Meanwhile it was a good time for the ladies (Sandy and I), to take a 6 day break and see some of the sight’s in Italy, while the guys (Todd and Sandy’s husband Doug), tear the boat apart to pull and run wiring..the girls got the better end of that deal! The guys got cracking on the project, hauling the old batteries out and off the boat and getting the new ones aboard. This is no easy task when you can’t exceed 400# on the boarding plank!
There was a fun happy hour and St Patty’s celebration with live music put on by an Irish cruising couple at the local “Stella Bar”, which coincided with Todd’s birthday. It didn’t top his birthday in Malarkey Mx, but it did finish with Sicilian pizza so it was a pretty good one!
Travel is amazingly cheap once you get to Europe as there are several low budget flight options available on Ryan Air, Easy Jet, Veuling, etc. (Train travel was more expensive by far). Sandy and I just found the cities with the cheapest flight’s for the time period we were looking at, and decided to fly from Catania to Florence, train from Florence to Rome (on Saturdays this was offered as a 2 for 1 fare which made it the same price as flying), with the return flight to Catania from Rome. So that total was 74 euro each, unbelievable eh! We had decided to spend 3 night’s in each place and do one long day trip (Cinque Terre from Florence, and Pompeii/Naples from Rome), so we didn’t have to be packing up and moving too frequently. In the meantime, things moved ahead with the list and the guys fixed a bunch of stuff on the generator; boost pump, D/C leads, changed out the generator breaker box, and also replaced the master (shore side) plug.
Buenasera! sooooooo nice to be back to living the cruising life vicariously…..assuming one goes off on the Italian city tour while the hard work is being done aboard!!! Keep the blogging coming!