People are mailing and calling me for updates, so I better get on with it. The last two weeks has been mostly misery, so if you don't want to hear more of that, stop reading here.

Having been at anchor close to the Arno estuary, with no possibility to move the boat due to the cooling system breakdown, I managed to find two fishermen that could tow me to a small shipyard farther up the river (there are a lot of them on the south side).

I started to look for a mechanic, but could not find anyone that had the time to help me. Now is the period for putting the boats on the water here so everybody was busy. The shipyard where I stayed had no mechanic themselves, but they called a company in Marina di Pisa. Father and son arrived, and without having a look at the engine decided I should lift the boat and then lift the engine so they could take it to their workshop. Only lifting the boat would cost 400 Euros, lifting out the engine probably much more, I knew it would maybe be necessary, but it was not my first option, so I politely said no thanks. I later heard they were known for expensive jobs, not always with good quality.

Later that day, biking into Pisa for provisioning, I passed another yard, with a Lombardini sign outside the gate (that is the brand of my engine). I went in and found the owner, a nice guy called Pino who spoke good English. Let´s go and have a look, he said. He spent an hour examining the engine, and said he did not know what was the problem, but he could give it a try without lifting out the engine. But not until next week (this was on the Monday).

So I assumed optimisticly next Monday. Well it turned out to be the Saturday after that, after begging on my bare knees the day before.

At least the first week I know he would not come, so I could explore Pisa with surroundings on the bike, at least the days it was not raining, which it often did, the whole month of May actually. But the second week I was waiting for Pino on the boat most of the days, and could go biking first in the afternoon, when I understood he was not coming. But at least I had the time to take the cooling system apart and checking for some obvious problems. And save me some money of course. The only thing I found was some debris in the heat exchanger tube, but not as much that it would explain a total blockage. Cleaning this tube is something that shall be done at least once a year, so that job was something I had to do anyway.

But not knowing what the problem was, and also the problem with the engine going so hot, and the injector cap that now had broke for the second time, made me worrying a lot about the possible cost for this. Maybe I had to change the engine? It was very difficult to enjoy my stay in Tuscany, I felt quite depressed to be honest.

But at last Pino came on the Saturday, the first of June. He examined what I had been taking apart, found no problem with it, and screwed everything in place again. And when I started the engine, the cooling system worked!

The engine going so hot could be due to a bad thermostat he thought. He suggested I should take it out and run the engine without it. With some precautions this can be done in the summertime at least. I followed his advice, but when I checked the thermostat in a pot with hot water on the stove later, it opened and closed, but if it was at the right temperature I don't know since I had no thermometer.

But the engine seemed to work, and I was eager to come back to the French side, so on Sunday morning I steared out of Arno and set sail for Beaulieu-sur-mer, north of Nice. 150 miles measured distance, quite a bit more sailing since I had to beat against the westerly wind most of the first day. More about that misery in Part two.