Frankfurt to Venice

After landing at Frankfurt and getting off the plane at 1330, we had about 90 minutes to clear immigration, pick up our bags and clear customs, check our bags in for the flight to Venice and then clear security. Made it with 45 minutes to spare. We ended up landing at Venice around 1730 and got to the hotel just after 1800. Out for dinner and then crashed. Flew over the Italian alps and the Venetian lagoon on the flight down.

On the way in to Singapore

Going back in time a bit ;-) Took this shot on our descent in to Singapore.

Yeah that's been a long time between drinks

So Covid, yeah, it's been a long while. Anyway, we're due to head out to Sydney on the 27th March and then out to Frankfurt and then Venice on the 28th. Fingers crossed we'll actually get there. Rough plan is CBR-SYD-SIN-DXB-FRA-VCE and then drive up to Monfalcone. Boat in to the water, sail over to Koper in Slovenia. Boat out of the water on to a truck and then up to Tulln in Austria and crane back in to the Danube. Where to from there? Right or left but we plan on ending up in the Rhine river around about Strasbourg. That'll do for now.

Year 1 in the Med

It's been a big year. When we arrived in Italy in mid April and then made our way up to Monfalcone we had a boat that we had only spent less than 1 hour aboard. And that was on dry land and 2 metres in the air.

Now, we have:
registered the boat in Australia
a place to call home for 4 months a year
pillows, sheets, towels, etc
cutlery and crockery
all sorts of cooking utensils
worked out how the satellite tv works and bought a new tv
modified the dining table so it works for us and is easily modified for when guests arrive
We've had guests stay
We've worked out how to drive and park this sucker on diesel and electric without hitting anything
We've also worked out how most of the electronics stuff works and fixed a couple of boating and mechanical issues

Belinda has a done a bunch of work remotely and Martin has done nothing.
We've learnt about the Italian canals and marinas and spent a month in Venice like a local. It's a much nicer place when you are a local.
Spent a month in a marina / camping ground in Italy and decided that was pretty good. (Met some lovely poms while we there and will probably catch up with them next year)
Been to Slovenia and spent time in each of their 4 ports. (And decided we quite like the place)
Made a plan to go round the bottom of Italy and then changed it
Made a plan to move the boat via truck to Germany next year and then decided that maybe we'll give the Med a bit longer
Had a day trip to Croatia in a hire car and decided that we really want to spend more time there next year.

I'm now in the process of learning the wintering process while we're doing the cleaning.

On Monday, Sun Chi gets hauled out and we stay the night in a local hotel. Tuesday we fly to Rome and then on to Seoul in the evening. A couple of nights there to help us with the jet lag and by Saturday the 21st we'll be back in Canberra. Monday the 23rd and we're both back at work.

Oh yeah, by mid December we should be in the new apartment in Woden.

Pretty much, if it's in the red zone we've been there.

Folding Radar Mast

One day when we get to the canals we're going to need to have this folding mast. The fixed mast at the moment means that we need about 3.6 metres clearance under any bridges. By the time we've got this fitted and then fold the radar , TV and VHF antennae down in one movement we'll only need about 2.4 metres.

That means that a whole bunch of French canals are now possible and assuming we get back to Netherlands at some stage where we would have had to wait for bridges to be opened we'll be able to go straight thru.

The job now (after I've gone and bought the right tools) is to remove everything from the old one and then refit.

Guest accommodation

Visitors accommodation. Trudy and Justin arrived for a couple of days and this is the second time we've been able to try the additional bedding. We have definitely got better with the air conditioner and certainly comfortable enough for a couple of days.

It's been a lot more convenient this time as we're on a dock connected to the mainland. No ferries for us.

Morning walks and flex-a-rail

Most mornings we have been walking and getting in 5,000 steps before breakfast. I've got to admit that breakfast here in Slovenia has regularly consisted of coffee and a croissant while we're out.
We've kind of settled on two 'locals'. The morning local is pretty close to the Spar supermarket and the coffee (latte macchiatto) is the closest we can get to a flat white.
For the full price of EUR 5.80 we get two glasses of water, two coffees, a creme croissant and a jam croissant. Not bad.

I digress.

This morning we walked a couple of kms to a sailmaker hoping to be able to get some more flex-a-rail. As it turns out he's on holidays this week so I said I'd send him an email.

This is what the flex-a-rail is used for.

And this is the full version of the shade cloth that we bought from Bunnings in Australia.

The plan is to extend the rail so that it goes up both sides of the boat and when we come back next year we'll probably have another 3 or 4 metres of shade cloth.

Plenty of jobs to do

So yesterday I needed to clean out the grey water holding tank. There's an electronic sensor that detects when there is water and automatically turns on the pump. When it has pumped enough water out, the pumps stops. Sound simple, doesn't it.
Not quite, the sludge ends up providing the electronic contact and the pump keeps going and going and going. Anyway, I got sick of doing a quick clean every couple of weeks and this time I spent an hour or so down there giving the tank the best clean it's had in 8 years. Hopefully it'll be a while before I need to do it again.

We also discovered that the bottom part of the swim ladder was attached to the fibreglass with self tapping screws. Not ideal and two of the four were loose and couldn't be tightened.

This morning instead of the normal morning walk of 5,000 steps before breakfast we took a bus ride to Koper and walked to the chandlers and picked up some bolts and locknuts.

While we were in Koper we clocked up the 5,000 steps so it was time for breakfast. Coffee and a croissant each with this view.

While we were in Koper we also did a little shopping, had lunch and then came home to finish off those jobs.

Planning for next year already

At this stage (as always, subject to changes) we think we've worked out what we're going to do next year.
We know that we like puttering along in the canals and we know that the Italian canals don't really cut it when we compare them to the Dutch and French canals. While the beautiful clear (and great temperature) waters of the Mediterranean are awesome to swim in, we kind of miss the 'just tie up to the dock in the middle of town' that happens in Netherlands and France.

So, where to from here?

We had already decided that although there is a lot of Greece that we haven't seen it is probably a lot more of what we have already seen. Islands, mountains, hot, dry, dusty, all that sort of stuff. So as we head south we would be turning right and heading towards France rather than turning left and heading towards Greece.
Next question (and I know you're probably sick of hearing about the really difficult decisions we have to make) was do we go down the Croatian coast or the Italian coast? From all reports there's a whole bunch of nothing on the Italian coast both going south and coming back up the other side. Some really good spots but interspersed by a whole lot of nothing.
Problem with the Croatian side is that when we have got to the bottom we need to cross back to Italy before we go around the bottom and then back up. The crossing is only about 80km but once we've done it we still have about 2,500km to go before we get to the France border.
Or ...... we could put the boat on a truck and do it the fast way.
We've explored the option of just crossing Italy from Venice to Pisa and it's pretty expensive. Apparently each province that you go thru has to be negotiated separately and they all have their own rules. The general consensus seems to be sail your boat to Slovenia, truck thru Austria to France and then get back in the water there.
Or ..... we could just go from Slovenia straight to Germany and then start on the canals and rivers from there.

I've cheated a bit on the map and used Stuttgart but really we're looking at Ludwigsburg which is about 10km north and then cruising up the Neckar River toward the Rhine. From there we can jump across in to the French canals or continue on the Rhine. Who knows? 

Long awaited update

So Belinda started doing some drafts a couple of weeks ago and hasn't progressed any further. She's busy working on some legal thing for Necia so I figured I might as well start to try and catch up while she's busy.
Today (after the clutch has been fixed) we went from Izola where we are for the next couple of weeks to Portoroz. We left here on electric and got all the way there using the electric motor only. Batteries were discharged to 60% when we got there but I was really happy that everything just worked.

The main reason for going was to go to the chandlery (kind of like Bunnings for boats) that we went to last week and return the water pump service kit that was the wrong one. Anyway, we accomplished that and bought more mooring line that Belinda has been wanting for a while and a new Italian flag.
(When you are visiting a country you are supposed to fly a small courtesy flag in addition to your own flag of the country where your boat is registered). The Italian flag that was on the boat when we bought it was well and truly past it's prime. In a couple of weeks when we return to Italy we will need this.
Coming back we used the diesel engine and that worked really well motoring and charging the batteries from 60% up to about 80% and then the generator part seemed to think that the batteries were already fully charged. Anyway, just another job that I'll need to add to the list.
On the way back we stopped at our regular swimming spot for a half hour or so to cool down. Yes that European heatwave you've been hearing about has been pretty warm.
Anyway, a good day finished off with some work and then we'll go out for some dinner soon.