I had a spontaneous brain wave yesterday whilst I was waiting to meet some long lost friends in Livorno. When you are in a foreign country arranging meetings can be troublesome, land marks can be vague, road signs can be miss leading, friendly locals might have ulterior motives.
That is why I suggest always meet at the local McDonalds!
For those of you who can stomach reading on. Please enjoy my shrewd logic.
McDonald’s are everywhere. McDonald’s are better signposted than everything else McDonald’s have free wifi for you to use while you wait Enjoy using a McDonalds’s and never eat a crumb
This travel tip was proudly brought to you by McDonalds and Nick & Jaqui
It appears some of you may have lost track of where exactly I am. Now that my wife is leaving me for the foreseeable future I thought it would be prudent to pin the tail on the boot as it were and show you exactly where in the world I am habituating.
There is no drama in my wife leaving me by the way. She has got a three month job contract which is wonderfully timed as my temporary job finishes on Friday. The next little while promises to be very character building. Which is a shame as I have always thought I am a wonderful character which has never needed further building just the occasional spring clean or spring break.
Getting back to my map. You can see to the north Viareggio which was the scene of a horrific train crash on Tuesday morning. Inland is Florence, Lucca and Milan they are both tantalisingly close and deserving of my eyeballs. Sadly they do not have ports to speak of. But I do have it on good authority that Milan has a large lake.
Lucca is important to me because it is where Caesar created his first triumvirate. It is sadly easy to forget the overwhelming history which is only a train ride away. Which brings me to my next point. There startling lack of statues of Caesar in Italy! Unfortunately during the Roman empire statues where designed to have removable heads for changes in power. So whilst there are plenty of Octavian and other emperors real Caesar statues are hard to come by.
https://theselines.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Myriad-Lines-1.jpg14132133El Dracohttps://theselines.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/These-Lines-Logo-Slim-White.pngEl Draco2009-06-27 17:53:002021-05-06 00:32:42Friday Night in Livorno
This is a tale of decadent food, a road trip and an interesting Chef with a possibly undiagnosed mental illness.
We had survived a momentous journey to Pozzuoli, Napoli. Our friend had escorted us to our temporary home and place of work for the next couple of days. We were deservedly hungry and looked forward to the yacht Chef whipping something up as they like to do.
The Chef in question was from Argentina. I have not had many dealings with Argentineans in my life. Diego Maradonna I respected and then felt sorry for from afar and that is about it. This Chef we shall start calling Havenofear which is a cunningly disguised pun which both masks and pokes fun at his real name. He does deserve being poked fun at just wait and read.
The Chef was full of bravado and himself. He proudly told us that he was the Argentinean Gordon Ramsay. Interesting fact. Gordon Ramsay did try Super Yacht cheffing. He could not handle having a Captain in charge of him.
Havenofear turned up to the boat late. He had had a hair cut and some savage from Napoli had attacked his mono brow. He could not be bothered cooking but had a friend that would pick us up and take us to a fabulous sea food restaurant Napoli styles.
His friend arrived and six of us crammed into a VW polo and headed for restaurant. It was during the car trip I learned that Argentinean’s speak fluent Spanish and Italian. The stewardess from the boat was Argentinean as well so the two Kiwis and the Aussie in the back started talking about rugby or beer or something we have in common.
Being proud of my built in compass I did start to worry about the potential quality of the sea food restaurant when we were about twenty minutes from the sea. I think I started to worry about the Napoli Mafia restaurant scam that I should have read up about before we got in the car at some point as well.
Section of the car ride for your enjoyment. Still having issues rotating movies. Please tilt head 90 degrees. Think of it as a neck stretch.
It was with some glee that we finally spotted a restaurant and it was indeed our nautical cuisine destination. The restaurant was dead. We were the only customers. Its location meant it was unlikely to get much walk in traffic. It was probably good practice to have a family member scouting for customers.
What followed is with out a doubt the finest meal I have ever had the pleasure of eating. It was seven courses long. In true beginner fashion we gorged ourselves on the first dish leaving no room for the subsequent dishes.
If the French think they invented Sex. Italians surely invented food. They will go at great lengths to describe dishes in Italian even when it is painfully clear you do not speak it. Cook books and menus are all written in Italian you see. I am not jesting.
Off the top of my head we ate.
Squid and anchovies Antipasta Deep fried sea weed Some crazy spaghetti dish Some crazy stuffed ravioli More stuff I can’t pronounce or remember A lot of wine More stuff I can not pronounce or remember
A more authentic menu
As I mentioned earlier we were bursting after one dish. Our waiter was informed and our dishes slowly started to get smaller. He seemed to have an innate ability to judge our relative hunger and kept the food flowing an an almost manageable rate.
Eventually we hit saturation point and we actually had to skip the meat section of the meal. I perish to think of the 300 kilo Marlin of other sea animal they had ready for us to sup on. It was a relief when the waiter bought us all out some fruit to eat.
No matter how full you are you can always fit in some fruit. It cleanses the palate and we thought we were safe. The waiter then snuck out this devilish Italian cheese cake which of course had to be eaten.
Then it was spirits time. Italians all enjoy spirits after meals, preferably with coffee. The coffee I have learned helps you to get off your chair. The restaurant gave us a bottle of limoncello to take home. Made by Aunty of course.
Havenofear skillyfully tampered with to protect his identity and more importantly our Chef for the night. Bottle of limoncello to the right.
It was a fantastic meal and I am proud to have attended such a great restaurant. Now some of you might think I have given Havenofear a bad rap. He did organise a great meal for us. But you see I am writing this story for our good friend who has to share a cabin with him.
Havenofear has been burning the candle at both ends. He was not pulling his weight and on the day that the charter guests were to arrive his galley was a complete mess. He had not slept all night, had gone to bed and locked the door.
With no way to wake him I did suggest the engineers solution.
Disconnecting the air-conditioning from his room..
Engineers are the most important people on any boat in my opinion. If the boat don’t work. No body does.
https://theselines.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Myriad-Lines-2.jpg14132133El Dracohttps://theselines.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/These-Lines-Logo-Slim-White.pngEl Draco2009-06-25 16:44:002021-05-06 00:32:42One Night in Napoli
Well into my second week of Super Yacht living I have a couple of magical stories to tell you all about.
Firstly we have a magic fridge on board.
It auto magically refills itself when you are not watching. I have tried in earnest to deplete it so I can at least see the back of it, but try as I might it always seems to refill with beer, water and soft drinks when I am not looking.
We also have a magic laundry. There are two baskets, one is labelled whites and lights and the other is labelled darks and colours. As long as you file your dirty clothes correctly they magically appear on your bed one day later clean and folded.
This magic is playing havoc with my own sense of decorum. I have started to notice how clean things are. I actually caught myself being quite excited at the prospect of washing down the boat ahead of a visit we have on Saturday.
And what a nice ride it is. The shop keepers did pull out a Japanese/Italian phrase book to help me? But getting on the back of my latest toy was relatively painless.
Only the Italians would create a USB modem this size and brand it so. Leave the Hello Kitty modems to the Japanese.
Enjoy the statistics in Italiano.
Modem USB 7.2 MEGA GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA
HSDPA 2100 MHz – fino a 7,2 Mbps ricezione
UMTS 2100 MHz – fino a 384 Kbps
Tri-Band EDGE/GPRS (900/1800/1900 MHz) fino a 200 Kbps
Having now spent 5 days in an Italian ship yard I believe I am more qualified to speak about the goings on inside one than all of my readers and most of the people that work inside Italian ship yards.
To broadly stereotype the workers of Italian shipyards in three channels my method would be.
Know nothings.
The know nothings know literally nothing but do 99% of all of the work inside Italian ship yards. They do a lot of stupid shit. But it is not completely their fault. They know nothing.
Know it alls.
The know it alls know everything but do nothing.
Swagger all the timers.
The swagger all the timers all look like they have just jumped off a Ducati motorcycle. They have impressive sunglasses and swagger from place to place. They are also masterful cigarette smokers.
Now to excite you with some of the wonderfully eccentric things I have seen in my short time here.
On Monday we took the small journey from the port to the ship yard. We drove our Yacht into a huge dry dock which rises five floors out of the water so the boats hull can be worked on. Impressive stuff. There was one small problem when we arrived on Monday. There was no one here. The place was empty.
Gradually some know nothings turned up. Then a few know it alls turned up to start barking orders at everyone that could hear including each other. A dive boat swaggered up and waited at the aft of our boat and hung out long enough to beg some morning tea from us.
Eventually the divers could get to work and start moving supporting structures under the boat so when the water drained the boat would stand up by itself. When we sat down for lunch we noticed the boat was leaning to one side.
Our Captain spoke to the ship yard. He was told that we had more weight on the port side and that is why the boat was leaning this way. This was noted as being a tenuous conclusion. The boat sits perfectly level on the open sea. Do you see?
The air conditioning and cooling systems on Super Yachts pump sea water in from the ocean and out again to keep everything cool. One of our first missions was to connect a sea water hose to the engine room. This was abandoned on Monday as the hose the ship yard supplied was full of small holes which is unsatisfactory.
I have to say at this point to say the engine rooms of Super Yachts have cleaner stainless steel than most kitchens. Imagine our horror when a know nothing reconnected the hose on Tuesday morning and promptly pumped 250 litres of high pressure salt water all through the engine room.
Everything had to be shut down on the boat whilst the damage was inspected. Let me get to that later. When our Captain rang the ship yard to get some answers he was told the water was residual water from inside the pipe and inertia had created a siphon effect.
Sounding unbelievable?
We also have a large three masted three hulled boat behind us. They have effectively boxed us in. On Tuesday we were told by the ship yard that they require two weeks work and we will have to stay here until this work is completed. This is apparently quite common practice for ship yards.
On Tuesday night I was left on the boat by myself for a few hours. This would have been fine if we had had no power problems earlier in the day. About 30 minutes into me feeling quite chuffed with myself the power went off. Three minutes later a fire alarm went off.
Sorry the movie is on its side. I don’t have much spare time at the moment. Dramatic affect is still the same 🙂
If there is anything that has terrified me in my life it has been being alone on a 20 million dollar boat with a fire alarm going off. Luckily it was a false alarm and the choice dude who has taken me under his wing talked me through correcting the fault.
I will get onto the choice dude in a bit.
That looks like a bit.
The choice dude is the first mate on this boat. His name is Ilyia and he has had a chequered life from what I can make of it.
A representative swimmer he swam for Serbia at the Barcelona Olympics, and then after being drafted into the army for a year he hid out in Greece dodging the war before embarking on an economics degree to work for his family business. He then started a scuba diving company with his brother and was doing underwater demolition work and retrieval before starting work on Super Yachts.
He is a top bloke and has jumped through hoops to show me as much as he can and have a good time as well. He calls me Dany as do the whole boat and such is my respect for him I have grown to like being called Dany in a thick Serbian accent.
Ilyia.
It is thanks to Ilyia that Anna has moved onto the boat and we are able to stay here for a bit until we find those elusive permanent jobs we have been hunting for.
I am going to finish writing now.
I would just like to say thanks to the Italian ship yard for providing me with free wireless internet.
https://theselines.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Myriad-Lines-3.jpg14132133El Dracohttps://theselines.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/These-Lines-Logo-Slim-White.pngEl Draco2009-06-20 17:09:002021-05-06 00:32:43Life on a Dry Dock
A few hours south of Roma(Rome) lies the gritty port city of Naples(Napoli). Bordered by Mount Vesuvius on one side and the sea on the other. Napoli feels dangerous and deservedly so.
Our arrival into Napoli was suitably dramatic. We had earlier been congratulating ourselves on our effortless grasp of the Italian public transport network. We knew the pronunciation of where we needed to go and asked for the best method at the information centre. At the ticket booth our trip entered amazing race mode as we waited an incredibly emotion charged length of time to get a ticket. We then ran to a platform to get on the wrong train.
Seeing an undisclosed section of Italy was an unexpected and unwelcome treat. We got to enjoy Italian laughter in several octaves when our fellow passengers discovered our mistake. We were close to breaking point when the return train did not want to let us on board.
Luckily my amazing race partners impassioned pleas and theatrics allowed us to board the train back to Napoli. At the train station we boarded the *correct* train to the port suburb of Pouzouli. I say *correct* because there are two train networks in Napoli and we ended up at the wrong stop. After an hour of waiting for our ride and a variety of ineffectual communication methods we had the welcome distraction of a native bird making a deposit of my wife’s head.
This of course is good luck!
Let me digress for a moment. What exactly is good luck about an animal crapping on your head? The originator of this fallacy was no doubt a master of public relations as he should have been laughed mercilessly at but managed to spin his problem into a tale of impending good luck.
Needless to say we both laughed mercilessly at our time in Napoli so far and then the fun really started…….
https://theselines.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Myriad-Lines-1.jpg14132133El Dracohttps://theselines.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/These-Lines-Logo-Slim-White.pngEl Draco2009-06-16 16:43:002021-05-06 00:32:43Livorno to Napoli
During my sixth visit to Italy I became to realise why I love it so much.
It has many things in common with South East Asia.
Now hear me out if you are not yet a believer. I can actually pin point the exact moment when Newton like the apple struck my head.
I was outside an oddly named hotel watching over our incredibly large baggage vanguard and my wife was inside bartering for two nights accommodation, There was an interesting market just across the road and it was teaming with scooters.
Sound just like South East Asia?
Italians are fabulously welcoming hosts. The language barrier exists but you can conduct most transactions with,
Ciao (Hi) and Grazie (Thank you)
An added bonus for a weary traveler is that Ciao doubles as good bye or you can just toss it in anywhere when you are lost for words. Kind of like ummmm.
The alcoholic beverages seem to use a curiously strong 50/50 spirit mixer recipe.
Our hotel has a combo shower/toilet/wash basin/mirror/bidet
Just like South East Asia.
Same same but different.
Trip news.
We are in Livorno for two days before we catch the train down to Naples for some work. Livorno is a spacious port town (surprise) We went and said hello to the boats we are working on next week last night. Both of them are for sale sadly. (CLICK THE GOOGLE ADS! CLICK THE GOOGLE ADS!)
The Yacht I worked on before the Monaco Grand Prix was there as well. They were pushing off for Naples and they seconded me into helping them cast off. We then sat down to dinner(on some yachts tab) and watched Annaeva slip out to the open sea.
