What a first week this has been – Road Trip, Soaring Temperatures, The Godfather Homage, Boat DIY Marathon and Old Friends!

As a reminder, on 2nd May we left Mossy Joe in the capable hands of the previous owners, Marc & Claudia, in Capo d’Orlando in Sicily agreeing that we would meet on 8th July in Athens. Part of the agreement is that we would take Marc’s car, which he had left in Sicily, to him in Athens so that he could drive home to Switzerland. Hence our Road Trip!

After an overnight stay in Palermo, in a fab B&B opposite the station (very important as we had 5 suitcases to manage!) we took the train early the next morning to Capo d’Orlando. Italian trains are incredible – air con, USB ports, comfy seats, special area for bikes and luggage, clear information on the screens in carriages and all for 10 Euros per person for a 2 hour trip!

After picking up Marc’s fabulous car/van we loaded it up with the many parcels containing ‘things for the boat’ that Jacques had organised to be delivered to Capo d’Orlando marina. I was amazed that this endeavour had worked so well, 7 parcels including 24 litres of Ricard, had been sent from various suppliers in Europe and all successfully delivered and held by the Security team at the marina! All except one – the new winch which has been following us around Europe and we hope catches us with us soon!

From the marina we headed straight off to Savoca, about a 2 hour drive away. Savoca is a stunning village, famous for having been the location where some scenes from The Godfather were filmed. In the film, the Bar is owned by a man named Vitelli, and it is where Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino) meets and falls in love with Vitelli’s daughter, Apollonia. The Church is where the scenes of their subsequent marriage were filmed!

After a pleasant 18 hours in Savoca, the next morning we hit the road to head north to Bari in mainland Italy and to our ferry that would take us to the west coast of Greece. We had booked an overnight ferry so that we would arrive at a reasonable hour ahead of the 5 hour drive to Athens.

I love ferries, this one was great fun and our cabin was exceptional! Not everyone on board though had the luxury of a cabin!

At last we arrived in Athens and back with Mossy Joe – we were both so excited to be reunited with the boat! The downside is that there were many jobs to do before we could head off and life in a marina with temperatures of 35+ is no fun! More on this in the next post – it will read like porn for DIYers!!

We had all day Sunday with Marc, Claudia and Galileo on the boat and Monday morning we helped our lovely friends pack up and with some emotion waved them off – we have high hopes of meeting them again somewhere in the World when they get their new Neel 52 next year!

More soon to include the arrival of Charlie, DIY heaven and reunion with another wonderful old friend!