On the ferry

10/30/23 to 11/9/23

The start of a new journey usually involves a lot of preparatory work and anticipation. We were able to carry out the final preparations at revo-mobil, and the hospitality was extremely great. A wonderful farewell.

Revisions

The front passenger side storage flap door hasn’t really worked for a long time. The lock only rarely worked, which was unpleasant because we had to access the utensils stored there practically every day. Mäni, the lock specialist, came here for the second time. When he dismantled the lock, it was clear why it no longer worked, it was completely dirty. After cleaning and reassembling it worked – all the way to Italy.

Happy moment

Our agency, ITS, made a real effort to get us a place on the ferry to Turkey. The local Italian agency was rather unprofessional. Everything was fine on the phone, but we only received documents on the way. When entering the port, the officials discovered that Gabi’s name was missing from the document and therefore entry into the port was not possible. After a few phone calls they at least let us into the harbor. When we entered the shipping company’s loading zone, we were the same point of discussion again, Gabi’s Name was missing. Even though the guys from the local agency have their office only a few hundred meters away, no one tried to fix the errors! Finally we were able to drive into the ship and load up. We were overjoyed because otherwise we would have had to drive the entire route.

Encounters

When we were preparing for the next trip with Regula and Ivo from revo-mobil Globi, they organized a small overlander meeting. One afternoon Margot and Jürg, Zita and Michi and Claude came over. We spent a happy afternoon with pizza and then coffee and cake in the Glarus fireplace room with lots of dreams and stories about vehicles and travel.

Technology Pitfalls

After a few years in South America, Ivo still had to put some things back in order. The camping water pumps were replaced with professional ones, the rotten shovel holder was replaced with a stainless steel holder, the leaky roof window could be tightly closed again thanks to Ivo’s perfect analysis, new padlocks were needed because the old ones were broken by Grimaldi people on the crossing, the bellows, which had become old, had to be replaced and a new screen was needed so that we could control our Mastervolt system.

For a smile

When Gabi started the washing machine for the first time on this trip, it no longer worked properly. She hung up in the middle of the program and the laundry wasn’t clean. A huge drama when we no longer have a washing machine, we have to wash at campsites and laundromats! Quite a restriction on our freedoms. Gabi meticulously starts the machine a second time with new dirty laundry and lo and behold, the machine worked again. She had acknowledged how much we need and love her.