By 0100, the wind had picked up to about 7 knots real, but the seas were still smooth and nice. At 0800, we pulled into the marina. We were greeted by two crew to help us tie up. Christi found the new ropes to be heavy and unwieldy, and the initial tie up was especially clumsy. This marina only has a single mooring line, and we found getting the mooring line situated properly to be quite tricky. The workers needed to come and help us. Tomorrow there is supposed to be high winds, so after the workers left, Eric re-did all the lines to make sure that Kosmos was perfectly situated for the wind. All in all, it took well over an hour between initially pulling into the spot and Eric finally deciding we were situated well enough.

Eric put out the passarelle. The passarelle has been nice to have in all the other places we have been, but it certainly wasn’t a necessity. We could have managed with jumping on and off, which would have been inconvenient, but doable. But not here. The concrete quay is high off the water. For safety purposes with the strong winds, Kosmos can’t be too close to the quay. Without the passarelle, it would be impossible to get on and off the boat because the gap is too big — both in terms of height and length. We are really glad we decided to get the passarelle. It has just paid for itself. However, because our passarelle is both low and short, it is sharply angled upward. The sharp angle makes it difficult to get on and off the boat, making it more akin to scaling a ladder than walking. In this situation, we would be better off if the passarelle had been mounted to the cockpit wall instead of the floor.

On a side note, we noticed that Milt & Judy installed two hooks for their passarelle, one on the cockpit wall and one on the cockpit floor. So, they can use it up high when absolutely necessary, like here, and have it down low the rest of the time. We wish we had done the same.

Then we went to go check in with the marina. The marina complex is huge and the office is a good ways away from where we were berthed, so we got a good look around. The quay is lined with a series of identical one story buildings divided into small retail stores. The buildings are in arched in the ancient Roman style. It reminds us a lot of the ancient stoa we went to in Athens. We guess times really haven’t changed that much, after all. In addition to the retail buildings, there were a few stand alone restaurants, as well.

The marina staff told us that the spot they had assigned us to was actually reserved for someone else and that we had to move to a new spot. Great. We moved right away, and the second time it went faster and smoother. Then went to lunch at one of the stand alone restaurants.

Rather than try to do any sightseeing, we had a low key afternoon. Ever since our ordeal last week, we have not felt like ourselves. We are always tried, feeling perpetually lethargic and sleeping more than normal. Also, we still feel a little bit zombiesque. It is kind of like digital music we feel our capacity for high highs and low lows is diminished, like our range of emotion is limited to the middle. We spent the day doing internet stuff since we haven’t had an internet connection since Tunisia. A lot has happened in America and we couldn’t believe how much news there was to get caught up on. Christi struggled to stay up until 1800, then went to bed for the night.

And for those who asked about the marina”¦ we were told by several people that this marina is ungodly expensive, but now that tourist season is over, they have lowered their prices so it is only $45 USD per night, which we have found to be the average around Europe (however, it is probably a safe wager that all the other marinas have lowered their fees for the off season, too and are even lower now).

And on a different side note, Tai made his flight. The ferry arrived in Naples on time and he caught a taxi to the train station. He made his train to Rome. However, in Rome, it took him a couple minutes to find his connecting train to the airport, finding it literally 30 seconds after it left. He took a cab to the airport, which dropped him off in the wrong terminal. He took a shuttle to the right terminal. By the time he arrived, the flight was already closed and they had already given his seat away. However, they did some rearranging and managed to get him on board. Talk about an adventurous vacation he will never forget!