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3rd May 2017
We flew to Milan, Malpensa on 6th April and stayed the night in a nearby B&B. Although it was only about ten minutes from the airport, it felt as though we in the deep countryside. The owner collected us at the airport and drove us back the following morning, as well as providing a free taxi service to a local restaurant and back again. The property is a converted mill with a fast flowing river running just a few feet from our room, in a beautiful rural setting and we enjoyed a lovely walk before going out for our meal.
The following morning we flew on to Alghero, picked up our hire car and drove down to Bosa. We had the car for two weeks, so thought we could do quite a bit of sightseeing, but as it turned out we only managed to escape for two days and visited Nouro and Sassari. Driving anywhere in Sardinia takes much longer than expected as the roads all wind up and down the mountains, however the scenery is spectacular and the roads very quiet.
In Nouro we enjoyed a visit to the birthplace and childhood home of Grazia Deledda, the first Italian woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926. Her home has been preserved as a museum in her honour and is full of very interesting artefacts. We then drove up more winding roads to Monte Ortobene which offers fantastic views across the mountains and down into the valleys. At the top there is a large bronze statue of Christ which is visible for a considerable distance.
Our second escape was a trip up to Sassari, where we managed to do some much needed shopping. After a wander around the old town we found as nice little restaurant where we enjoyed a lovely late lunch before heading back to Bosa.
The remainder of our time on the hard was spent working through the spring to-do list, as well as many additional jobs. Once again the sewing machine was put into action, as I repaired the stitching on the sprayhood (I think I've just about resewn the whole thing). New webbing had to be sewn on to the awning as we now have two flexible solar panels and Mike came up with the mark II version for securing them.
Launch day was 29th April and we were duly put on the remote controlled trolley before transferring to the hoist, where, after launch we sat held in the strops for an hour while the staff disappeared for a coffee break. We eventually got round to the pontoon about 19:00. Work continued for the next couple of days to get the boat seaworthy - sails up, liferaft and wind generator refitted, dinghy inflated and lashed to the stern. All remaining work will be completed at some point in the coming weeks.
The weather so far has been very mixed, but continually windy and not particularly warm. At night the temperature frequently dropped to 3°C, so we had to use an additional duvet from the fore cabin and a blanket which kept us quite snug, especially as we had the fan heater on a timer to heat our cabin each morning. Hopefully the temperature will start increasing fairly soon.
