As you know, the mechanic was due to arrive on Sunday morning (yesterday) so we had a quick breakfast as previous experience has shown that people tend to turn up in the middle of eating! However, by midday there was no sign. I popped up to the marina office to find out what was happening. Caterina, who runs the marina, has been incredibly helpful since we arrived so she rang Rafaela to discover that he was about to go to lunch so agreed that he come by at 3 (long lunch breaks here!). As this is Italy, 3pm actually meant 4.30pm but he did stay until 7.30pm. It seems that our problem is a misalignment between the gearbox and the engine so that the coupling plate is damaged. Good news is that one of the only two plates in Italy is the right one for us so it is wending its way by courier as we speak. It may arrive tomorrow or the day after but at least it hasn’t had to be ordered from Germany! So, you never know, we may be on our way by the weekend.

In other news – we have spent the time profitably fixing things. The outboard has been taken apart (again) and this time with a new gasket, made by Liz’s fair hands, for the float drum it started first time and is running beautifully.

So much so, that we took it for a spin last night and had a sunset beer under the town cliffs. Whilst we were there, a local fisherman launched his boat.

This area is famous for its trabucci, which are cantilevered structures over which huge nets are laid. These are then dropped into the water and wound up from the shore. Amazing contraptions.

Other stuff we have fixed included the printer, which we haven’t used for a few years, as the printer heads needed cleaning so, thanks to YouTube, we were able to take it apart, clean it and more importantly, put it back together again! All because I needed to print a form out to sign.

Vieste is a lovely town to be stranded in. It may be in the middle of nowhere with no train service and infrequent buses but it is delightful. A weekly fruit and veg market today ensured we won’t get scurvy and we literally spent a few euros for several kilos of apricots, cherries and tomatoes. They even sell cheese out of the back of a van.