I arrived late on Tuesday evening, having waited for the plane to disembark (too many passengers in passport control) then waited for the luggage (no explanation) and finally for a taxi! By the time I got to the boat, it was well after 1am. I still needed to get on board, connect the electricity and make the bed. By 2.30am, I was finally in bed. You can imagine my joy when a boat came in  next to us at 8am and then Peter delivered our new gangplank at 9am. I gave up then and got up!

Wednesday was spent shopping and generally sorting the boat out. I wanted to spend a relatively quiet day as I had my Advanced Open Water Diving course the following day. The course comprises of 5 dives, the first two were Underwater Navigation and Buoyancy. We went to two wrecks but unfortunately operator error meant the Go Pro failed. The picture is off the Internet. Wreck X127 was used in Gallipoli in WWI before being sunk off Manoel Island, Malta in WWII.

Suffice to say that I slept like a log on Thursday night. I was supposed to finish my course on Saturday but we had work being done on Nimrod then so I’ve postponed the rest of it to early next week.

The boat is in good order generally although we haven’t yet taken her out for a shakedown sail. I have given her a good clean inside and ensured things are working such as the fridge, bow thruster, engine starts – that sort of thing. Peter’s son, JP, had to dive down today (Saturday) to scrap the hull as the growth was bad. It really does seem that our coppercoat is not keeping the growth at bay in the warmer climes of the Med.

Kurt, the electronics engineer, was due to fit a new loudhailer and VHF antennae but his co-worker who goes up the mast had decided to go sailing for the weekend (can’t say I blame him!) so they are coming back on Tuesday. As I’m writing this, Liz is in the air having finished work for 6 months so she should be with me by 1am. And then the adventure can truly begin!