36.46.84N 14.32.74E

Over the last month we have been busy with boat jobs. The new sail covers have been made by Anne, ably assisted by Stephen. The sails have been put back on, along with all the ropes needed. Of course as soon as we got the sails on the weather turned nasty with strong winds and rain and naturally lots of red sand. We have been re-washing the decks on the nice days only to get them covered in red sand a few days later.

Most people have now left the marina so we had numerous goodbye parties.

The portable generator we have needed a replacement Invertor board, so we have replaced that. This was slightly harder to do than we expected and a slight change in design of the board didn’t help matters. However the board is changed and the generator now works again.

We cleaned the pipes and pumps for both our toilets, oiled our new flag pole, installed the solar panels (we bought these when we left the UK and have only just got around to fitting them!), replaced the engine coolant and repaired the leak in the dinghy (still not perfect but a lot better).

During the winter Monday evenings was music night at the local bakery. We enjoyed a good sing song, with live music from the other cruisers. Sandra (Deep Blue) was one of the lead guitarists, when we found out that she had only learnt to play the guitar this winter she inspired us to have a go. A couple of people were willing to lend us a guitar and we were advised of a good website to learn the guitar. We enjoyed trying to learn and so spent a day in Ragusa trawling the music shops for a guitar. We are now the proud owners of a Yamaha acoustic guitar and are practicing each day (providing we are not at sea). Yoyo is still quite fascinated and watches us play.

Stephen making noise.

Finally we were ready and started to eagerly watch for suitable weather windows to leave.

Yoyo always find the bit of sun to sleep in – even if it is in the most inconvenient place for us.