The next leg of our journey takes us from Sicily to Sardinia as we head west across the Mediterranean.  I have been back in England, for the last time for a while as the two contracts I have both end in the coming weeks and are ramping down.

Before we can go, there is a still a list of things that need to be fixed! In the few days, I have in Sicily before returning to England we made good progress.  I moved the fishing rod holders so that they are easier to use under way for Maria – I need some tuna so this is important.  I can loosen off the solar panels and put in new cable ties to tidy up the electrical cables for the solar.  This takes longer than I’d like and I curse the people who cut these for no reason 😊.  On my deck inspection I notice that the swivel shackle for the anchor is coming apart, glad I spotted that, we wouldn’t want to have lost the anchor overboard again.  The shackle just needs redoing but needs an incredibly big tool, it is hand tight now but that won’t be good enough. I also put up the Tensile Awning so that Maria has lots of shade for her week in Sicily. It’s the first time in four years and it was only done once, so I do need a little help from Paul Gray (elite yacht covers) to get it almost right.

I am flying back on Thursday to Sicily night and won’t arrive till the early hours, which means by the time we are ready, it will be some time on Friday when we leave Maria having spent a very pleasant week in Palermo. Maria has made friends, no surprise there, and the marina are sorry to see her go, I don’t think that is just because of the income they are getting from our protracted stay. It’s also a non for profit club so any income from visiting yachties goes back into making improvements. I’m just glad that we had so many people willing to baby sit Maria for me – she can get a bit cranky especially if she hasn’t eaten.

I am also accompanied by the customary bag o’ bits, everything we need from the UK including chocolate, Maria’s 60th birthday presents, far too many bikinis and goodness knows what else, but the bag is full.

We are keeping a watchful eye on the weather and are keen that we now sail like cruisers rather than motor like delivery captains. As we get to the end of the week, it seems like we may be in luck, the beginning of the week has wind pushing from Sardinia over to Spain. It’s not super strong so looks like a reasonably leisurely passage over if it continues. However getting there may be a little challenging as the start of the wind is in our faces as we leave Sicily. At least we won’t have the engine on all of the time, not that we would have enough fuel to “drive” to Spain. I have written that and then recalled that is exactly what we did the other way when we were heading to Italy so perhaps it is possible even if not our preference. Anyway, the flight is leaving pretty much on time, so better than the three hour delay when I left Palermo, at least I should be in bed in the early hours.

After a sleep I am ready to get everything ready for us to leave, recognising that I still have a few work meetings left to do. The blocks need to be changed if we are going to be sailing, put the rib back up on the davits with its cover on, get the awning down and the lazarette repacked. These are my first jobs in the morning and we get these done before my meetings start so it is off we go, thank the marina team for baby-sitting Maria in my absence, lose the lazy lines and stern lines and we are on our way.

There isn’t much wind so we are under motor to start with and when I get a chance I get the main and staysail out since the wind is very tight to the bow. As we turn to head towards Sardinia, the wind comes round a little and we decide to get the headsail out too and give the engine a rest. Before we switch it off, I have checked and the alternator is pumping lots of power into the batteries, because we hadn’t switched off two of the aircon units. We are still at 99% but we haven’t had a problem for a while – although I must find and check that pesky fuse! Unfortunately I didn’t think to check the log, that measures our speed through the water and a week of not moving has allowed things to grow so the pedal isn’t moving and we are not showing speed through the water. We will have to remember that the wind shown on our instruments is across deck and not the real wind direction unless we can get a big wave to clean the underside as happened on the way to Sicily.

We have decided to go to Sardinia to give us a rest after a day or so of sailing before the multi-day voyage to Spain but also to let the gentle easterly winds settle in from Sardinia which look like they will blow us all of the way to Spain – that would be nice. It would also be good for us to get out the twin headsail setup going again, especially as I have come up with different ways to rig it which I think will work better than our first attempt in Biscay. however, the wind is dying and so we are back to motor sailing and cutting through the water at 7 knots under full sail. However, our yachtmaster, Martin Hubbard, (the best) would be telling us off for motor sailing, I’m sure! 😉

One of the things we noticed at Palermo apart from the large number of cruise ships coming in and out was the large number of mega yachts that stayed. We had seen some quite big boats, but Roma at 60m was one of the smaller ones. She is a pretty €30M yacht who leaves a few hours after us but is doing twice our speed so overtakes us leaving a nice gap. This isn’t the case a few hours later when a cargo ship, Penhar, starts to overtake us. We are doing between 6 and 7 knots and she is doing nine, so it isn’t immediately a dangerous situation needing quick reactions- not dissimilar to the scene in Austin Powers where the person is about to be run over by a slow-running steam roller in about 2 minutes. I see her from some distance away on AIS and she is going to get within eleven metres of us. Hmmm. Normally, the big ships like to have a minimum distance of a mile and we recall when we were passing across the top of Africa a few years ago, quite a few ships that adjusted their course slightly when they were ten miles away to make sure they were a long way away from us – we were so bored we wanted them closer! So I adjust course aiming South of Sardinia to open up the gap a little but it isn’t until the very last minute that this cargo ship speeds up and adjusts course slightly. Once he is past I am able to return to our course, close to the wind and heading towards the south of Sardinia. Weirdly, shortly after he changes course radically to head further South which if he had done earlier would have meant he avoided us completely. Maybe he just fancied a closer look at the beautiful Mariadz with all sail up.

What is surprising is what appears to be lobster pots dotted around our path, obviously a familiar site for us but hang on… we are in 2,000 metres of water. Maria’s friend, ChatGPT, thinks they are surface markers for fishing lines for Tuna. As it heads towards twilight and we aim at the setting sun in the West, there is a concern that we may not see these during the night. We are heading away from Sicily, having followed the coast, so hopefully there won’t be too many more of these left.

After Maria’s recent attempts at fishing including losing her lure on the way back from Corfu, she went back to the fishing shop and talked through the problem. He sold her a new rod, a spiky hook for bringing game fish in and a 1,000 meter fishing line with a breaking strain of 70lbs, that’s a big fish! The new rod is setup in the rod holder and her friendly AI advisor has suggested she tie the rod down so it doesn’t go flying when Tina the tuna has a little nibble. There is one nibble on the Sicilian coast but that soon stops 😦 . Then the reel goes mad again, Maria is down below but rushes to the rod to bring in her catch. At this stage, I don’t have a net or anything ready – yeah, ok, I don’t have much faith! Maria’s happy as she reels it in, “there’s definitely something on this’, and there is – some plastic. Oh well, we didn’t have any room in the freezer anyway!

It’s a little fresher this evening with a nice breeze blowing because we are heading into the wind. Despite that it isn’t too bumpy and Bonnie keeps coming up into the cockpit and being very vocal and demanding. The first time I brush her lots of very fine fur comes off and the cockpit tent is filled with little floating clumps of her hair. Her fur is in really good condition which is hopefully a sign that she is well, having fought off the Giardia that claimed her brother, and also not stressed. It is nice to have her company and she does enjoy a little fuss, and then disappears back downstairs to her favourite spot in the corner of the saloon where she feels safe to sleep, having had a bite to eat and a little drink.  At 10pm, we start about our night watches, supposedly two hours each, although we are as bad as each other for trying to let the other get a little extra sleep 🙂

I have been resting a little after our dinner, something Maria struggles to do, so I take  on the first watch.

The sky is amazing, really clear and with no light pollution, you just need to look up for a few minutes and as your eyes acclimatise all you can see is millions of stars. Magical.  I don’t think the picture does it justice.

Our instruments are all turned down to night mode, the raymarine i70 multi-function display scrolling through everything you could possibly need to know. This has become my standard device in a night watch, I get early warning of an AIS contact and excellent information on our direction, the wind and the engine in tonight’s case.

As we leave Sicily, we are making reasonable time. We were a little concerned that we may be fighting the wind before we get the easterly in a couple of days but it really hasn’t been too bad. If I was nitpicking a little extra North in the wind rather than West would have been better but….. I am nitpicking there! If we keep going at this pace, we will arrive in Sardinia in the early evening so a good nights sleep before we embark on our on ward journey to Spain. 

So Maria has taken the second watch and as predicted wants to give me more time as I am asleep. It’s half an hour after my watch is due to start when I am woken by Maria saying “what the hell is that”. It is a yacht running very strange lights – tricolour, it must be a deck light (too bright to be a steaming light) and an aft navigation light. I suspect there may have been a full set of navigation lights but the bow lights showing port and starboard were very very dim or not working. As we slip past the boat around 300 metres away, I see an AIS track on the navigation but it can’t have been there before or the system would have alarmed. Anyway having woken with a start, I am now wide awake so there is a change of watch and hopefully Maria will get some sleep – obviously more than two hours…..  I have changed the warning settings on our AIS to warn us more often and earlier. We hadn’t changed this since we left England, and reversing the River Orwell and Felixstowe, the alarms would trigger all the time. Now the annoyance is when entering a port but at sea a wider berth and more time to react seems sensible.

There has been a wind change and it is now coming from the port side and having gone down to main only, we decide to get the staysail up.  Maria reminds me to set the running back stays up first, it isn’t really windy enough but she wants us to get into good habits – fair point.

We are still motor sailing at 2000 revs which burns about  6 litres an hour. It means that Mariadz can go for about five days solid on engine, although we would never want to run her that low. We cannot afford the fuel, as the last refuel at Maluzzo cost just over €1100. 😳 So as the wind picks up, we have the conundrum of balancing arrival time, comfort and fuel consumption. The information that our engine provides is comprehensive and I will recheck the figures when we reduce revs over the next day.

Bonnie is being hilarious overnight. She keeps popping up to the cockpit and shouting at one of us. She spends time, having headbutted you, for a cuddle and then suddenly worries about the other person and runs around the cockpit to be with them. After a while she will go back down below and then start the whole cycle again. It’s nice to see her with us rather than in her sleepy spot. Clyde used to love being in the cockpit and would often be found cuddling a winch – not very helpful when you are sailing. He did use to scare himself when he triggered the electric winch though 🙂

At about 3:30pm we are, in terms of distance and time…. “Ooh We’re half way there”…. did I get you? 🙂

By 5:30am it is starting to get light, Maria loves watching sunrise and sunset so I will give her a three hour break and then she can wake up for sunrise. The wind has picked up a little and I am hopeful that we will be able to sail switching off the engine – fingers crossed! I will wait for the light before changing our sail plan, we are not huge fans of doing this in the pitch black.

I get down for my rest at 6am. However, by 7am I am woken by the flapping of sails as the wind has died. Maria asks me to get the headsail in and I start but it is incredibly difficult. The line is tangled in the drum of the headsail and has wrapped over itself and done a very nice knot! For five or ten minutes I struggle to try and loosen the lines so that the sail can be furled. Eventually this works and the knot clears itself and the sail can be brought in but I wasn’t looking forward to the alternatives. I wonder if I would have had to have dismantled the furled? Maybe drop the sail first and hope that was enough to ease the tension. One to think about in case it happens again.

Anyway sleep is for wimps, it’s a glorious day, so time for breakfast and the last twelve hour push to Sardinia. Then mid morning the wind has gone as predicted. There is a couple of knots of wind and it is variable. It’s getting hot, down below is 35 degrees and so I have put on an aircon unit to try and cool her room a little. There is hardly a breath of air on deck and it is reminiscent of the last time we passed this way four years previously. All sails are away and we are motoring at 7 knots. That only lasts a few hours before the wind is back and this time in our favour, right on the beam blowing at 11-15 knots and we will normally make just over half of the wind speed. It’s all sails up and engine off 🙂 that’s much nicer as we still cruise along at 7 knots. The wind picks up a bit for a few hours and we are hammering along at seven or eight knots until Maria can see Sardinia on the horizon. We still have forty miles to go to our anchorage for the night and the wind has died a little, and hence our speed. At one stage we were looking to be by 8pm but the reduction in speed has added two hours.

Crossing the bay of Cagliari takes an age, it’s more than twenty miles across so you can see Sardinia and know you have got here but then have another three hours to go to the anchorage on the far side.

Tonight’s food is home made curry, rice, salad and bread and it is lovely. We eat as we cross the bay so that we are comfortable when we stop for the night. we are hoping to catch up with our friend Umbi, who we met travelling through Italy a couple of years ago. He is an avid Lazio fan, and an ultra, but we had a lot to talk bout when we first and he has arrived in Sardinia today as well.

And as it gets dark we approach the anchorage, we are a little reassured to see that the only two AIS targets are ina different anchorage but this is going to be difficult. As we approach it is clear that there are a lot of boats anchored here. We decide to anchor on the outskirts of the area in about ten metres of water. As we get close it is really busy and we are already within 100 metres of other boats. I check which way they all facing before speaking to Maria about where to go. We drop alongside another boat BOUT 50 metres away and start to fall back on the anchor chain. In the end we rest 30-40 metres away from any neighbours with forty metres of chain down – it is meant to be a mild night tonight with the wind not getting out of single digits. Our oversized anchor and chain will be fine and I also have our anchor alarm on in case of any drifting.

As we settle down, I notice we have an issue again with the alternator charging the domestic batteries. We will check tomorrow when it is cooler and see whether this is a temperature issue.

Starting the generator also hasn’t helped since it has shut down with a high exhaust temperature issue, could that be related to the temperature in the engine room too.

It was time to continue the last part of our journey to Palermo, where Maria and Bonnie would remain for a week while I returned to England to work on site at the two NHS Trusts that have contracted me.  This journey should be easy although there is barelky a breath of wind and so we will be using some of the fuel we have just added.  The journey is less than 100 miles so this should be get out of the marina, get going along the coast for twelve hours and then tie up.  Hopefully, in time to join some new friends, Rob and Jo from Anchor Management that we have mat at Milazzo.

There are a few tasks that need to be done before we can get there and I will be working at the chart table for a lot of the day too.  Over the preceding 24 hours, we have worked with a rigging expert who has been able to supply a block for us.  Unfortunately it is a lesser specification than the one we had so we decide to swap the bigger block for our main sheet and use the smaller block on what should be a lesser load.  That said, there is no wind and so no opportunity to get any sail out! The dangling wires of our solar will have to wait and I cant get a new sheave for our traveller that also broke on the way down – again not critical but something I want to fix. The next important thing is fixing the lifting point on the rib.  Fortunately this is above the waterline because fixing it in the water is substantially easier than fixing it on the davits or straps. It takes a little while but I am able to get that fixed the previous evening and the rib is back up, covered and we are ready to go.

Maria needs to get her confidence back and so at 6:30am she takes us off the wall, going sideways and then straightening up once we are past any obstacles.  I’m sure this will be like muscle memory for her and she will remember all the times she has manoeuvred Mariadz in and out of tight spots. We had out avoiding fishing net markers as we get to the North of Sicily for the short hope across the top to Palermo.  Maria has identified a funky little marina, Yacht Club Mediterraneo, which is a little away from the hustle and bustle.  It is also adjacent to the Guardia di Finanza and the carabinieri which, you would have thought, would make it quite secure!

With no wind, it is an uneventful trip over, I am working down below and checking periodically but one of the things I do want to check is the alternator.  After a few hours, I notice that our batteries are full.  It is a sunny day but this is a good sign.  I also notice over the course of the day that there is some power coming into it form the alternators.  Mariadz has two alternators setup on the engine.  The original charges the start battery and then, once this is full, as a mechanism to provide charge to the lithium house batteries. However, the big Balmar alternator is responsible for doing the big batteries.  The problem is of course, that when the batteries are full, you cant really test your alternator.  As part our refit, we changed the aircon units to state-of-the-art inverter units. These do not pull a lot of power on start up but gently ramp up and their maximum drawer is 720W, which is rarely achieved, and coincidentally is equivalent to the capacity of our solar.  For that reason, we have switched our electrical system to allow us to drive the aircon from our inverter.  We would never run all of them and we couldn’t run them for long but it is a way to use excess energy.

I therefore switch on an aircon unit, which will use some of the battery capacity and create the demand for the alternator to do some work, as long as I switch off the solar charging so it doesn’t do it for us!  When I do 1Kw of energy goes into the batteries! That isn’t the small alternator.  My current theory is that there could be a problem with the fuse on the charge circuit which is intermittently breaking the circuit. Unfortunately I haven’t found that fuse yet! But good news is that the charging is working fine for the moment.

It is getting to the end of the day and it is time to tie up.  We are a little later than we would have liked.  As we approach the marina we cant see anyone, and it is nearly 9pm, but soon enough we see a waving figure on the shore, telling us to come in astern. 

We will be picking up lazy lines and there is lots of space in front and a wide area for us to aim at.  Mooring doesn’t take long and we can drop the rib and get ashore for a lovely dinner and a well earned week chilling…. Yeah right!

We have had yet another refit and the proof of the pudding will be whether everything still works. The marina have suggested a test sail but we would prefer a test week with a week afterwards to resolve any resulting issues.

We have a date for leaving but a few days before we  are having issues with Connie, our walker bay 10 foot rib, which is leaking, not just a little bit enough to be twelve inches deep overnight! One failed repair has not filled us with confidence nor has the conversations suggesting we should replace her. A final repair has been done to her lifting connectors so we have to tow her for a while as she can’t be lifted until this is set. That will test the leaks elsewhere!

Unfortunately while we wait for this last repair it is mid  afternoon by the time we can leave which is fine, we will arrive in Corfu after an overnight run early in the morning.

We set off with Connie following behind obediantly. In a reasonable north north westerly wind we have all three sails up in and are making good speed as we head south to Corfu.  After five hours, we decide to stop to load up tender. As I anxiously peer inside expecting some water I am pleasantly surprised thatthere isn’t a single drop of water in there. We have tentative confidence that we have a fix. As the evening  draws in we enjoy a lovely north westerly wind driving us down to Corfu at 7 knots but that dies at 2:30am so it is engine on and motor from here.  Maria and I are on watch and are going through the night and Carlo wakes up early to relieve me and let me get some sleep. 

Carlo and Maria decide to fish for tuna trawling as we go but I am convinced I can see them swimming parallel to us, coming out of the water and flashing the finger at them! They certainly don’t go anywhere near the lures that have been deployed.

It is an uneventful trip down and we arrive at 10am in the morning to check in. Having had lots of work done, I am not inclined to put her up against a concrete wall and so we decide to anchor in the bay adjacent to the port.  This of course means that I have to use the rib to travel the short distance into the port.  Ok let’s get the rib down. Our standard approach is to lower to near the water, put in the bung, which is left out for travelling and then drop the rest of the way. Connie is at this point as I reach into the stern section… Where’s the bung? It’s not there! The sides of the rib are too high for it have gone overboard but it must be under the floorboards, which can’t be moved.  We explore the options and eventually I decide to go with one of the wooden bungs that we have which does the job admirably. As we are talking Carlo and Sabrina mentioned that they saw the boat hook go over the side during the trip too… ah, we will need to do some shopping.

Having been to Corfu before on Mariadz, we are confident that we know the process and Maria has prepared our documentation. However, the new process of check in requires an electronic transit log. Oops, didn’t see that. We get some help filling it in and then do the check in shuffle – Port authority, customs, police and then back to the port authority. The buildings are on opposite ends of the port so this 8ant a quick process and it’s a couple of hours before we are back to the boat, with a dry rib by the way!

We are off to Mathraki, an island to the north of Corfu, but before we go i decide to pop into Corfu with Carlo. The local chandlery has everything we need, including a replacement bung almost identical to the one I have lost.  The last time we were in Corfu, we ate Gyros in Corfu Town but with the the girls and Dario back on the boat it will have to be a Gyros take away. As I say Corfu Town has everything we need!

This does all take time and it isn’t until the afternoon, that it is off to Mathraki. Maria takes Mariadz out of the anchorage, motoring northwards and there is a large catamaran motoring across us. They decide to hit their horn – maybe they think they are in a car! There are standard meanings when you use the horn but I definitely don’t think they are turning to starboard as they plough on with complete confidence that we will get out of their way.  Apparently they have the god given right of way. Clearly our mistake, and we agree to turn behind them but Maria still gives the English flagged catamaran a little piece of her mind…

As we gently motor north, I am reminded of a safari we went on years ago. I can hear a herd of wildebeest snoring as all of the other members of our crew sleep – including Bonnie. I stay awake but the chorus from them all wasn’t quiet! As we arrive at Mathraki, we decide to anchor to the south of the island where Carlo can go diving. So not against the concrete dock in the north of the island – did I mention our pristine topsides….

Carlo goes off fishing and by the time he returns we have a lot of fish and that is dinner sorted.

The weather for the next day is not so good with another north westerly blowing through, and there is no protection from a strong north westerly on Mathraki. We decide to head over to a large bay on Corfu that should be protected from a north westerly wind.

It isn’t ideal, as there is a valley to the north side of the bay that seems to funnel the wind into the bay and makes a few spots that should be protected quite uncomfortable, there is also quite a swell coming in which makes it a little bouncy.

We appear to have run out of fish, so it’s off back to Mathraki for a day trip for Carlo to get some more. Some of these have not quite given up the ghost when Carlo brings them on board which puts a fright on maria as they have a little wriggle, Again we can’t stay late because yet another north westerly is coming through. A return to the bay on Corfu gets us dropping anchor in a good spot, it may have taken us three attempts to find it but this is comfortable.

It’s a short break but we are having a wonderful time with great friends, our Italian family. I even have the paddle board inflated, since Mathraki was the site of the video of Carlo learning how to do this…. But unfortunately no repeat this year. I do try my hand after a few years off, and despite an early swim, get the hang of it and am able to circumnavigate the boat without getting dunked again.

Our standard routing home from Corfu is to stop off at Ereikousa so we decide on hiring a car for a day to drive to Corfu for checkout rather than sailing all the way around to the opposite side. Maria, Dario and I are doing the checkout because Dario wants to buy a souvenir t-shirt, he is 6ft 7in so it has to be a 2XL unless he wants to wear a crop top. Maria and I go to do the checkout which is seamless with the port authority, customs and then returning to the port authority for the last stage. Dario isn’t quite so lucky having walked around Corfu Town for some time and not finding a suitable t shirt in the right size. The drive back is uneventful and we return the car which isn’t even checked, a sort of ultimate honesty bar! Having left the rib at the beach with some crashing waves there is some water within the boat which I will get rid of when we lift her onto the davits. I head back with some shopping, Carlo had asked for 24 jars of Greek olives to take back to one of the largest olive producing areas in Europe! Dario has been successful with his t shirt hunt at the shops in the bay as I pick him up and drop him at Mariadz. Finally back to collect Mariadz and my taxi duties are over. It’s time to get the rib back up on the davits ready for our departure. As we lift the rib, I go to remove the bung from it so I can drain the water inside. there are two there! It had obviously slipped under the floor and only came back when there was quite a bit of water sloshing around. So now I have two proper bungs and a wooden bung but most importantly no water coming into the boat!

During our trip, the World Cup has reached the later stages and we had watched England’s quarter final victory with the semi final against Argentina in the evening we arrive at Ereikoussa. 

It’s a short hop to Ereikoussa from Corfu and the wind is a little all over the place, we tried several different sail plans to get the best out of it but it is only a couple of hours later that we have arrived and are anchored in the bay outside the marina on the south side of the island. We want to celebrate the evening and the last day of our holiday so Carlo and I go on land to see what we can find. Carlo agrees to buy a cooked lobster, which will take about an hour, and we look around the rest of the island, looking for t shirts for Dario (I found one for me 🙂 ) and also some food for Dario, that will be a gyros again!  It’s a lovely evening although the football game had the wrong result for us. The food, drink and conversation all flow well and the evening goes far too quickly.

It’s an early start the next morning with a NW coming and our memories still vivid of the last time we did this and had a very bumpy ride up the last part of the coast to Brindisi. I’m not making that mistake again.  Maria and I set off under motor whilst our guests sleep blissfully in their beds, despite the clatter of the anchor being brought in. As we leave Ereikousa, an island we both like, Maria thinks she sees tuna jumping out of the water – probably flicking a finger at us for escaping our lines again. It doesn’t deter her for setting a trawling line though… 

We are motor sailing to make good progress in a wind that isn’t perfect. Maria’s fishing rod then bends hard over the solar panel but before we can slow the boat down to try and make the catch, he has wriggled free. A little later it happens again but the lure has disappeared when we bring it in – those tuna love a bit of plastic.  It would have been hilarious to have caught something when our highly skilled fisherman was asleep in his bed, but it wasn’t to be.

We are making good progress and are heading to the outside of Brindisi, not getting too close to the coast.  The run is going well and it is comfortable which continues all the way into Brindisi port. That has erased a few bad memories! Balsamo Marina is all the way into port so we take sails down in the outer harbour and motor in respectfully. The team have reserved our spot which is a simple astern manoeuvre and then ferry glide onto the dock and we are back. It’s been a great time and we have found a few things that need fixing but overall Mariadz has done really well and has really benefitted from her pampering over the winter.

The next example explains all you need to know about doing jobs on a boat. We are about to return from Corfu when Maria tells me that the large pull out drawer under the  sofa will not go in properly and she suspects something has fallen down the back of the drawer and is jamming it. There is no access from the front to get there so I have to remove the back cushions, lift the tv out of the way and check behind the drawer from the back. I check and can see nothing there but I can see something inside the drawer hitting the cross member under the sofa. Ok, easy fix and we are done…. Nope. Maria sorts out the drawer and that is good to go. I then press the remote for the tv to lower it back down and it bounces up and stops an inch above its supposed resting place. How is that fair? Carlo and I have the seats apart and the lifter apart trying to work out how to fix it but after quite some time we have to resign ourselves to not fixing it. As we put everything back together again, it is clear that we need to lower the tv on the lifter but you can’t do that because the mounting bolt for one of the sides at the top of the tv is missing and seems to be rattling around the tv. I try to switch the tv on to make sure all is ok. It isn’t working. Ok, this is now a job for another day.

We now have a list of things to do before we depart in a week. This includes finally resolving the freezer, which is now being used as a fridge, fitting the new Starlink mini to the solar arch and running the wire through the boat, working out why our Balmar alternator was not charging the batteries, refitting the teak deck on the swim platform which has come unglued, fixing two tvs and a tv lifter (!) and various other small jobs. We make it clear to the Marina that we have to leave ina week with no delays, we’ll see how that works.

However, it has been a lovely week with our Italian family. It makes us realise what we are leaving behind when we embark on our grand adventure but also what we have to return to once that is finished.

Three years ago, we travelled from the UK to Italy crossing Biscay after an extensive refit. However, for the last two years, the focus has been unavoidably on finishing the house to give us the ability to fund our grand adventure.  This has meant that whilst Trullo Mariadz has gone from strength to strength, sailing yacht Mariadz has developed a few problems. Towards the end of 2025, we realised that the boat would need some work. Based on our experience with Danese in Brindisi, we didn’t want to take it there – I’m not a fan of someone that looks for a gas leak on a boat with a lighter!  We decided to go into the main port and back to Balsamo who had done a little work for us when we lifted the boat to get cleaned and to change anodes.

However, the list was becoming extensive. During the 2022 refit, we had replaced the built-in fridge with a new unit which lost us a lot of fridge space but gave us a reliable fridge. At the time we discussed what we should do with the freezer and were told that the freezer was fine. Of course two years later and the freezer had failed completely. Our first inclination was to replace the freezer as a complete unit as we had done before but we were assured that a new cold plate within the freezer would be ample – we learned to rue taking that advice. However, the removal of the fridge several times, and if I am honest a lack of care with this, damaged the Lino floor, the wooden trim and indeed the fridge itself. All of these things got fixed but it was frustrating.

We have always liked copper oat and three years ago had it redone at Suffolk yacht harbour. However, I don’t think they prepared the old one well enough and I think the new coats didn’t take and fell off. When we got Mariadz out, it was clear that we did not have a thick coat of copper coat which there should have been after two applications in her lifetime. The dryer weather in Italy should suit the application perfectly and Balsamo did a great job of that.

We already knew about a leak in the gas system which balsamo fixed in minutes by adjusting the pipes, trimming and refitting. Such a simple fix but a weight off our minds.

The electric winches are about the only thing on the boat that have not been replaced and, to my shame, I hadn’t serviced them for a while either. We also had the remains of a bolt that had been mostly drilled out. I am not going round the world with an important winch which is only attached to the boat for four of its five mounts! Again this wasn’t a difficult job once the guys started looking at it, and they did a good job of extracting the remaining thread of the bolt like a stainless steel thread, returning the original thread to as new. Testing the winches didn’t go well either with one of the winches not working. Ollie has been our saviour so many times (and will be mentioned more here) and once again helped me to diagnose the problem. On this occasion a failed switch.  The problem of course is that the switches are 25 years old and were discontinued nearly twenty years ago. The replacement is a different size and also substantially larger than the fifteen millimetres of depth. It meant I need to drill out the hole in our coach roof to for the new switches but we are now very happy with them.  I fell short of changing all of the switches because the switch is directly above the electric winch motor and on the starboard side the drive is very close to the switch – I wasn’t sure there was clearance and I didn’t want to take the risk unless I absolutely had to! That can be a problem for another day especially as I have a functioning switch as a spare now. The winches also deserve a service and I have to admit I referred to my own notes from a few years ago, the moment fading as I get older.

Our ST1000 autopilot has a remote controller which is incredibly useful, however after twenty years the battery died. After checking on the internet it is possible to get a replacement battery, solder it to the harness inside the remote controller and voila!

The constant use of the boat, especially for the seven years we lived aboard, had taken its toll on the leather cushions. One in particular had ripped on a seam. Our fantastic friends Carlo and Sabrina recommended a reupholsterer in Ostuni.  When we met him we instantly liked him, and by removing some of the bolster on the cushion, he was able to create enough overlap of the existing leather to fix the cushion. He was at pains to tell me, no kneeling or standing on the cushion, twice in Italian and once in English from his apprentice.  I suspect he doesn’t want us to kneel on the cushion! An amazing fix and cost us about €30!

Regular readers will know that Maria likes the creature comforts and Mariadz was fitted with three air conditioning units. One was unserviceable due to a par that is no longer available and we had various leaks and issues with the others.  At a boat show a number of years ago we had seen the Frigomar inverter technology, which doesn’t have the traditional big initial hit of power. They are quiet and efficient as was confirmed by a very nice Russian and Ukrainian couple when we were in the Straits of Messina. I had decided that if we were going to do this I would get the new air-conditioning units, fitting should be simple since they are a like for like replacement. The job was quite easy for the team at Balsamo and I also had them re-route a pipe that had been fitted wrong originally. Linked to the aircon was the fitting of the new fans. The sirocco fan in our aft state room had finally given up the ghost despite my best attempts to resuscitate it, so we needed a replacement. Maria also wanted one in the bunk room, where there was what looked like a prewar fan, which still worked but wasn’t good. So two new fans were bought and maria wanted these in our bedroom and the galley with the original galley one in the bunk room. Well that shouldn’t take too long…. All was going swimmingly until I got to the bunk room. Removing the old one was fine but the wiring for it went to an independent switch next to it. My initial thought was to keep that as an override but the wires were very tight and the solder on the switch poor which meant it disconnected. Ok plan b is remove the switch, join the two wires together and then use the rest of the existing wiring to fire up the sirocco. I wanted to solder the two wires together, not least of all because I could barely get any slack in one of them. Needing three hands, Maria helped me to do that and after a little swearing that part was done and my trust multimeter proved that it worked. I then go to the wire that will go to the sirocco which is about three inches too short to reach the terminals. More soldering! A three act drama but now we have three working sirocco fans.

One of our maintenance jobs is to regularly open and close the valves on the through-hulls. The last time I had done this I had noticed that one of the valves under the kitchen floor did not seem to work well. I asked the marina to change the valve, and they stated that the through hull also needed to be changed. Strange! Even stranger when they then said that all 20 needed to be changed. Again, if you have seen our blogs before, you will know that we had changed these a few years ago at considerable expense to have a final solution. I asked for the marina to wait until I arrived before doing anything else. In the end this was a god-send. This was the time that they realised we weren’t chequebook yachties with unlimited funds. I went on board and realised that in my absence, the valves had become very stiff.  The boat was on the hard so I decided to start trying to unfreeze these. With a mixture of brute strength and extension pipes I was able to get the, working properly.  When I showed the yard manager, Massimo, he got it, freed up the rest and we didn’t discuss changing them all again!

When in England, we had an automotive fitter remove all of our windows and refit them to overcome a common Moody issue of leaky windows. To our horror, a few years later these were leaking very badly to the extent that our beautiful interior wood was damaged, and water had got into our victron 5kw Quattro inverter charger and blown it. I was able to source a replacement which was easily fitted but it was a lesson on what happens when you leave the boat alone. However, our electrical problems weren’t over. 

The new inverter charger kept tripping and we eventually traced this to the heating element on the water heater. We needed a replacement,ent and Balsamo were at a loss for where to source the UK sized element. Rather than replacing the entire boiler, I sourced two in the UK and brought them to Italy but that wasn’t the end of the trouble. Water had been around the top of the element and there was a fair bit of rust with the element being seized in place. Balsamo fabricated a large hexagonal tool out of steel but even this needed an extension bat to free up the old element. The new element went into place beautifully and despite a few teething problems with the temperature and safety cut off settings, this worked well. However, the pressure release valve was also faulty, fortunately I had sourced what I thought was a like for like valve since I was sure the original was a 3 bar valve. Once fitted this kept releasing as the hot water caused the pressure to go over the pumps 2.5 bar.  I was told we would need a 5 bar valve and this was available quickly and did the trick.

Mariadz has a toe rail at the stern and when docked stern to, I had noticed that the workmen placed a board on the toe rail at the stern. There was clearly an issue but on one of the occasions a chunk of this had broken off. Clearly no one had noticed and a repair was required. I was wondering whether we would have to fit a piece of wood into the original when the yard decided to replace the section of toe rail with new teak. They then varnished this and it looked amazing but of course made the rest of the toe rail look awful. We have tried to get a nice looking toe rail using various products and had shied away from varnish because of the maintenance but it is clearly the best. Maria and I agreed we should have the rest of the toe rail done and after negotiating a slightly better deal by doing some of the preparation work ourselves, we now have a beautiful varnished teak toe rail. Now to varnish it again regularly. Of course a beautiful varnished toe rail has to be adjacent to a wooden coloured teak deck, grey just won”t do. Fortunately, I had some teak wonder in my spares (replacement ordered, delivered, stored and inventorised) and maria and whiled away away a few hours, and layers of skin because of the acid, getting our decks looking beautiful again.

There was a little bit of work on the mast too. I know the rigging was fine but I had noticed that one of the spreader lights had half failed with three lights lit rather than six. I had already found the exact lights to replace them with and asked the yard to do this since I was just too bust with work. They fitted the first light, replacing the failing one, and when we tested them, they did exactly the same! We disconnected and brought them all down for a test – one of the new ones had failed in exactly the same way as our original.  I bought them some time ago so have no recourse but it was frustrating. We have two working ones, one old and one new so we will go with that.  While they were up there I asked them to lubricate the blocks at the top of the mast, unfortunately, this wasn’t too carefully done and a lot of drips from the silicon lubricant cam down and landed squarely on our new cockpit tent. These have stained it badly despite all of our best efforts to remove them. I did the rest of the blocks and running gear myself and they now all work beautifully.

One of the jobs I was looking forward to was doing a full inventory of everything in our storage areas. We have, and as you can see need, a lot of spares and when you need them, you don’t want to turn the entire boat upside down to find them. So one of my jobs was to categorise everything we have in the storage areas. It was fun and a

We found things that we knew we had but didn’t know where they were! The last stage of this was going through the lazzarette. Whilst doing this I noticed the hydraulic fluid was a little low and just before filling it up noticed a large split in the back of it, grrrr. Quite often on boats you find things from other vehicles being used and apparently our hydraulic fluid container is used on a Mitsubishi four wheel drive. Trying to source one in the internet revealed that they were only a few euros, result…. If you bought 200. I travelled around Brindisi seeing if there was anything that could be used. There wasn’t. When I approached Massimo his initial reaction was that we would fibreglass the whole thing, with a fibreglass bracket. Inspired. It looks brilliant and when I fitted it, the positing was not as exposed as previously so I suspect that it won’t get the same kind of punishment.

The rib, Connie, had been on dry land for the winter and it was now time to return her to the water and her place on the stern of Mariadz. One of the workmen, ricardo, tested her engine and made sure everything was working ok and she was left floating next to us overnight.  The next morning I got up to check on her and to bring her round to go up on the davits at 7am. She has twelve inches of water inside her, lapping at the bottom of the battery. I am assuming that this is from the drain hole and a plug that hasn’t been fitted as I start to empty her, initially with a hand pump and then with a submersible electric pump. However, it looks worse than that with water coming in from the support structure for the stern which has a couple of hairline cracks. The guys get her out of the water and set about revealing the whole stern section. The next day, we are ready to try again. After a few minutes it is clear water is still coming in and we are all looking very worried. Connie is back out and in the work area. I suggest we fill her with water and see where it drains from and we set about doing this. Not too deep as it is the opposite pressure to normal. There are a few drips from the stern but nothing significant and a little more work in this area sorts this out. However, there seems to be something odd going on at the lifting points for the bow. These have stainless pads on the outside, one of which has some rust on it and the other is dripping. We agreed that we will remove these completely reseal them and tighten everything up. We can then test everything over a couple of days. As you will see she was bone dry, despite a couple of related mishaps from my side, so a success. Especially when you consider that the yard and Maria were looking at new boats to replace her!

Whilst doing the lazarette I noticed that the hydraulic ram had failed, when the lid came down sharply on me! That had to be replaced and we may as well do the other after locker while we are at it.

Having done lots of work, we decided a test sail would be in order and decided to return to Corfu, with our great friends Carlo and Sabrina with their son Dario. That trip is described elsewhere but at the end of it we had a few more jobs to do…

On our return, there are a few jobs to do, some of which are below but I also noticed that the teak deck on the swim platform floor has come away.  We have re glued this but the full solution would be to replace this – perhaps when we get somewhere with cheap teak! However, a major problem is that for the whole of our trip, the engine would not charge our batteries. Ollie to the rescue with a list of things to check. We went through all the diagnosis, changed some older fuses but still no luck. At this stage, having worked back from the batteries, it must be an issue with the intelligent alternator. I have checked a few things, battery voltages are coming through well, no error messages on the control panel. Ollie then suggests removing the blue and white charge wire from the alternator. It is incredibly hard to reach but I get my hand in there.  I decide to press it first before pulling at it and there is a reassuring click. Surely not! Surely. Engine revs up and 1kw is flowing into my batteries. What a shame I didn’t thing to check this on our holiday! I suspect it had happened when the engine was serviced, it is quite near a filter and I can imagine it could get knocked. Another frustrating issue but thankfully with a simple fix.

It is then time to attack the TV that stopped working on the trip. Firstly it is clear that the tv needs to be lower on the stand but that isn’t possible because the top mounting hole has a part missing, and it is rattling around in the tv. There is also the small matter of the tv not switching on. At this stage I have already ordered a replacement, this has been problematic for a few years now, but as usual I am keen to understand what the problem is. Since I will have to remove the back of the tv retrieve the floating piece of plastic, I take it into the aft stateroom. I actually have a lower supply for an avtex here so no harm in trying… the TV boots up first time no problems. Cancel order for new tv. After removing 20 small screws and a couple of clips for the electronics, I can see the problem with the back of the tv. So I reposition the floating piece of plastic, secure it and put the tv back together. All good. Plug it into the power to check it works… nothing. No. Plug the original tv back into its own power, nothing. Check I haven’t tripped anything, panel looks good! Oh {please add your expletive of choice}. So now I have two broken TVs. I decide to try the bedroom one first. The access is good for the power and I recall there are two lots of power fed from the box, one for the sirocco fan and one for the TV, as I look, I can see a loose wire, I must have pulled it a bit hard by mistake. That seems fine except the negative is wired into the earth wire! The sirocco is wired how you would expect, positive to positive and negative to negative and I decide I will rewire it properly. Once this is done everything is working fine – including the large TV so now to understand what is going on in the saloon. For historical reasons we have a 24v to 12v converter in this setup which the avtex doesn’t need but the original tv did. When I look at this, we have power going in and power is coming out but hang on, the connector isn’t connected. It should be a crimped connector which appears to have been held together with blue electrical tape! Again that is going to change! A nice new insulated crimped end is added and now we have perfect power again. Hopefully the end of our TV problems since I can now mount it a bit lower using the repaired top connectors 🙂

As I fly back on the 24th July, the day before we start the grand adventure, there are still a few things to do and I have a large bag of spare parts, essentials (chocolate and ginger nuts) and several bikinis for maria (also described as essentials since she has lost weight and her old ones now fall off her!)

The last few jobs are;

• to replace the bulbs for the navigation lights on the bow which have got corroded and failed under the water splashing over the bow, 
• Fix some of the interior LEDs which are failing after being replaced fifteen years ago. 
• The rubber around our windscreen needs replacing and it is on order 
• I also need to check the solar panels, I suspect one isn’t working, hopefully just a loose connection 
• Fix the WiFi booster where I think the power over Ethernet block has failed again.

Oh and whatever else breaks as we start our journey …