian boots for the winter and we are stocked up on lot of Italian goodies.

It was still a shock to see the price of food compared to Tunisia – there is absolutely no way we can afford to buy large bags full of limes for Tequila. Many identical foods are 10x the price compared to Tunisia. However on the plus side in Italy there is a massive amount of variety and it is generally much better quality.

Anne’s boots - with the posh box in the background!                  The marina hire cars

This month we decided to take a degree in “the art of batteries” – although not by choice.

Our batteries on the boat have finally given up. However we were expecting a much greater life than the 4 years we have used them. After much investigation by ourselves and the battery manufacturer, the conclusion was they were incorrectly wired in parallel. In summary, although we had all the plus and minus terminals connected together (well not the +ve and –ve together but you know what I mean), the wires leading off to charger/load were both connected to the first battery. It should have been wired such that one of the cables went to the first battery and the other to the last battery in the bank. This ensures all batteries are used equally and hence you get maximum life from the batteries.

We had a day of weight training as we changed all 5 batteries – fortunately we opted for relatively small batteries that “only” weigh 43Kg each. We also had a little problem in that one of the batteries was from a different batch run. However the shop is arranging to change it such that all 5 are from the same batch. Apparently each batch run are made slightly differently and therefore they have slightly different characteristics. All batteries in one bank need to be absolutely identical to ensure maximum life.

The old batteries (the little black things on the batteries are temperature sensors as

the batteries need different charging voltages depending on their ambient temperature).

The only real problem we have had this month is Stephen needing to visit the dentist which ended up with him having a tooth removed. He does a very good impression of a bear with a sore head (Stephens words not Anne’s).

Last winter we watched the DVDs on the laptop. However the laptops DVD drive is starting to complain (via email J). We have now purchased a small flat screen TV and DVD player.

The social life in the marina is now in full swing. We were expecting lots of new people however it appears to be mostly the same old faces. There were 3 boats we knew would still be here Wild Oats, Brumby and White Pearl but for a variety of reasons others from last year are back. So far there have been 3 BBQ’s: the first was a Hawaiian night – loud shirts and shorts obligatory, the second BBQ was to use up the meat left over from the first one (not our favorite BBQ for obvious reasons). The most recent was for Max’s birthday  - Max owns the marina with his dad Antenello. Stephen went along to the local table football on Monday mornings for a few weeks. However he decided that although it was fun occasionally it was not something he wants to do each week. It was fun meeting new people and some local Italians.

Antenello has adopted a new puppy. He now has 6 dogs. The puppy was abandoned in the boat yard in the pouring rain. At first Antenello was not going to keep her but she has fitted in with the rest of the dogs and everyone in the marina loves her. The dogs still ignore our cats and vice versa so everyone is happy and content.

Finally, in case you noticed the lack of blogs, we have decided to blog at the end of each month this winter.

View from our boat – much improved from last year as the dry dock has gone; we can see the football stadium very well now.