Patrik Naindenel

Luna Azzurra is on dry and having some wellness time at Port Navy Service close to Port San Louis de Rhône.

Plan is for her to be here for one month. As for now everything is according schedule. But you never know. We have asked the shipyard if 1-2 weeks extra would be possible if needed.this was no problem which was nice to hear.

During this time we will not have much time or energy to create a new post every week.
When we leave the shipyard we will post some more about all our work carried out during this time.

.As I wrote in middle of April I went away on a work trip. To San Luis Rio Colorado for work.

Now I am back again after five and a half week. We started up a 200MW power plant and its exhaust gas cleaning system.

As we had a deadline to be finished within 3 weeks it was a long weeks and days to be able to do so.

San Luis Rio Colorado was much better than expected and we all felt safe during the complete stay. Everyone have heard about Mexico and that it can be dangerous there.

Temperature wise it was between 32 and 39°C most of the stay. The good thing it was a really dry air so it was not bad at all to work 10-12 hours per day. Just had to drink a lot of water.

We had one week when the temperature was down to 25°C during the days and then it felt cold. During the evenings then it was down to 16°C.

After I was finished in Mexico I drove first up to Bakersfield California for one day of work. The day after I drove further north up to San Francisco where I had a hotel one night close to Fisherman’s Wharf.

When arriving San Francisco it was really cold 17-18°C and really windy. First time I needed a jacket.

From San Francisco I  had a flight to Rome over Frankfurt. In Rome I had one night at a beautiful little hotel not to far away from the airport. It was wonderful to finally eat Italian food again and drink real coffee and not only the dark brown water you get in Mexico and USA.

When arriving Loano Diana picked me up and the train station and I was finally back home onboard Luna Azzurra again.

Now the preparation for the shipyard visit and the summer of sailing starts.

After little more than a week in Loano it was time for my first work trip. As I am used to do this in Switzerland where I know and trust how to come to the airport it. This was a new learning where I had to travel with some extra spare time calculated in.

My former experience with the Italian trains and its punctuality is not that great I booked a really early train with heaps of spare time.

As it turned out. The train came on the second and I arrived Genova airport as well exactly on the minute.

Genova airport is a quite small airport and I think it will be a good home base airport in the future.

The flights went from Genova – Munich and there a 2 hour stop. Then from Munich to San Francisco where I needed to cross the emigration.  Then the last flight for the day to San Diego. I arrived there at midnight. As I did not need a car it was only to take a taxi to the hotel.

Around 01:00 I finally had a shower and went to bed.

At 8:30 the day after my colleagues picked me up outside the hotel and we drove down to San Luis Rio Colorado where we should stay and work for a few weeks.

We arrived good and even crossing the border went good.

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 😊