To experience sunsets in an anchorage is gigantic. We are happy every time we see one and can't get enough of it. Even if we have experienced the hundredth or thousandth, it will fascinate us as much as the very first one. It is no less with sunrises, whereby this one, too at least for one crew member, seems to be unreachable and for the other crew member can be experienced sometimes only by his senile bedtime escape.
 |
| Sunset in Salerno |
But the sun also has many more functions for us. First and foremost, it is an energy supplier and feeds a 600Wh solar system which, at least during the day, covers our energy needs. Unfortunately, the modules have been failing for quite some time and after only two years the laminate structure has destabilized to such an extent that microcracks have developed which interrupt the power supply, especially when such a module is at its most powerful. The seller replaces the modules as warranty, but it is a huge effort to organize this. The new modules first go to our home. Here already times an advantage of the home address shows up. The old modules have to be sent back for warranty reasons. Easier said than done. First we disassembled the modules, four of them. We spent a whole day to find a packaging company that produces cardboard in the right size. Nothing easier than that, what's Google for. But the addresses that Google gave us were mostly fake addresses, or they didn't open the door for us at all. At least that's how we got to know Cagliari and besides all the searching we also did a city tour.
 |
| Bastion Saint Remy Cagliari |
 |
| Corso Vittorio Emanuele II Cagliari |
Finally, we tied the modules together with 300m of household foil and reinforced the edges with cardboard, from the supermarket cardboard container. Now we had to find a shipper. As a private person you can usually only send small packages here in Italy. But such a solar module has a length of 1,5(1)m x 0,70m x 0.01m. UPS, DHL, SAD and what they are all called, take no less than 375€ for the transport from Italy to Germany. If someone searches in vain for the comma at 375 then he has simply read correctly. So it was necessary to find an alternative. Posteitaliane, one hardly believes it, was the alternative. Though one can send also here only maximally 1.5 m, and one does not believe how exactly an Italian post office official can measure, however, the one cm we have discussed after a while away. A nice young lady helped us a little bit and after I took off my sunglasses, with my blue eyes, the dachshund look on, she was incredibly helpful. So we lifted the package from our boat, 23kg and incredibly bulky, into our dinghy and drove to the marina. Although we had moored at the jetty countless times in the last few days, a marinero came up and told us that we could not moor here and had to go to the other side. Great, but what the heck, let's just drag the 23kg a few hundred meters further. We packed the modules on our scooter and made our way to the next post office, which we reached after about 3km.
 |
| Parcel delivery in italian |
As already mentioned, the first question was whether the postal service would transport the parcel at all. In the end, the problem was not the length but the thickness. Besides the maximum length, there is also a minimum thickness that can be transported and that is 5cm. But the package was only 3cm thick and so the dachshund's gaze had to be held out again. After all the forms were filled out and the address labels were applied according to the instructions, it was time to pay. The young postal employee got a shock, partly tumultuous scenes happened behind the counter, the boss and two other people were called and a longer discussion began. That can't be, she said, do you know what it costs? 100€! Everybody was embarrassed and they were looking for solutions, which were not found in the end. In the end we paid 106,94€ for a package to Germany, which will most likely end up in a container right away. We were just glad that we didn't have to drag it back again and hope that it will arrive sometime.
 |
| Sunset Marina d'Arechi |
At the moment, the beauty of the sun is limited to the rising and setting of the sun, and to generate electricity, our wind generator has to do twice as much work when the wind is there. During the last days we couldn't complain, because the Mistral foothills have made life here in the bay quite exciting. We are still waiting here in Poetto for our guest Peter, who will join us on Friday to accompany us on our way to Northern Sardinia. Originally we wanted to sail along the west coast of Sardinia, but unfortunately the weather forecast predicts north-westerly winds for the next few days and it will be difficult to get north. So we will try to sail over the east coast. That's 30 more miles, but hopefully more relaxed.
 |
| Anchorage Poetto |
Tomorrow we have our first interview for the ADAC magazine, I'm curious to see how it goes. It certainly can't hurt if we become a bit more popular in the scene. How it all went and if Peter tolerated the seafaring, we will tell you next time, until then as always faie winds and keep stiff upper lip.
.
Comments
Post a Comment