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Writer and filmmaker Sal + photographer Mark have a five year plan to sail their Swan 47 MATILDA from Palma, Spain back to Sydney Australia. This weekly podcast shares the wonder and realities of living your dream while maintaining careers and a 50 year old boat.
Testing. Testing. Yep.
Mark:Yep. Okay.
Sal:I think we're ready. Good to go. We are good to go with MATILDA RADIO. It is Sunday, 08/09/2026. We're here for episode nine.
Sal:I'm Sal Balharrie.
Mark:And I'm Mark Chew.
Sal:I'm thinking, Mark, that this week we're gonna call the episode Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. More about that later.
Mark:I was gonna say why.
Sal:Why? Because a topic of conversation for you and I is often best dinner party guests.
Mark:Do they have to be alive?
Sal:No. No. No. God, no. No.
Sal:No. Best dinner party guests in history. And I'm gonna have a segue. We're gonna have a segue later on. So we're gonna we're gonna come back
Mark:to that. How many I'm just give me a chance to think about it while we're talking to How many how many guests are we allowed?
Sal:I don't know. Do you are we going for a baker's dozen?
Mark:And so we've got 10 guests because you and I are there.
Sal:No. That baker's dozen is 13. Oh. Isn't it? Isn't that worth the isn't that
Mark:worth A baker's dozen is 12 when you're 12.
Sal:But I I think they're sort of I think it's a bit like that Greek beer that you've been buying, which is five plus one. And I'm like, no, it's not. Six. You're just discounting. I think that's we'll put a link to what a banker's dozen is on the on the on the show notes, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Sal:What a great week we've had.
Mark:We've had a fantastic week. We haven't traveled too much distance, but we've been to lots of new places. Yeah.
Sal:No. It's been it's been we're still obviously, we're in the Ionian. Last week, we made the podcast in Longos, and we ended up staying there for a couple of days because there was a sensational walk that we wanted to do.
Mark:Yes. We I've discovered this app called All Trails, which I only have the free version.
Sal:Oh, is it it's so funny you should say that, Mike, because All Trails is our unofficial sponsor this week.
Mark:But Well, you think the sponsor could have given us the non free version.
Sal:Well, you think you think the Tide Arse sailors could have paid for the full version.
Mark:Yep. Anyway, All Trails found this wonderful hike up around the hills to the North of Longos over to Laka through these beautiful olive groves and along these ancient paths, past stone churches and barrack buildings.
Sal:I need to know, like, with all trails, how is that track? Because it was, like, we were walking along tiny parts. Like, how how does it generate those maps?
Mark:I think they're I don't know this, but I think they're generated by users. So they anybody who signs up to it actually un even unknowingly contributes to the trail. Because there's one part of the trail where we actually one very small part it was about 15 kilometers the whole thing but there's one very small part where the path wasn't where they said it was and I suspect what will happen is if enough people take the little diversion, which was fairly obvious, to stay on the path Yeah. Then it will rewrite the route Yeah. To be the new path.
Mark:I mean I don't think there's people treading the ground putting it putting data in. I think that's a bit old school.
Sal:One of the things that I loved absolutely loved about that walk was the derelict houses that are now being, renovated. And, you know, I there's obviously people who are bringing money into the island or coming deciding to do up the family house that was once lived in five hundred years ago. But across the top of the of the crest of the hill, we found that fantastic house, and I'll
Mark:put a little clip of
Sal:the video because I actually made a video of it for my sister because it's just such a stunning renovation. Very small, but it once been an oil press. So the central part of the house is this enormous round stone that I don't know. Do you think they used to push it manually around? I think they
Mark:they I'm not sure. To press the olive oil. Olives.
Sal:Poured the olives in, and then that stone maybe they had a donkey that went round and round. No?
Mark:No. Don't know. I don't know. We should probably find out more about it. And I wonder it'd be interesting to know how they do it nowadays because it's still obviously an industry because the olive groves are still tended.
Mark:And I love the way they stack the nets, which are nets, I think, for catching the olives, not for protecting them. So they put them on the ground before they beat the olive trees.
Sal:Do ever
Mark:get a
Sal:machine like the valencian
Mark:orange I've got no idea. Whether they do. But what I was saying is I love the way that they stack them in the forks of of the trunk where they split. Yeah. They've taken a few photographs of of the whole groves with the nets stacked in their forks.
Mark:It's quite elegant.
Sal:So that was a fantastic walk. We then decided to go to Antipaxos. So Longos, Gaios, Laca being the main towns on Paxos. We then decided to go to Antipaxos.
Mark:Which is just to the south, only a mile to the south.
Sal:And, I mean, as we do, we're looking at NAVLEY. Do we pay for NAVLEY?
Mark:Yes. We do pay for NAVLEY. We've just renewed our subscription
Sal:this The I think they are our unofficial sponsor next week for episode 10, which would be exciting. But so we used NAVALI. There's a a rating system on NAVALI, based on, you know, the wind, but also on user experience, what people have discovered. And we found I mean, we just absolutely lucked out, didn't we, with that Anchorage?
Mark:Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, you don't with anything, whether it's on boats or in cities or whatever, you do not have to go far to get away from the crowds, to get off the beaten track a little bit. You know, it's not like you've got to go miles. And you see the thing is, whether it's TripAdvisor or NAVALI or anything, what these apps are doing is they're creating sort of self fulfilling prophecies prophecies.
Mark:Because the moment somebody says, oh, this is nice or this is safe more so on boats, then the next person goes along and goes there and goes, oh, yes. That was safe. And so you're actually creating a flood of of of approval for a particular place.
Sal:The lemming experience.
Mark:Yeah. So, you know, in TripAdvisor, when somebody likes a particular fish and chip shop, then the next person comes along and likes it too. And the fish and chip shop just next door, which didn't get that first review and is just as good, gets forgotten because the flow of information is all sort of the algorithm just reverts to users certifying certain It's
Sal:funny that, isn't it? Because there's always been and that reminds me of, you know, in the olden days when dinosaurs roamed the planet and we used to use Lonely Planet. And I remember using Lonely Planet in somewhere like Jaisalmer or Jaipur in India, and there was the Lassiwala. And Lonely Planet, the Lassiwala is the yogurt drink shop. The Lassiwala in Lonely Planet had be had become, you know, the place where everyone went.
Sal:And suddenly, there were now when you went there, there were now five lassiwallas in the street that had all sprung up to be selling exactly the same drink, but they're all having a having a bite of the cherry.
Mark:Drinking, baby. You are on my mind.
Sal:But we found ourselves to be the only boat, and it was so beautiful, wasn't it?
Mark:Yeah. It was a special little anchorage just right on the Southern tip of Paxos with these chalky cliffs and literally chalky because when you sat down on them, your bum's covered in chalk Yeah. On the beach. And not, yeah, not the most protected. You'd only do it in settled weather and you know some people say oh you shouldn't use it as a night anchorage well you know of course you could use as a night Anchorage it's the same Anchorage during the night as it is during the day it's just dark for one of them but it was very special there being the only boat.
Mark:The tide sort of worked its way around the corner and there was a gentle breeze and a little lighthouse at the end.
Sal:In
Mark:fact, just very briefly, I found a little track up to the lighthouse through this dense scrub that you had to sort of it was a path, but it was pretty spiky. And I went up to this You did come back with
Sal:legs cut to shreds.
Mark:And there was nobody there. It was miles away from anywhere in the middle of the remoteness. And I was standing standing on the plinth of this lighthouse looking at. And I heard these footsteps come up, and this guy came up to me and said, hello. And I went, good day.
Mark:And I said, where are you from? And he goes, oh, I'm from Brisbane. And I go, oh, I'm from Melbourne. And we were the only two people within about five miles. Miles.
Sal:The two mad Aussies.
Mark:And we're both bashed our way up to this lighthouse, so that was rather nice.
Sal:Oh, that's a lovely story. That's lovely. So from there, we went to Prevaza.
Mark:Yes. 25 miles southeast to Preveza to the entrance to a big sort of inland sea. It's not really you wouldn't call it a lake. It's an inland sea.
Sal:You
Mark:go into a narrow entrance at between Acteon and Preveza. Acteon. And Preveza is the town that is the big hub for charter, flotilla, boat maintenance. There's like this there's this massive field full of boats out on the hard during the middle of summer on the Acteon side that is actually, we'll put a link to the Google Maps page because it's quite extraordinary. Yeah.
Mark:It's like you I'm sure you could see it from the moon in
Sal:those days. When you when you zoom in, it's just it I mean, I reckon there'd be two or 3,000 boats there.
Mark:All on the hard. Most of them probably derelict. Mhmm. It's one of my pet subjects is what to do with dead boats.
Sal:Grind them up. And then what do we do?
Mark:Yeah. It's just not worth it. There's no financial gain there. To England, baby. Maybe to Spain.
Mark:Wherever I
Sal:So back to Prevaza, the big key. Actually, very really great key that it was had electricity, water, we could plug in restaurants going off until 5AM in the morning. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.
Sal:Quite a few years since we've been to Old Previse. It was a flourishing city. Flourishing town.
Mark:Yeah. I quite liked it. I mean, you know, it's a it's a service town for the tourism industry. It's a turnaround day. It's not really so much as a destination itself, but that gives it a sort of edge of reality, which is quite nice.
Sal:So we're here. We're waiting for a crew change. And for anybody who amongst us, the history buffs like myself, will have heard the word Acteon, and your ears will have instantly pricked to what that is. The battle of Acteon, Anthony, Antony, as well, I'll correct myself, Antony and Cleopatra versus Rome, Octavia and, Octavian, in fact, and his great general, Marcus Aglippa.
Mark:You're gonna have to take over here because I don't really know much about this. But if if you can do if you can
Sal:blows my mind.
Mark:If you can do a succinct couple of paragraphs.
Sal:Succinct couple of paragraphs. Basically, Cleopatra, let's call her Cleo, as her friends did, she's been hanging around Rome. She's fallen in love with Caesar. They've had a a couple of kids and or actually, I think they might have just had one. They've just had one kid.
Sal:They've had one kid, then he goes and gets killed, and then enter Antony. I mean, absolutely incredible. He enters. He's not gonna come in and, you know, take over the lot, but he's he's going to take over Eastern Eastern the Roman Empire, the Eastern part of Roman Empire. He's hanging out in the East.
Sal:He knows that there's lots of money in Egypt. He's heard that Cleo's pretty gorgeous. He summons her to Turkey. He says, Cleo, what have you been doing? What have you been up to?
Sal:And she says, well, why don't you give my kids lots of Italy or ro Roman Empire because we're not we're nowhere near Italy. And then let's go back and hang hang out in Alexandria. So they do that. But in giving away big chunks of the region to her children, that really annoyed, really annoyed the guys back in Rome. So the guys back in Rome go, no, we're not gonna have a bar of this.
Sal:We've gotta start thinking about something here. And meanwhile, over in Egypt, they're going, you know what? I sort of miss Rome. Let's go back and take a big chunk of that. So they get their naval bases together.
Sal:They have thousands of soldiers, and the guys in Rome get, you know, headwind of this, and so they've come down. And Mark, they are anchored pretty much two thousand years ago exactly where we are right now. And that battle, the Battle of Acteon, took place on September the second thirty one BC. Doesn't that just blow your mind? I just it's just incredible.
Mark:What I don't understand about that is isn't the calendar we use now Mhmm. Based is that a Roman calendar, isn't
Sal:it?
Mark:Yes. Right. Okay.
Sal:Yeah. Because the guy that they who ended up winning, Octavian, he actually decided to re because he sort of he he then basically went and took over Egypt, and now he's king of the world. So he actually renames himself to be Auguste, the Auguste Augustus. Augustus. But that's where we get August from.
Sal:So, you know, this is where all of this time is is the beginning of of western western culture, western civilization, western calendars, western time. But what's really interesting is that this battle that took place on September the second thirty one BC was the battle that really did flip the the sort of the the focus of the world, flipped the focus of what it meant to have a a true sort of Western civilization. So I'm just I just find this just absolutely incredible. And we are in Venice where this battle took place underneath a Venetian castle that's
Mark:A modern a modern Venetian castle because it's only, what, 1,500 or something, isn't it?
Sal:1,400. Yeah. So very modern. Very modern. As you as you said last night, they they were the inventors of the Venetian blinds.
Sal:So they they probably had a few slanting shutters up there, VB cord as well to rip them up and down. I mean, let's be let's be honest, it's a it's a derelict wall at the moment. But just this incredible place. But yet, what are we seeing here? Tell us about Venice.
Sal:Paint paint a picture of Venice, this place that has witnessed the greatest battles in history.
Mark:It's a town of 4,000 people? Yeah. And it's on this inland sea. I mean, the water you can go for a swim every morning. The water's quite warm, but it's not the crystal clear blue turquoise water of the islands of Greece.
Mark:But what that means is it's not it's not flooded by hordes of hordes of visitors. It's a real town. It's got the best bakery in Greece Yep. Apparently.
Sal:It has Ragos.
Mark:Ragos, the best bakery in Greece. But on
Sal:a street with no name, which I love.
Mark:And, yeah, it's a sort of scruffy little town as we had a nice we had sardines on the quay last night on the front, which were very fresh and beautiful with with some tzatziki and sardines and a roast pepper, which was delicious and sweet.
Sal:Pepper, bit of ouzo. But I think what I've really taken away from Venizo is this is a place it's a very honest Greek holiday destination for Greek families. There you very much see intergenerational families here. There are no tourists here. We we you know, there's no English being spoken here.
Sal:I think the only other guy that we saw last night was also off a off a boat. It's it's really it's really authentic. It's really lovely.
Mark:Yeah. I think it's a nice break from the sort of inverted commas paradise of the islands to come into somewhere which Yeah. You know, has a bit of an edge and is a little scruffier and a little bit more nitty gritty. Yeah. And then when we go out again tomorrow, you know, it'll be refreshing again to be back out in in in the beauty of the Greek islands.
Mark:Yeah. But it's it's it's been fun coming here and sort
Sal:of here.
Mark:And, just sort of rubbing up against the real population for a
Sal:little while. I think that's why Mark Antony and Cleopatra decided to base the the war here because of the sardines and the Uso and the and the beautiful view back across the mountains. I'm gonna raise you a dinner party now, Mark. My first I'm I'm inviting Cleopatra. Cleopatra is at my table.
Sal:I think she'll have a lot to add to the the idea of I mean, here she was, an a highly intelligent, woman. Woman. She was actually of Macedonian background. She was an Egyptian, which I actually think is very interesting. Didn't know that.
Sal:Spoke five languages. Incredible. So who's your going to be your
Mark:first invite Cleopatra. She's too high risk. She's probably, like, you know, a bit of a megamaniac. You know, she obviously wants to dominate everything. So I think she could totally ruin the party, and you just have to sit there listening to her.
Mark:So I don't think I would I wouldn't have her. But is that not how it works? I don't know what the rules of engagement are.
Sal:You get to add to my table.
Mark:So I'm having her. Can she sit down the other end from me?
Sal:She's the other end from you. So Cleopatra is at one end. You're at the other.
Mark:So are we just doing one by one?
Sal:One by one. Oh oh, you can give me two. Why don't you give me two?
Mark:Okay. I'll give you two. I'll give you a man and a woman. I'll have Christopher Hitchens and Arundhati Roy.
Sal:Oh, he took Arundhati Roy. See, I think Arundhati Roy is gonna dominate. Arundhati Roy and Cleopatra firecrackers. My god. Incredible.
Mark:So we're having 12, are we?
Sal:Yep. You're keeping count. I'm gonna add another man, and you're you're gonna be very surprised on this. But I think this man could have could really learn some great leadership skills from Cleopatra. And I think that he could also, you know, learn to be a little bit wild.
Sal:But I really he's gonna be there as my mindset coach. I'm I'm inviting Josh Fraser, interim coach of Carlton Football Club. He's at my table.
Mark:He's not gonna have a lot in common with Cleopatra.
Sal:Oh, you'll be surprised. You'll be surprised. He'll be he'll be very interested in the in the concept of war. Who else is at your table?
Mark:I'm gonna have lieutenant James Cook.
Sal:Woah. We're going very male heavy here.
Mark:It's No. I've I've only had two men and one woman. I don't remember anything
Sal:So James Cook. Let's just recap. We've got James Cook. We've got Cleopatra. I think they can sit next to one another.
Sal:They've got a lot of to talk about in common with the sea. Mark, Sal, Josh Fraser. You had Christopher Hitchens. He's a good listener.
Mark:Yeah.
Sal:And he he's very good now that he's now that he's dead.
Mark:Well, most of those people are dead we've got so far.
Sal:Yeah. Yeah. Who who else is going to,
Mark:Who else? I how many if we got all up?
Sal:Alright. So that's so we've got James Cook, Claire Patra, Mark and Sell, Josh Fraser, Christopher Hitchens, and Arundhati Roy. Alright. We'll, we'll you realize we're also gonna have to put a menu together, but we we can do that can be part three.
Mark:Sardines.
Sal:So yeah. Sardines. You can't go wrong. You can't go wrong with the with the sardines. I I've had two highlights this week apart from the walk.
Sal:The first, I got to to make a phone call the other day to tell somebody that they'd won $20,000. It was fantastic for IC DoCo. That was very exciting. So I got to tell this young guy, a Colombian filmmaker based in Australia, that his, film, Echoes of Memory, has been awarded $20,000. That was sensational.
Sal:And finally, MATILDA, you have me back, mind, body, and soul, because I sent my manuscript back to my publisher this week. What a relief. What a relief. But I actually I actually felt yesterday whilst I was cleaning the boat, I felt enormously teary. I felt like that that sort of bereft and empty feeling when you've finished the best book you've ever read.
Sal:And, and, you know, you feel that sort of emptiness of the characters, and the characters feel so real and alive. And their voices have been with me in such with such intensity, such ferocity over the last five weeks. So but that was a very big highlight. That was I feel very, very proud
Mark:about that. Well done.
Sal:Thank you.
Mark:I'm gonna say that I sort of almost don't like the idea of the highlight because it means that, you know but, I mean, I'm not saying I don't like the idea of your highlight. But what I've appreciated this week is that I'm finally well, not finally, but I'm eventually starting to feel like I understand that this journey we're on this summer is a thing in itself, that it does it's not actually it doesn't have to get anywhere it doesn't have to achieve anything particularly it's not I mean anything like anything defined that being here and taking photographs and walking running the boat safely and looking after it and just sort of managing our time in a in a sort of creative and wholesome way is enough. It doesn't have to actually achieve anything for me that this actual sort of the journey is enough. And I'm starting to understand that. Yeah.
Mark:But it wasn't very well expressed, but I think you get the idea of what I'm
Sal:What talking I would add to that is what you're very good at is living with each day is the concept of And I think that that's something that I I'm always so focused on the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, like, you know, I give the $20 away from philanthropist, not not our $20,000. I wish it was $20,000 that we had to give away, but we don't. But I'm focused on the next lab. I finished the book. I sent the book yesterday.
Sal:I'm thinking already about the next book. That's the huge difference between you and I is that you are much more comfortable with the concept of memento mori, the reminder reminder that of our mortality. And so you are
Mark:I don't quite understand memento mori.
Sal:Memento mori, is something that reminds you that you're gonna die.
Mark:But that's not really what I'm talking about.
Sal:I think you're what I'm sort of saying is that you are I mean, we have spoken about this. You will you know, we'll say, well, we're doing this because you're dead a long time sort of thing, that we don't have to be feeling that there's a Presbyterian weight upon us to be that this isn't just privilege, it's part of a journey.
Mark:Yeah. My point is the journey is enough. Yeah. Not forever or Yeah. But at the moment, the journey in itself doesn't actually have to you know, of course, we've got destinations, and we're meeting up with people here and there and all that sort of thing.
Mark:Yeah. But it it's not like we have to achieve something from this. Whereas I have to in it is is in itself being here and doing this and seeing things
Sal:and understanding. I mean, look. We we stepped off the roundabout in our twenties, and that once again
Mark:For a short time.
Sal:For a short time.
Mark:For
Sal:a couple of years.
Mark:No. But I just didn't want people to think that people didn't want people to think that we'd stepped off in our twenties and we were yet to get back on.
Sal:Oh, right. I see what you mean. Yes. We stepped off for a short time off the roundabout in our twenties. And I remember you saying because we left, you know, careers that were were growing and particularly your sort of prominence as a as a well known photographer was just really starting, and your mindset was very much, well, why shouldn't I be as busy the day I arrive back as the dizzy the day I leave?
Sal:And I was like, because people forget who you are and blah blah blah blah. But that never sort of really worried you. I don't share
Mark:like to say it did worry me, but not enough to make me stop. Oh, not enough to share. You.
Sal:It concerned you.
Mark:It concerned me, but not enough to mean that, you know, to not do it.
Sal:No. It didn't. But at the same time, it you you never voiced that to me.
Mark:Maybe. Wherever I have played the beat. Wherever I throw those dice, wherever I play the blues.
Sal:And so with a crew change, we will leave behind Cleopatra and Mark Antony. That's until we have them for dinner next week. I have them over for dinner. Maybe Mark Antony.
Mark:Mark Antony didn't get a gig.
Sal:No. I don't think he got a gig. I think he was a bit, you know yeah. Yeah. I think he was anyway.
Sal:But we'll leave this battleground, and we'll head out. Oh my gosh. We've got we've got a bridge to get to to get through tomorrow.
Mark:Yes. We're through the we go through the Lavkas Canal.
Sal:Yep. 10 or two. Which one would you
Mark:go for? It's 8102. I don't think the times have changed since we were here thirty five years ago. And it's only a it's only a very narrow canal. Yeah.
Mark:But one little anecdote that I like is that it would be very easy to build a bridge or a tunnel. In fact, there's a tunnel going under the harbor here at Previzo. It'd be very easy to build a tunnel Yeah. Or a bridge over to Levkis. But the Greek government has a plan for islands which get special subsidies if they're an island.
Mark:So by building the tunnel, they'd lose their island subsidy and lots of funding. So they're better off
Sal:do that.
Mark:Better off having a having a a a swing bridge that opens because then that keeps their island status.
Sal:Yeah. Keep the island status. Absolutely. It's a bit like the the, I noticed, on the the Venetian Castle. Everyone's everyone's very very happy happy to to call call it it the the Venetian Venetian Castle, castle, and also the restoration at the moment is being funded by Italy.
Sal:But it is flying a Greek flag, so I I think possession is nine tenths of the flag here as as we're kind of seeing. There's a the big sense of Greek nationality, very proud, very, very proud people by the amount of Greek flags that are hoisted and flown around the place. So we're heading out to Meghenisi, to Vathi and Sparta Hauri and Skorpios Island, the own well, formerly the own Nassas Island. I think it I think it might now be a private hotel. We will we will let you know about that.
Sal:But I did want to mention, Mark, the book that I'm reading this week that is it's called The Persians, and it's by Sanam Malouji. What a great surname. Malouji. And it's made me realize how much I love stories about multiple generations. I think that's a real theme for the for the the for the books that I really enjoy.
Sal:This is a a book of it's actually about Iran, an Iranian family in Tehran.
Mark:Well, it's called The Persians.
Sal:Yes. That would that's slight giveaway, isn't it? But, oh, gee, it's it's a fantastic read. It's it's really, you know, and it's one of those things that straight away, as a sort of screenwriter, you straight away go, oh my god, somebody's got to option this. It's a it's a really fabulous read.
Sal:So is the book of the week for me. How are you going with A Stranger in Corfu?
Mark:Yeah. And I'm quite enjoying it. Just slowly as normal. Just a few pages each night.
Sal:Few pages.
Mark:Reading it thoroughly.
Sal:Few pages each night. And what's the maintenance on the boat at the moment?
Mark:Maintenance is good. I've just replaced a few more seams on the deck, which is good. We had
Sal:a very fast at
Mark:it, actually. We had a little bit of an incident in Previzar where a white antifoul I'm not sure I'd antifoul the boat white again.
Sal:Yeah. No.
Mark:But a white antifoul in the harbor, though, is it's a bit stinky and oily, has gone this horrible gray, brown, black color. And then it does it's not dirty. It's just stained. Yeah. And we're about to go racing in the most prestigious harbor in in the Mediterranean.
Mark:Yep. And it looks like we've got a really filthy underside, so I'm not quite sure what to do about that.
Sal:Wow. Wow. Yeah. We're really we're we're going to
Mark:If anyone's got any ideas about how to clean antifoul without it's not a case of scrubbing off the slime. It's actually just making it white, the original color.
Sal:Oxalic acid, I've been told, but I
Mark:long term top sides.
Sal:It's top sides.
Mark:Sides. So it's to get brown off the top sides.
Sal:Well, and we are gonna have to we are going to have to clean it because from another long term listener, I had an an email this a text message this morning informing me that James Packer got married at Porto Cervo this week, I j e. But, you know, Mark, we're going to the land of the packers. We don't wanna be going in there with a bit of a black oily skirt.
Mark:To tell you the truth, I care nothing about what the packers think of a boat. I do care what other people think about it.
Sal:Mark, it's just indicative of what's going on in Porto Cervo and Sardinia. So yeah. I mean, ultimately, we made a bit of a mistake in painting the underside white, didn't we? I think what we're gonna need to do is get a good photo of the boat and Photoshop on some colors to sort of see what works. We've been talking about black, which would be incredibly forgiving.
Mark:Probably too forgiving in that you don't clean it often enough.
Sal:Maybe. I think we're gonna end up with a very dark blue. But, you know, these these are the big questions, Mark. They're very big questions. I do like our conversation that we've been having this week though, which is starting to think about next year and just some thoughts and we're we're starting to think about the Canary Islands maybe.
Mark:Mhmm.
Sal:Going and spending some couple of months on the Canary Islands. So just gonna put it out there. If anybody has any information on the Canary Islands, please send it our way. The benefit for us is that our visas work there. Canary Islands being a Spanish enclave.
Sal:So yeah. So just really love some listener feedback. If anybody has anything to of Noche on the Canary Islands, we'd love to hear from you.
Mark:Fantastic. Yeah. It's just a plan at the moment.
Sal:It's just a plan. We're just planting seeds. We're just sort of get having a little there's a lot of plans, a lot of action going on. But this week, our focus is Meganissi. That's all we're gonna be thinking about, and I can't wait.
Sal:Yeah.
Mark:We'll be there tomorrow.
Sal:We'll be there tomorrow. Look forward to speaking with you again next week. Thank you very much for listening. Please follow us. Share us with your friends.
Sal:Wherever I've been at See you next
Mark:week. Bye.