Patrik Naindenel

Patrik and I wanted to make sure about our state of health before we start our adventure.

We’re absolutely not keen on surprises in form of hidden illnesses!

So, I booked us a doctor’s appointment for a head-to-toe check-up. Last week we underwent the procedure, including taking blood samples *ouch*

This week we went there again to get the results! And, boy, are we fit! 🥳

ECG, vitamins, lungs, heart, kidney, liver, …. you name it, all as good as gold!

Especially me 😇! The doctor had nothing than compliments to give!

Patrik needs to watch his weight a bit and he should cut down sweets and fats. But so far so good!

One more obstacle completed!

What will follow is a visit at the dentist for a last check-up before we leave Switzerland.

Plus, we we’ll meet the leading surgeon from the hospital in our area. That’s a funny story actually!

I wanted to inform myself if the appendix can be removed preventative. I mean what do you do when you suffer appendicitis and you’re somewhere in the middle of nowhere? You wouldn’t operate on yourself, would you? Or give the task to your partner to do surgery on you….

Imagine, you lying on the salon table with a piece of wood between your teeth…. Hmm, I think I saw too many movies…. 🤣

Anyway, I started to ask around, health insurance, hospital and suddenly I was contacted by this surgeon. He explained that he’s also a sailor (amongst others, twice around the world) and he had the same misgivings. He even wrote an article once for a newspaper!

Well, to cut a long story short, he suggested to meet him before we leave and he’ll help us to assemble a first aid case, including antibiotics in case the unthinkable happens and one of us suffers an acute appendicitis!

Isn’t that fantastic? I mean what are the odds! 😅

So, let’s hope the luck will continue to be on our side 🍀

Well, at the moment it feels more like a marathon, not a casual walk, towards our adventure!

I’m not complaining of course! Our decision to finally move house on board our sailing yacht Luna Azzurra, keeps us going and we’re motivated 🤗

I just wish we would have a bit plenty more time….

Within only a couple of months we’ve found suitable tenants for our house. Which is fantastic!

It was agreed that they could move in already on March 18^th instead of April 01^st, which seemed fine to us then…. Meanwhile, the contracts are signed and so far, everything is ready.

My brother will act as a caretaker and we’re more than happy about this arrangement!

Patrik and I will also have our address at his place since we decided to stay registered in Switzerland. That way we can keep our health insurance, continue to pay pension etc.

What Patrik and underestimated was how much time we’ll need to empty our 5.5 room home…. Since we can’t keep our furniture, pictures, deco things, (you name it), we try to sell as much as possible. First we thought about storing our stuff, but considering the monthly costs we dropped that idea quickly. And anyway, it’s unlikely that we’ll move back into our house again…… Or even Switzerland, once we’re tired of sailing around.

All we keep is our bed (you always need a bed, doesn’t matter where you live), a storage box with photo albums and other dear memories and that’s about it!

However, our house must be empty until end of February since from March 06^th we booked in craftsmen, doing some repair work. And in week 11 the house will be cleaned!

Luckily, some of the furniture are sold already to family and friends. We can keep them as long as we life in the house. So naturally it looks more furnished that it actually is. But still…… 😵

Needless to say, that we also need to say good bye to a lot of our clothes and shoes!

Perhaps in the end a lot of our things will go to charity – sadly 😥 But, you can’t have your cake and eat it.

Since Patrik and I still have to attend our jobs until end of March, we’ll live with my parents until we leave Switzerland, which will be in the beginning of April. We are grateful they also have a 5.5 room house with 2 bathrooms. Let’s hope we’ll all still be alive after these weeks…….. 🙏 *hahaha*

Well, right now I wouldn’t mind it was March, our house empty, the furniture gone and our remaining belongings ready to be transported on board Luna Azzurra!

We’ll get there somehow, wish us luck!

True to this motto:

Patrik and I dare to take the step into our adventure of a lifetime *yeah* ⛵

For many years we have planned to become “liveaboards”. Always thinking one day, one day…..

Well, one day suddenly became day one!

Right now we’re preparing and planning and it seems like a irresolvable task! Luckily, we already gathered a lot of information earlier, about health-, and other insurances, pension etc.

So, stressful but exciting weeks are ahead of us! Stay tuned 😊

Happy New Year 2023!

Let’s toast to yesterday’s achievements and tomorrow’s bright future.

As a wise person once said, “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough!”

I had a good time in Loano even though the weather and temperature was not the best.

One evening it was only 2° and I felt it when walking in to town and back for dinner. Even though I did freeze I managed to take some pictures from town and with the Christmas lights up.

When it came to work I changed all ceiling halogen lamps to LED. This is a mager energy saving as 7 x LED uses less or the same energy as 1 x halogen. When being off-grid every Ah is counted and can be used better than to be wasted on 1 lamp.

I installed a remote starter for the Victron Energy inverter, as this I can easily switch the inverter off when not needed, which as well save 2-3 Ah.

The last work I did was to start emptying the garage, took home 4 shelves and 1 box with stuff not needed anymore. As well 1 set of different types of plates and 12 water glasses was taken home.

Now we have only a high-pressure cleaner, some wine glasses and 1 x shelf left to take home. The rest we will be installed or moved onboard Luna Azzurra.

In the end it was a good trip but little boring t be there alone and not have Diana with me. Specially when the weather was gray and cold too.

As I had some compensation hours I needed to take out I decided to drive down to Marina di Loano and Luna Azzurra.

We have some jobs to do so why not do it when I can.

Jobs to be done:

• Finalise the installation of the electronic thermostat for the fridge
• Install led stipe in our cabin
• Correcting the installation of the shunt so we can see current consumption/charging correctly
• Install the new foot for our salon table
• Emptying the garage as much as possible
• Installing a device that we can see the tank levels on our plotter as well.

Plus a lot of more minor things which needs to be done or at least checked up in case we need to order some parts.

My week in Loano started good for the first evening, but during the night it started to rain. The rain was continued until the afternoon. Then it started slowly to be better but without any sun.

For Saturday and Sunday the weather seems to be more promising with sun and a little warmer. Fingers crossed 🤞 that it will be.

As I have only have had one complete day so far not much to show yet.

For the LED stripe in the cabin we were choosing of have the light on top of the storage area or below. after testing both alternative we decided for the one below. This was a first set up and today I need to finalise the installation.

For the fridge I must say the electronic thermostat is a wonderful piece of equipment. Now the fridge is keeping the temperature perfect and no more freezings cold or to warm in it.