Thursday, July 06, 2006

The Italian Job

... or - I want my MTV

Today we docked at Genoa. A lot of people thought we ought to have docked in PortoFino next door as it's much prettier. It turns out that Genoa has ship repair facilities and the docking was to replace the satellite television dish.

This is in a sort of "golfball" about ten feet across. Anyway, the workmen started to remove the old one with an angle grinder, sending clouds of dust across the pool deck and all five people sitting around it.

Enter the Captain, incandescent with rage. He points to the pool, then points to the workmen, then lays in to their boss. Boss then points to the pool and lays in to the workmen. Hoses are produced to damp down the dust and the pool is drained. An uneasy truce was declared, but being Italians this was done with much hand waving and shouting.

Other than this it's been a lazy day, sitting by the pool and watching our next door neighbour in port. It's called the Costa Concordia and it's reputed to be the biggest cruise ship operating in Europe (4000 passengers against our ship's 295). Today is it's maiden voyage so the quayside has been a bit busy.

We're off to Corsica tonight at 6 pm and even though we don't leave the ship until Saturday morning, tonight is the Captains farewell party. Let's hope he's calmed down ...

Marie and John

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