I travelled to Italy, and I loved every second of it. The food, the history, the culture and the people (more about the people we met further down in this post). It's not like this was the first time I ever visited Italy, I have been here multiple times both for work and vacation. This time was different, I was going to stay on our new boat. Technically it's not even ours yet, but that's a story about paperwork I will explain later. It's not the first time I see the boat as I spent a couple of days with surveyor's a few months ago. Before deciding to buy the boat, we put down a deposit and reserved it. We agreed to bring two surveyors certified by DVNGL to ensure the boat was in good order. They were super thorough, covering every inch of the hull looking for damage, cracks, water intrusion. They checked all the electronics, batteries, inverter, fuses, cables, solar chargers and panels. Then the boat ready for a test sail. She handled wonderfully, even heeled over slightly in the beam reach. It's nothing like a monohull, and when I get more experience, I promise to do a proper comparison. A Volvo Penta engineer came with us, and I think everyone on board appreciated his expertise because when the engine was cranked up to full speed suddenly black smoke poured out of the engine compartment. I could see the face of the seller turning white and I am sure he was thinking "omg there goes that sale". The mechanic opened the compartment smelled the smoke and jumped down to check the engine. 30 seconds later he came back, cuffed a couple of times and said something in Italian. I asked him what the problem was, and he gave me a long explanation..... In Italian :) In case you didn't know, I don't speak Italian. I later learned it was just a melted impeller. Easy fix when you have the right spare parts, we didn't, so the engine was useless. Good thing catamarans have two engines and the second engine got us safely back to the dock. We later got the report from both surveyors and the Volvo engineer, several minor things to fix, but nothing major. The boat has been in charter for 5 years and I didn't expect it to be in mint condition. Not everyone chartering boats are careful or even have the necessary skills to handle such a boat and accidents happen. The seller agreed to fix everything in the report, this is way more than I expected and we happily agreed to buy the boat. I am so grateful to Letizia and Claudio from Albatros Rimini; it has been a pleasure doing business with you and you continue to deliver next level service.
I decided to start preparing the boat for our voyage around the world and travelled to Rimini. It's starting to become clear to me why people spend several years planning for a trip like this. There are a million big and small decisions to make, gear to order and install. Several items have to be ordered to fit the boat and I did not have all the measurements needed. Traveling to Rimini enabled me to bring along some luggage. Finally, and advantage of having a million airmiles and a Diamond card with SAS Eurobonus enabling me to bring lots of extra luggage. When in Italy what car is more iconic than the Fiat 500, maybe not the biggest car but I got everything in and headed towards the marina. A couple of days later the Fiat proved its capacity when I returned from Ikea with four matrasses and a big bag of all the things you "probably need" and just pick up on your way through the store. It was getting late before I arrived at the boat, but thanks to the great help from Letizia who had arranged free paring 5 meters from the boat, keys to the boat and marina facilities. I cannot thank her enough for everything she has done to help us. Not only her, but everyone we meet are welcoming us with open arms and are always willing to help or give advice. (I later learned that people would help even if they don't have to skills to actually be helpful). It was great to get started on the boat-works and getting things checked of the very long list of TO-DO's. While I was working on the boat, people stopped by to say hallo. I even got invited to lunch and a local party. Albatros was celebrating 40 years of service and invited friends and associates for a dinner party in the garden of an old, abandoned hotel. This used to be a very famous hotel in Rimini, but was no longer operational and needed a massive rebuild, but the garden was very nice. They had set up a tent and a huge barbeque. We got served risotto and several different local grilled fish, delicious. I noticed something unusual in the party, no one was using their phone. It's become so normal for most people to check their phone or brows random apps, but here everyone was focused on talking together. Hardly anyone spoke much English, but that didn't matter, we got along fine with hand gestures and a few words. The wonderful evening was quickly interrupted when it started to rain and I had left the hatches open on the boat, I still have a lot to learn about boat-life.
It took a few weeks before we were able to come back to Rimini as we had a lot to do back home, moving out and getting the house cleaned. We are renting out our house while we are on our adventure.
This time we bought a one-way ticket to Bologna, Anicke, Emilie, Fredrik and I left Norway and don't expect to be back any time soon. Christoffer is meeting us in Croatia in about 1 month. Once again Letizia had prepared everything for us. We travelled together with our very good friend Fredrik, Karine and their daughters Iben and Signe. Fredrik also has a Eurobonus membership and was able to help us with some of the luggage. We had 12 bags packed to the max of the airlines weight limit. This time I rented a slightly larger car; I would not have been able to fit all the luggage in the Fiat 500 and we preferred to have an electric car. It took us several days to get sorted and find a space for everything, I am sure we will have to reorganize in the future.
In advance I had tried to order as much as possible of the equipment we needed, but the list of items to buy and install continued to grow and is still growing.
Refitting a boat for a long voyage and converting a charter boat to a liveaboard is not a small task. We are beyond grateful to DeWalt for giving us a lot of power tools and to Hilde for enabling this collaboration, the tools have been put to good use already.
Italy is a beautiful country, we have travel here many times before, but this time it's the people we meet is what makes it special. Aways helpful, welcoming and interested in getting to know us. Pietro and Sabrina invited us over for dinner on their boat, Andronica, with their friends. Pietro took us out on a short sail with his boat. Turns out he is an editor and journalist at Corriere Romagna and wrote this lovely article about our adventure.
In a later post I will go into details about all the upgrades and changes we have made and are in the process of making, but it's so much and deserves its own nerd post.
Quentin is taking care of us; at times I think he is slightly frustrated by all the things we havent thought of, like buying paper charts and making a detailed route including safe harbours. He called the store to make sure they had the propper charts and sent me off to buy them. With the charts in hand, he guided us through the entire costline of Croatia. All the harbours and marinas worth visiting and all the places to avoid due to local weather systems making it unsuitable for sailing.
When talking about things I love in Italy, ice cream deserves to be mentioned. With the exception of Anicke's homemade ice cream, nothing can compare to the Italian Gelato.
We had a plan to sail to Venice, inside the lagune and up to Piazza San Marco, but as I am writing this our plans had to change. Bureaucracy is stopping us from leaving the country. The cancelation of the Italian registration and new registration in Norway is delayed (or just taking a very long time). Without the propper paperworks we can't leave. Letizia is doing everything she can to get things fixed, but even she cannot change the formal bureaucracy of Rome. I guess this is something we just have to get used to. All the hours of watching YouTube sailers had mentally prepared me for un-planned changes and delays, it's just part of boat-life and the positive aspect is now we get more time to prepare the boat. There is no telling how long we have to wait and how much of our travel plans in Croatia has to change. Now that we are stuck in port waiting for our paperwork and italian bureaucracy Pietro offered to show us around and make our prolonged stay a nice one.
We have been together with our friends for a week now. They have been super helpful, driving us around looking for items we need and giving us a pair of beautiful wooden chairs for the cockpit saloon. As always, it's been a pleasure spending time with all of you and looking forward to seeing you again in Vanuatu ;)
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