So it turns out I have not been leaving the boat enough and I need more friends. This sagely advice was administered with out prescription and I am beggared to know what I did to procure it. The advice came from our new chief stewardess and although I welcome advice most of the time this particularly riled me.

Without further waffle let me begin with my defense.

I actually really enjoy my own company. I can talk to myself for hours and quite enjoy hanging out with myself. I never run out of things to think about. This blog is proof, 303 posts and counting. Ad revenues of 5.34 US dollars so far this month. Mind boggling.

I am living on a 1o million Euro Super Yacht! I have hatches to go up and down. Do you know how satisfying it is to go up and down a hatch? Do you know how much people pay to charter these things? I am living on one and we don’t have any guests. That means I get to pretend I am a guest when I am not working.

I have a lot of friends. Sadly most of them are in a different hemisphere. But the force is strong within me. I can tap reserves of friendship at will. I have incredible memories that you don’t just go out and make willy nily with out good legal counsel and consulting astrological charts.

I have made a few friends since being here but the really poor thing about Yachting is that these new friends leave every three or so days. It is very transient. In the last two months two of my friends have left the Yacht I am working on. Alberto leaves next week.

I am also flying solo at the moment. My life partner is working incredibly hard and call me a part time puritan but I feel a bit poorly enjoying myself too much when she is slogging it out. I am also spending a fair bit of spare time reading my huge book of sailing knowledge and debating finer aspects of global politics with the Captain.

Everything Making friends around here seems to revolve around alcohol. Whilst I do enjoy a good tipple I did have a realisation on Wednesday morning that I have been drinking a bit too much. Going to sleep in port holes is not normal.

So with all of this floating around my head I did venture out today for find some friends and leave the serenity of the marina. Alberto was on board and I had a lake to discover.

Lake Massaciuccoli sits south of Viareggio and I had vague directions to follow on my bike.

Viareggio is unique in that it has pine forests, a large lake and beach all reasonably close together.

This little section is dotted with restaurants which serve up great food.

My sole instructions were to follow this road straight until the lake.

And follow it I did.

With gusto!

I did start to wonder at this point. I had been riding for close to an hour…

Luckily I was soon met with the most unwelcoming reminder of the world we live in. An advertisement for McDonalds. From here it was a sedate scurry to the lakes shore front and the home of the Festival Puccini.

/wikipedia mode

The Festival Puccini (Puccini Festival) is an annual summer opera festival held in July and August to present the operas of the famous Italian composer, Giacomo Puccini

/Daniel McConnell mode

Not being a fan of women warbling at the best of times I was more taken with the views of the lake and some medievalishness.

Feeling content and sated I rode back slowly to Viareggio mulling over this very blog entry.

I know I did not make any friends but I did make some nice memories to write about.

PS….

At the risk of being incendiary and nice at both the same time. My friends back home are all very good looking and hilarious. Pickings are slim here amongst the English speaking refugees. Dragons demand the best.