Launched!

We launched today. It’s good to be back on the water. Launching was quite a saga – they had to move five other boats to be able to get to us, so we had to hang around all morning ready to go. Once launched, engine started fine and motored off quay, but no alternator output. Picked up a buoy and found a corroded lead to the alternator, which Simon fixed. Ignition light now goes off, but still no output from alternator. Decided to risk motoring down to Lakki marina, only 6 miles, which worked out OK, though a bit nerve racking with an onshore wind. Lots or repairs to do – although the boat seemed quite dry when we got back, there has been quite a lot of damp corrosion. Got to Lakki OK and fixed everything except the alternator, which probably needs an electrician.

We had a week in the yard doing all the jobs that had to be done out of the water. The biggest jobs were rubbing down and derusting the keel and applying four coats of Coppercoat to the keel and the bits of the hull we missed last year (Coppercoat is a fine copper powder in suspension in epoxy that stops marine growth and lasts for ten years or more), and cleaning and polishing the topsides. Now the hull gleams, but the trouble is that now you can see every scratch and blemish.

Not too good a weekend: we were just cooking dinner on Saturday night when the gas ran out. No problem, just switch gas bottles. But the spare bottle was empty – it must have leaked away over the winter. Sunday morning decide to try to find some gas. The hire car would not start – dead battery. The car hire man arrived within fifteen minutes with a new battery – great, but no gas to be found on Sunday. We did get a new bottle at the little grocer’s in Lakki on Monday, but it was his last one and the other supplier would not take our Camping Gaz bottle, he only took Petrogaz, while the yard has run out.

On the way back we went to the '3rd century BC tower, known as the Temple of Artemis', right by the airport.

We have had a scratching noise from behind the cupboards and shelves in the saloon. It sounded like a creature trying to get out, but maybe, and we hope, it is a pipe or wire wobbling about in the wind. Nothing we can do about it without stripping out the interior. So we just have to hope it goes away! And then we cracked it – it was the main halyard, shackled to the granny bars, rubbing against an inner shroud, transmitted and amplified to the shroud plates behind the cupboards.