Last few days in Ragusa, already?!

I’m writing this update on a train half way between London and Hastings. “How did they end up in England?” I hear you ask. Frankly, we’re wondering the same thing because last time we checked we were in Sicily on the boat drinking prosecco. A lot has happened since our last post, so you’d better grab a coffee. 🙂

When we arrived in Ragusa, we had a few days getting settled in, finding out where everything was and meeting some of our fellow liveaboards. The night after we arrived there was a small music concert held on the main pontoon which gave us a great opportunity to introduce ourselves. A few days later on Wednesday we left for Spain. Tom’s family were staying in the apartment so we took the opportunity to catch up with them and my Dad. We left the marina on the 05:30 bus and finally arrived in the apartment (near Marbella in southern Spain) at 22:00. We deliberately bought the cheapest flight tickets we could find but it did mean flying via Milan with a 6 hour stop over which made for a really long day.

We spent a lovely few days together and were happy the weather cheered up after it poured with rain on the first day we arrived. I drove into the mountains to visit Dad and Sue for a night whilst Tom and family had a relaxing few days by the pool. On Sunday we got together for a joint family lunch where Tom and his 14 year old niece acted as Chief Translators which helped the conversation flow between the two ends of the table. Afterwards we had a much needed wander along the promenade to walk off our lunch. On Wednesday 15th we headed back to Ragusa, a trip which again took us nearly 15 hours.

On Thursday morning we tuned into The Net. It’s a morning gathering on VHF CH74 where the liveaboards share details on topics such as the weather, social events and things to buy and sell. We were horrified to hear about the tragic drowning of a man the previous evening whilst swimming in the sea, then even more so when we learnt it was the father of a couple we’d met just weeks before. Such a tragedy.

I’m still not answering how we ended up in England, am I? Right. During the summer Tom and I were loosely discussing whether we should try to find some contract work over the winter. Not much sailing generally happens between November and April so what lay in store for us was 6 months in the marina. Whilst there was no chance of us getting bored given the very active social scene, Tom especially thought we should at least try to fill up the sailing kitty. Frankly I’d have been happy drinking prosecco all day, but he had a point 😉 So around September time he got in touch with a few people in his network, and sooner than we expected we had a lead; the possibility of a 6 month contract in Warrington, located in the UK between Liverpool and Manchester.

Talks got started after we’d returned from Spain, and whilst they progressed we slowly got started on our winter job list. These included getting the outboard repaired, sending off the drowned chartplotter, finding a sail maker, winterising the engine, filling up with diesel etc. The other thing we wanted to do was try out the cockpit tent, which is a special purpose tent made to cover the cockpit to protect it from the elements. We’ve been carting it around since we left the Netherlands and on more than one occasion we’ve threatened to jettison it, but we wanted to give it one final chance.

As we unpacked it we’d forgotten how well made it was and were delighted to find it still fitted over our new spray hood. If it stood up to the 40 knot winds and torrential rain expected over the coming days it would stay on over the winter. It did a sterling job, so on it stayed.

Tom’s talks with the company went really well and before we knew it he’d agreed to start a 6 month contract beginning on the 1st of November! We booked flights to Birmingham for Friday 26th October giving us exactly 10 days left in the marina. I started madly applying for jobs via every channel I could think of, but I was off to a slow start as there were very few in Liverpool or Manchester so I started looking in London. None looked terribly interesting until I came across one in particular. I wrote a detailed cover letter, attached my CV and tried my luck. The next day the recruiter called, and over the next few days I had my first two phone interviews. We also started the search for somewhere to live. Tom’s company would put us up in a hotel for 2 weeks, which was great, but we had to get a move on.

Tom and I now started discussing the reality of me working in London, and how we’d cope with living apart during the week after having been together 24/7 for the past half a year!

We made the most of our last few days in Sicily. We met some wonderful people, had a few boat parties, attended a couple of happy hours, a concert, long lunches in the sun and in amongst all that we managed to get through our winter list. The most arduous job of all was packing everything away which had the potential to go mouldy and sorting through all the food. By the end of it the boat looked an absolute mess, strewn with propped up cushions and plastic bags but hopefully it’ll do the trick.