Shelves left empty

After a restful sleep it was soon time to get the crew up and put them to work. This was no holiday!

Paul now lives in Spain and might be used to the heat but Mick and I weren't and even if it was a bit cooler today, it was still nice to freshen up under a shower.
Once we were all human again, we headed back to the ‘Friends’ restaurant for a very pleasant breakfast.

First job was to provision Eureka for the first leg of the voyage so we headed off to a supermarket but hopefully our navigation will be better once we’re at sea.
The supermarket was down a side road that ran parallel to the main road but due to some roadworks and one way diversions it took us about four or five attempts before we finally got on to the right entrance road and arrived at the supermarket.

I just stood back and left the lads at it. I had made enough decisions over the past few days to last a lifetime and they knew what they wanted anyway.
Soon we had two trolleys full, loaded them into the car and were heading back to the marina without any wrong turns this time.

Once the shopping was stowed on the boat, I left the lads to scrub the decks while I took off back back up the road to the outskirts of Rome to hand back the car as we didn't need it anymore. But I first had to call to the boatyard where the survey had been carried out to thank the owner and make sure nothing was owing for the work they had done before ‘Eureka’ had been put back into the water. Luckily it was only five minutes from the marina.

It didn’t take me long to bring the car back to the office and got a taxi to bring me back to Ostia.

When I returned the lads had completed their chores to my satisfaction so we cleaned up and headed ashore for dinner followed by a ‘Fitzy’s nightcap’ before bed.
We were planning to depart the following morning so we didn’t do the dog on it.

It's hard to think that it was only five days ago that I left Cobh and at last we were ready to begin the voyage. First stop Sardinia.Read more