Not many photos because they are all places we have been to
before, so pictures are in previous postings.
We flew to Athens on Wednesday 30 April and stayed with Lena
for two nights before taking the bus to Kranidi and then got a taxi to Kilarda
on Friday morning. Mia Hara was covered in sand from the Sahara, but otherwise
was as we had left her.
We had sent a box of bits and pieces to Kilarda by
Parcelforce, but just before we left home we learned that it had been returned
from Germany because it contained illegal liquids and aerosols. We thought we
had sent it by road, but it turned out that Parcelforce flies things to Greece
from Germany, which was why it had been checked. We had booked it through
Parcels Please who were very good in dealing with the problem, arranging to
send it instead by DHL, though DHL would not take aerosols. We decided to send
it to Leros, rather than have to wait a week or ten days in Kilarda for it to
arrive. When the parcel got home Andrew and Becky took out the aerosols,
repacked it and sent it off again, but it meant we were without a lot of things
we needed for maintenance and repair, so we decided to head off for Leros as
soon as possible. It got to Leros in four days – it turned out that DHL also
fly things to Athens. When we collected the box we found that it had been
opened and DHL had opened the box inside containing a new water pump, but this
time had resealed it and sent it on its way.
Over the winter we had bought a new propeller, a Brunton’s
autoprop. I had intended to fit it myself, but when we got the mechanic in the
yard to check the shaft it turned out that when we fitted a new shaft in
Marmaris last year they had replaced the 1 ¼” shaft with a 30mm shaft and
turned the end to fit the old propeller, so the shaft needed to be re-turned
for the new prop to fit. The mechanic then found that the shaft was bent, so we
needed a new shaft. This probably explained why the new engine had been so
noisy when under load. When we got back the job was done, with our beautiful
new prop on the new shaft.
Over the weekend we cleaned and polished the outside of the
hull till it was like a mirror, except that all the little scratches and
blemishes showed, and got things cleaned and sorted below. On Friday night we
ate at the excellent giro place in Kilarda for a quick cheap meal. On Saturday
night we went into town for dinner, planning to go to the fish restaurant we
had been to last year, but the place and the one next door were both empty. As
we walked back we saw that some people were eating in a little place with no
sign and no menus outside, which we had thought was a bar. We went in, but all
the tables inside were reserved so we sat at a little table outside. Before we
could order, the owner started to bring us an array of delicious starters,
eventually asking if we would also like some horta and grilled sardines, so we
ended up having a superb and very cheap dinner.
In the meantime, Simon thought that he had lost a wallet of
euros, which he could not find in his bag. We called Helena and Lena to see if
he had left them at home or in Athens and checked Heathrow lost property, but
no sign of the money, so on Monday morning Simon had to cycle up to Kranidi to
get some cash to pay the yard (and some paint for the anchor chain). Kranidi is
up a long hill that gets steeper and steeper so, despite just having ridden the
Pennine cycle ride, he got off and walked up the last bit.
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| Kranidi |
On the way back
Simon stopped off in Lidl to stock up, filling the enormous Brompton bike bag
with goodies. He surprised Lin by picking her a big bunch of wild flowers,
which lined the road. The spring flowers are beautiful, though coming to the
end of their short lives.
On Monday we finished all the jobs that had to be done in
the yard and decided to go back to the little restaurant for dinner, only to
find it packed full of Russians, who had arrived on an enormous flotilla. We went
instead to the pizza/pasta restaurant, that is normally empty but tonight was
also full of Russians.
We have really got to like
Kilarda. It is a quiet, very friendly little town, untroubled by tourism,
though it looks as though a lot of Athenians have holiday homes on the hill behind the town, so it is a
bit busier in summer. There is a good supermarket, a baker, a laundry, several
butchers and fishmongers, but no hardware store and the chandlers in the yard
is a bit limited.
On Tuesday May 6 Simon found the missing money – he had
forgotten that he had put it away in a safe place. We launched at 3 pm. They
have a very efficient system in the yard, by which a trailer lifts both boat
and cradle and drives down to the lift, driven by radio control.
Once at the slip, the slings are put round the boat and it
is lowered into the water (you can see our beautiful new propeller).
Once we had checked that we were not sinking and the engine
started, we motored across to anchor off the town to get everything ready to
leave. We set off early on Wednesday morning, amazed at the difference the new
propeller and shaft made as it was much quieter and we made at least one and a
half knots more than with the old propeller.
After about a mile Lin noticed a
smell of burning and saw that the engine was overheating. We dropped
anchor. Simon went down and found the
boat full of steam/smoke. He had left the stopcock on the cooling water intake
closed when he had been servicing the seacocks! He opened the seacock, replaced
the shredded impeller and we set off again, only to find the boat still filling
with smoke and overheating. Simon now found that the return pipe for the
cooling water from the anti-syphon lock was split, probably when they fitted
the new shaft, and water was pouring
into the bilge. We sailed back to anchor in Kilarda bay again. Simon cut the
end of the pipe and refixed it. When we restarted the engine smoke still billowed
out – Simon looked in the engine room and realised that the hot exhaust gas had
melted the water lock-muffler so the exhaust and cooling water was just filling
the engine room. He rowed ashore to see if the chandler in the yard had a
replacement, but they only had a cheap Greek muffler which was much too big and
said that they did not deal with Vetus, though they had Vetus equipment in
their shop. Back on the boat Simon phoned Vetus in Piraeus and they promised to
deliver a new waterlock the next day.
At 10 on Thursday morning Simon phoned the courier in
Krainidi and they said that the waterlock had arrived and would be delivered to
Kilarda in the afternoon. Instead, Simon took a taxi to Kranidi and picked it
up. He fitted the new waterlock and we were underway by mid-day.
We motored round the corner and down the Hydra channel, with
the little wind there was going round in a circle so that it was always more or
less on the nose.
We had decided to anchor in a little bay at the Eastern end
of the Hydra channel, ready to set off for Serifos the next morning, but the
wind was getting up and Lin decided that we were a bit exposed, so we upped
anchor and motored up to Poros. We tried to anchor in Monastry Bay, but the
anchor dragged twice in the thick weed when we put it under load, so instead we
motored past Poros town and anchored just short of Russian Bay.
We left Poros early on Friday morning in a good northerly
breeze, which steadily increased as we sailed across to Serifos, blowing at 35
knots, gusting to 39, for the last bit of the passage, with 3 metre waves. We
covered the 60 miles in eight hours. We were zipping along, but the problem was
when to get the sails down, particularly as the lazy jacks, which hold the sail
in place when you drop it, had come undone on the starboard side, so the sail
would be difficult to control, and the wind direction gauge had gone haywire,
making it more difficult to hold the boat on the wind when dropping the sail.
We hoped to get the sails down in the lee of Serifos, but the wind there was
even stronger. We wound up the genoa, though with the strong wind it rolled so
tightly that we ran out of furling line, leaving a bit of genoa still out, and
we motored into the wind into Livadhi, the port of Serifos, with the main
flogging, waiting for the wind to drop. The wind didn’t drop. As we approached
the shore we decided we had to go for it. Lin kept the boat head to wind and
the mainsail came down cleanly, though two battens had sprung and the main had
torn in two places at the leach when it was flogging. Having tied up the main,
we had to deal with the genoa because it would be difficult getting on to the
quay with some genoa still out, and we didn’t want to anchor in the bay because
the holding is very bad in Livadhi. The only thing to do was to unfurl it and
try to furl it up again less tightly in a lull in the wind. Having managed
this, we got ourselves stern to the quay on the leeward side, with help from
those already there and immediately got down to repairs.
The wind dropped overnight so that on Saturday morning there
was no wind at all. We set off early and motored uneventfully to Skhinoussa,
where we arrived at 3 pm. We were surprised that Skhinoussa harbour, which had
been jam packed when we were last here in August, was completely empty.
Simon went up to town to do some shopping and brought back another bunch of spring flowers.
We had
dinner in the taverna, to use his wifi, and went to bed.
We left early again on Sunday morning, again with almost no
wind, and motored to Levitha, arriving about 3pm to find half a dozen boats
already there. We picked up a mooring boy and went for dinner at the farmhouse,
where Lin had a delicious lamb stew and
Simon some rather disgusting fish. They told us that the projected wind farm
may not go ahead because the estimate of the anticipated output had been cut in
half.
On Monday morning we left Levitha at 7 am to motor across to
Lakki on Leros, arriving at 10, having completed a passage of 210 miles. Before
we went onto the town quay Simon lowered the outboard to put it on the dinghy
and the carrying strap broke. Fortunately it did not detach completely from the
outboard, so it did not sink into 60 metres of water.
Getting back to Lakki was like coming home. All our friends
in the shops and cafes greeted us enthusiastically – they had all got through a
warm wet winter. Tacis the grocer’s dad, who had been in hospital in Athens
with heart problems when we left last year, had had a triple by-pass and looked
ten years younger.
First thing to do was to go over to Evros marina to collect
our parcel from Simon and Christiana, but the outboard would only work,
spluttering, on full revs with the choke out. Simon had to restart it about
twenty times on the short trip across the bay, but got there and back with the
parcel so that we had all the bits and pieces we needed. When he took off the
carburettor the next day it was clogged up with muck.
We had a week in Lakki, going out to dinner twice with Simon
and Christiana, once to To Petrino in town (fantastic steak) and once to Milos,
over in Agia Marina (fantastic seafood). Other nights we ate various pasta
delicacies we had got from Lidl. On Wednesday we went into the marina, because
it was forecast to blow from the south overnight and we would be better
sheltered there. We were surprised to find Kiriakos still running the marina (he
agreed it must be the longest he had ever held down a job) and Aggiris was back
from Germany, where he had not been able to find work, for the summer.
We met some really nice and interesting people in Lakki, a
couple from Brisbane, who had just bought an ex-charter boat; a climber from
Nottingham, who had bought a small Vancouver on a whim last year; and Archie
and Liz, retired teachers from Shetland, in a She 36. Their stories brought
home just how far Shetland is from the rest of the UK – their nearest cruising
ground is Norway. Liz had only been to London once, for a day 40 years ago, and
was very apprehensive about their next visit in the summer – how would they be
able to find their way around? We tried to reassure them.
We did a lot of cleaning, maintenance and repairs, all of
which took far longer than expected. Simon spent a whole day trying to fix the
chain counter. It had shown ‘Sensor Failure’, so we had got a replacement
sensor, which Simon fitted, but it still said sensor failure. He checked all
the wiring and connections, finding all was OK, and concluded that the problem
was in the handheld unit so gave up. Simon also refitted our water filter under
the sink, requiring great contortions to get at it, and then had to deal with
all the leaks from the piping that he had created (the last one is still to be
fixed – Lin is not too happy!). Over the weekend Simon went up the mast to rig
the inner forestay (for the storm jib) and to check out the failed wind gauge.
It turned out that the connector of the gauge had just come loose. Once it was
tightened and aligned it went back to work.
Sunday May 18th was local election day, with a
hotly contested election for mayor. Apparently the existing mayor is a bit of a
populist, while our friends in the shops and cafes wanted his opponent to win,
to bring changes to Lakki, while others told us that the existing mayor looks
after people, but his opponent would only look after his rich friends. The
incumbent won a narrow vote.
We left Lakki on Monday May 19th for Partheni. On
the way up the alternator regulator cut out, with a high alternator voltage
warning. We moored on a buoy and went into the boatyard to get a spare impeller
and get a quote for the yard for next year. While he was away a French boat
came on to the buoy next to us and asked to borrow our dinghy so they could get
ashore to collect their new dinghy from the yard. When they brought the dinghy
back we both went ashore and as Irene had offered us a reasonable discount, we
took a 12-month contract from the end of June, when we go home for ten days.
When we got back to the boat it was only about 3.30 so Simon
suggested we go further north. In his hurry to leave he forgot to lift the
dinghy on the davits. As we accelerated out of the mooring there was a loud
clunk – the dinghy had flipped over and the oars were floating away towards the
shallows. After a delicate recovery operation, to avoid running aground, we got
the oars back and set off again. After about a mile Simon noticed that the
battery voltage had gone to 17.8 volts, without the regulator cutting out. We
gingerly made our way back to Partheni bay, hoping the batteries would not
boil, and anchored in the bay for the night. Lin, as usual, had been right. We
should have stopped there in the first place. The problem was sorted out easily
enough – when Simon installed the new batteries the cable through which the
regulator monitored the batteries had fallen down the side and he had not
attached it. The regulator thought the batteries were dead, so kept jacking up
the alternator voltage. Once the cable was attached, all was well – for now.
There was no sun, with heavy cloud cover, and we were moored
between the naval base and a steelworks, but still the surrounding hills, still
green from the winter rains, and the mountains of Kalimnos behind were in the
evening light. As Christiana had commented, we are so used to all these places
that we rarely notice how stunningly beautiful they are.
We left Partheni early on Tuesday morning, beating up to Arki
in a light wind. After a couple of hours we decided to motor the rest of the
way, to be sure of getting a place on the quay. We tied up on the end of the
quay and went to see Nicholas and Carolina, who had returned from Poland with
Alexandr/Alexandros at the end of April. We had not seen them all since we had
left Arki at the beginning of August last year so it was great to catch up.
Simon spent most of the rest of the day trying to fix the leaks in his botched
installation of the water filter, which has so many joints that when you fix
one, another starts to leak.
On Wednesday morning, after a bit of housekeeping, we went
for a walk round the headland at the entrance to the bay, past the lighthouse
and up to the remains of the fourth century BC watchtower.
