Continued from yesterday… Now that the coast guard was done, the police said Tai, Christi and Elizabeth could finally go to bed. The rest of Louis’s crew had checked into a hotel and already gone to bed, leaving Elizabeth as the group representative. It was 0300. The police told Tai and Christi the first ferry was at 0500. Elizabeth went to the hotel, but with only two hours until the ferry, it seemed pointless for Tai and Christi to check into a hotel. Christi and Tai laid down on a couple of concrete benches located near the bar. Tai passed out. Christi was freezing. Remember it was windy and cold, with light intermittent rain. She went to various corners of the outdoor bar in hopes of finding a spot sheltered by the wind. She finally settled on the front stoop of a nearby apartment, terrified they would open the door and freak out that a vagabond was lying in front of their door.

On board Louis’s boat, Senza Freni (which, incidentally literally translates to “without brakes”, and figuratively to “unstoppable”, yet another omen)”¦ Louis reached the anchorage at about 0315 and dropped anchor. This is where the story really becomes unbelievable. The anchorage had poor holding and 20 minutes after Louis anchored, his boat dragged and hit a rock. The rudder made a huge crunch and was destroyed. Louis said it was a sickening sound. He could only go forwards and backwards, he could not steer side to side at all. The boat was zigzagging backwards. At 0430, Louis spotted a boat in the distance and hailed it on the radio.

On board Kosmos”¦ it had been about 45 minutes since Eric had turned around. Eric hears someone on the radio calling a ship passing from Point Chiappe. Eric thought it sounded like Louis, but knew by now Louis would be anchored and sound asleep. Then Eric realized he was the ship being called. He got on the radio and said “Louis???”. Louis replied “Eric??? I was calling the ship passing me.” Eric replied “I am the ship passing you.” Louis had thought Eric was tied up in Scari. They decided the best plan of action was for Eric to tow Louis into Lipari. Louis prepared a line and, as Eric neared, threw it to Eric. Eric tied the line to the back starboard cleat. Eric started moving. Louis stayed in the cockpit, monitoring the line. It was chaffing badly on Senza Freni’s side and Louis called Eric on the radio and told him to slow down. Louis readjusted the ropes and put a fender in there, as well. This seemed to be better. Eric did 3 ½ to 4 knots all the way to Lipari.

The coast guard called Eric on the satellite phone about every hour to check Kosmos’ position. The English speaker was gone, so Eric couldn’t tell him about retrieving Louis. In fact, other than the position, Eric and the coast guard couldn’t communicate at all. They decided not telling the coast guard about Louis probably was a good thing since the coast guard seemed to be easily confused by multiple boats and changes in plans. Louis and Eric kept each other awake by sharing their life stories over the radio. At sunrise, Eric realized he hadn’t eaten any real food since lunch and ate some chocolate. It immediately came right back up.

At 0430, Tai and Christi got up to buy tickets. The ticket office wasn’t open. They called Eric and let him know the ferry was coming soon. Eric filled them in on the situation with Louis, asked us to have Louis’s crew take the ferry to Lipari, as well, and then asked them to put the dinghy motor in our dinghy. Tai and Christi had forgotten about the dinghy engine. They immediately ran down the beach to retrieve it. They found the garden with no problem. They felt like total trespassers, sneaking around in the bushes in someone’s front yard with flashlights. How would they ever explain to the owners if they noticed the lights and came outside? They looked under and behind every bush, but there was no sign of the motor anywhere. They scoured the general area, just in case there was another garden around, but that was the only garden. Was the engine stolen? They also kept an eye on the distance, warily looking for the lights from the ferry.

They called Elizabeth as they walked back to the port and let her know about Louis, that they needed to get on the 1000 ferry to Lipari, and asked if Elizabeth would have her crew mate retrieve the dinghy engine and put it in the dinghy. She replied “Yes, I will have him retrieve the engine and we will bring it to Lipari”. Christi corrected her and said, “No, just put it in the dinghy”. Elizabeth said “But aren’t you going to take your dinghy with you?” Honestly, the idea hadn’t occurred to them, but they assumed it would be a passenger only ferry that wouldn’t allow such big cargo.

Back at the port, they bought tickets and found out the ferry was really at 0600. When it pulled up, Christi and Tai were shocked to see it was a car ferry. Wow, what was a car ferry doing on an island with no cars? The minute the doors opened, Tai and Christi ran to the ferry worker and asked if he spoke English. No. They stopped a passerby and asked if he spoke English. He said yes. It was Mario, our volcano guide. We told Mario our boat had sunk while we were on the volcano and that the coast guard had taken our boat to Lipari and we needed to bring the dinghy aboard. Would they let us? OK, admittedly not 100% factual, but easier to comprehend than the real story. He translated quickly and the worker said yes. Tai and Christi ran to the beach and carried the dinghy around to the ferry entrance. Mario yelled at Christi to go buy a ticket for the dinghy. Mario and Tai got the dinghy aboard and put it in a car parking spot. Christi ran to the office, located about 1/8 of a mile away, and asked for a ticket for a 3 meter boat in both English in Spanish. The woman behind the counter was completely confused and kept trying to sell Christi another passenger ticket. Christi also realized Tai was holding the bag with her money. The woman got on the radio and told the ferry to wait to pull out, and said something else that Christi did not comprehend. Christi suspects she said there was a lunatic that still needed to board. Fortunately, Tai ran up just then, and using Spanish, was able to get her to comprehend what we needed. Christi ran to the ferry to tell them to wait. Tai paid and was behind her by only a couple of minutes. The moment Tai boarded, the ferry door slammed shut and it pulled out. Tai commented how lucky they were to have not missed the ferry, not realizing the ferry had been waiting on them. They called Elizabeth and told her to bring the engine on the ferry to Lipari with them, which she said was no problem.

Back on Senza Freni, Louis realized that he was taking on water. The collision with the rocks had done some damage. It was a small leak and he seemed to have it under control by bailing with a bucket.

The ferry made two stops before Lipari, pulling in at around 1000. Eric had told Christi to go to Marina Corta, where the ship yard was supposed to be, and to make arrangements for Kosmos and Senza Freni to be attended to immediately. She could see a mooring area near the ferry, and on the far side of the harbor was a marina with a big red crane. She assumed the marina at the end was the right place, but decided to ask before making the walk. Good thing, because it wasn’t the right place. The guy pointed up a huge staircase and told her to go up and back down, that the marina was on the other side of the big mountain. Knowing that Tai was in pain, she told him to sit at the ferry terminal with the dinghy and went running off. It was a much longer walk than expected to the marina. The town is adorable. It is reminiscent of Ortygia, but hillier and better maintained. On a normal day Christi would have walked slowly, taking in all the architecture and character, but today she barely noticed her surroundings. At every intersection, she would ask someone “Marina Corte?” and they would point in the appropriate direction and she would go racing off again.

She finally found the marina and her heart sank when she realized there was no boat yard. An old man recognized her as the one carrying the dinghy, and in Italian using sign language indicated that she should row the dinghy to a particular parking spot. She said to the old man “Tengo grande problema! Emergencia! Neccisito English! ENGLISH!!!”. The guy went and found an English speaker. Christi explained the problem. The guy asked when the boats were coming. Christi looked at the horizon and saw that they had just pulled into the bay.

The guy told her to tell Eric to take the boat to the marina at the far end of the bay that Christi had been eying earlier. Christi called Eric and relayed the message. The guy called his friend at the marina to make sure someone would help Louis get in and to make sure Kosmos would get on the crane ASAP. Then he arranged for a ride for her to the marina. Christi never got the name of the guy who did the calling or the guy who drove her, nor did she ever properly thank them. Just in case you ever see this, a huge thank you to you both. You two are life savers!

Someone came out in a dinghy and led Louis to a slip and helped him tie up. Kosmos was put into a temporary spot. The spot they needed to put her in the one where they lift the boats out of the water from — was occupied and they expected someone to come and move the boat shortly. The plan was to lift Kosmos out of the water so we could inspect the bottom, but the crane didn’t look like it was big enough for Kosmos’ weight. The crane operator kept saying “yes, it can handle it”¦ no, maybe it can’t”¦ yes, it can handle it”¦”. But there was no way Eric was going to let the crane lift it up. The marina offered to have one of their staff snorkel down and take a look at the bottom. The guy dove twice and reported the bottom was perfect with no damage at all. Once it was determined that Kosmos definitely did not need to be pulled out of the water, she was moved to a slip. And a tight slip that was not easy to get into. So tight, that once in, Kosmos was touching her neighbor on both sides.

Meanwhile, Eric noticed that the bilge pumps still hadn’t turned off. All night he had been marveling at how they had been running and running, waiting for them to go dead at any moment. Something dawned on him. The two bilge pumps probably hadn’t been working at all during this whole ordeal. They probably worked for a while earlier in the day, and eventually stopped pumping, but the indicator lights showed they were on. So, while all night long it looked like they were running non-stop, they hadn’t been running at all. The only bilge pump that was really running was our stand alone emergency pump. And since the emergency pump hadn’t gone on in a long time, which meant there was no leak. All the flooding had come from the open portholes! Kosmos never hit bottom, which is a miracle in and of itself. Also, he suspects that the alternator didn’t get wet from the flooding. He thinks all the beverages that broke in the living room leaked through the floor and onto the alternator. We have heard of the same thing happening on another Nordhavn.

Once Kosmos was in the temporary spot, Christi went to retrieve Tai. He had gotten worried about her being gone so long and had trudged up and down all those stairs to Marina Corta, despite the pain in his knees. When he didn’t find her there, he went back to the ferry terminal and waited and worried. Once Christi had given him the update, Tai rented a scooter and went to Kosmos while Christi babysat the dingy. Many people stopped and looked at the dinghy, but no one touched it, at least that Tai or Christi noticed. The crew from Louis’s boat arrived an hour later (they were on a faster ferry), and they had our motor in hand. Phew. It wasn’t stolen, the guy was just a master hider.

Kosmos was already situated in her slip when the motor arrived, so Tai and Eric came to the ferry terminal on the scooter. Eric took the dinghy back via the bay and Tai took Christi back via the scooter. Christi and Tai waited to leave until they knew the dinghy engine was working, since sometimes it doesn’t like to start when it has been laid on its side. Eric had a hard time starting the dinghy engine, but he got it going and it seemed to be working fine, so they took off on the scooter. Unfortunately, the dinghy engine died right after they left. Poor, exhausted Eric, who had not eaten in 24 hours, had hiked a 920 meter volcano, and had been up all night, had to row a relatively long distance against the wind. It took him forever to get back. He was not a happy camper.

Tai dropped Christi off at Kosmos, then went to go and make travel arrangements. He needed to get to Rome to catch his flight back to San Diego. Christi walked around the boat, feeling overwhelmed about where to start. The first thing she did was clean out a cabinet under the forward stateroom floor that contained our photo albums. No pictures destroyed, thank goodness, though other paper things in the cabinet were. Thank goodness she was fastidious about wrapping the photos in plastic and wished she was as fastidious with the rest of the paper items in there.

The next thing on the list was cleaning up the glass in the living room. She had put the few undamaged items back in the fridge and got all the major pieces of glass picked up by the time Eric and Tai returned. We all decided to take a nap. We were so tired. We made up the pilot house bed for Tai (since the forward bed was sopping wet) and we all crashed for three hours. After we got up, we did some more clean up. It seemed that no matter how many times Christi mopped up the water on the floor downstairs, minutes later it would be covered in water again. Eric tried to turn on the heater to help dry out the boat. The heater/air conditioning wasn’t working. We pulled the dehumidifier out from one of the storage spaces under the forward bed. It was covered in water and not surprisingly, didn’t work either. It was very cool out and raining lightly on and off, which meant it would take days to dry out the boat with no dehumidifier. Sigh. It was depressing.

We went out to dinner, praying for a really good restaurant. And we found one! We picked the restaurant at random. It was beautiful inside, a garden setting. The food at the restaurant was amazing, by far the best food we have had in Italy yet. Christi got a stuffed zucchini flower appetizer. It was stuffed with ricotta cheese and zucchini, battered and fried. Eric got a lightly smoked filet of sole stuffed with ricotta and tomatoes. For entrees, Christi got stuffed shrimp. They looked like little egg rolls and tasted kind of like those awesome Krispy Kreme like donuts. She has no idea what they were stuffed with, but the sauce is made of a fig wine. Eric got sole for his main entrée in a citrus sauce with shrimp. For dessert, Eric got a pistachio semi-freddo, which is pistachio ice cream covered with a pistachio pudding. For dessert, Tai got a special rum accompanied by dark chocolate. It was different than any other chocolate we’ve ever had, almost like a crystalline, and very good. They also brought out a small glass of complimentary local white dessert wine, which was sweet with a hint of spice to it. It was yummy. They also brought out a complimentary traditional Sicilian dessert called Gigi, which is pasta pan fried in some sort of sweet sauce with lemon zest. The texture was kind of odd, crispy noodles coated in a gooey sauce, and it was super sweet, which Christi and Eric love, but Tai does not. Having the great meal and the pleasant garden atmosphere really made the day better and helped all of our moods. It was a blessing.

After dinner we crashed. It had been a long, long couple of days.

And here is the photo gallery:

Here is a picture Louis took of Kosmos towing Senza Freni. Eric is wearing his life vest, waving to Louis. If you look carefully, you can see the tow rope tied to Kosmos’ starboard aft cleat. With the broken steering rudder, Senza Freni was pulling to the starboard.

Here is a picture taken from the ferry. It gives you a sense of how pretty it is, but also gives you a sense of how dangerous it can be with so many volcanic formations dotting the waters in the area.

This is a photo of the marina we wound up at, taken from a hotel above it. You can barely see the red crane to the left. To the back left of the photo you can see the hill (the one just off the water with buildings on it, not the bigger hill behind it) that Christi and Tai had to run up and down to get to Marina Corta, which you can sort of see in the very background behind the hill. It doesn’t look that big because it is way in the distance, but trust us, it is. You can also see how far away from the center of town the marina is, and get a sense of how far Eric had to row against the wind.

Here is a photo of the yummy sweet shrimp dish Christi had for dinner.