Avelinda is coming along nicely and if all continues to go as they have been I should have her ready to move aboard by next week. Nancy's last day at Flagler, before a three to four month hiatus, is Jan. 20th and we hope to catch the first cold front out following it. Leaving as a cold front approaches has the advantage of giving us favorable winds to reach across the Gulf Stream in short order. As the prevailing winds here are south east we would be forced to beat our way outbound, not fun.
As a cold front approaches the wind swings from SE clockwise through SW, W, NW, North and so on until they settle back into SE. Depending on the speed the front is moving this swing can last from as little as a day and a half to two or three days. We like to depart as soon as the winds move into the south, south west. This has the disadvantage of departing under conditions seen as unfavorable to many sailors but our motto is "Grim and Gray is OK". Plus we normally have higher winds which we favor.
Avelinda with her new sails
OK, so back to Italy pictures, after we left Urbino on the 16 of Nov. we went to Gubbio where we spent the evening and the following day had a delightful hike starting at the top of a mountain which, thankfully, we took a lift to. Below are pictures taken in route to and during our stay there.
Nancy in the VW Polo
Nancy in our Gubbio hotel room
Nancy makes this Fiat 500 look large
This is a better scale of another Fiat 500.
I owned one of these during a deployment to Sicily in 1984 and loved it.
Looking up the lift, we were both in one of those baskets
Looking down at Gubbio
Gubbio's ancient Colosseum
Love the window boxes
An abandoned farm house
Another abandoned farm house
A close up of the one above. We had a picnic lunch here
Solar farm, we saw many throughout our travels in Umbria
Occupied house on a cliff with a long commute on a terrible road to town
It's was getting late and fog was rolling in as we neared the end of our hike
No comments:
Post a Comment