Finally, our first trip out to the boat since last October! The flight was delayed but nothing could diminish our excitement of seeing Nimrod again. Liz has been working in Verona this week so she flew into Naples as well. We decided to hire a car this time as the taxi is about €70 each way and the hire cost is about the same for the whole weekend. It was lashing down with rain Friday evening so, despite not knowing the area Jo went in search of a supermarket. Thank goodness for satnav! There was an Auchan supermarket about 5 miles from the airport in the less salubrious part of Naples. It would have been impossible to find even though you can see it from the main road. The area is knee deep in rubbish with prostitutes on street corners, trying to stay warm and dry but not quite managing it. I’m not sure I’ve been on a supermarket run before and been offered extras like this! Back to the airport to pick up Liz and then onto the marina. They have obviously had as much rain as we have had in the UK as one of the roads down to the marina was flooded so we turned round – a flooded engine in a hire car in the middle of nowhere at 10pm was not a good idea!

Although the marina at Castellamare Di Stabia is very well maintained, there isn’t a webcam like there was in Alghero so we have no way of knowing what is happening whilst we are in the UK. I know we couldn’t actually do anything if something was amiss when she was in Sardinia, but at least we could see her. To be fair, we met up with Marika from the marina at the London Boat Show recently and she told us that she regularly sent the harbourmaster down to the boat to check her. The Mistral winds don’t really sweep through the Bay of Naples either and I suspect the UK has had much stronger winds this winter so we shouldn’t worry but it’s hard not to! In fact, the bay seems to be quite sheltered generally as you need to get well out into the bay to catch the wind. We needn’t have worried. Nimmie was safe and sound. We put the heating on and hunkered down to watch a programme on Italy on the TV via the iPad with some cheese and a bottle of wine!

Pictures of the Alps on the flight over and a snow capped Mount Vesuvius this morning!