Venice - Thursday 24 May 2018

Well, we are still here in Venice and it doesn’t look like we will be able to leave before Sunday (though Saturday is still a possibility).  The weather has been hot and sunny and is getting to me. I fell asleep twice today!

The saga of the works goes on.  We waited most of the morning for anyone to turn up and then walked the ½ mile to the office to find out what was happening when we were told the engineer and rigger were on the way to the boat.  So Richard rushed back to the boat and I loaded up the Times on my ipad. The only internet here is in the hotel so we have to come down to do anything.

The upshot is that the water pump has to be replaced for a less powerful one.  The engineer is coming to do that tomorrow morning. Will we be charged for this twice?!  We can see another argument looming.

The rigging in another problem.  After he put the main up Richard found that he could not rig the reefing lines.  We have had problems with them and had asked for that to be looked out while the new carts on the main were done.  But nothing has been done.  The rigger seems to be a nice competent man who was told nothing of the problems with the reefing lines despite our setting it out to the marina last October!  He spent 4 hours on the boat trying to solved the problem which he now says is caused by the expansion of the ropes which are getting caught up in the cart inside the boom because they are too thick.  He will replace the lines, but cannot do so until early Saturday morning. At the same time he will replace the main sheet which does not go through the clutch again because the rope has swelled.  However as he says being stuck in Venice for a couple of extra days isn’t so terrible.

So we had a rest during the hottest part of the afternoon and then went over to St Marks for dinner.  We had a Bellini in a café and then dinner in the Theatre Restaurant by the Fenice.  All quite pleasant.  Despite my two naps during the day.