Family Holiday!

Sorry it has been so long updating - we have had lousy internet  connections. We now have a very slow one so it is taking hours to upload this lot.

Becky, Andrew, Kai and Charlie flew out on Sunday 29th. After flying from Birmingham to Athens via Munich their flight to Samos was delayed. The previous flight had been unable to land because of strong winds and had had to return to Athens, so their flight was delayed while Olympic found a larger plane. The flight hit a lot of turbulence, Charlie bouncing out of seat, and wobbled all over the place as it came in to land. But they arrived safely.
As soon as they had settled in we went out to dinner in a garden restaurant - top rated by Trip Advisor. The service was over-familiar, the food second rate and the prices excessive, but Charlie enjoyed it.

On Sunday morning Kai's Italian friend from Agathonissi last year, Alexandros, appeared at the end of our gangplank, asking for Kai. It turned out that his family had been making their way down from Thessaloniki and had just arrived on the overnight ferry from Chios and were now waiting for the afternoon ferry to Agathonissi. Needless to say Kai could not wait to get off to Agathonissi, but we decided to stay in Pythagorion on Monday for shopping and getting sorted out.

 Charlie went off to the beach, where he was not over-enthusiastic about going into the water!

 

In the afternoon Charlie decided to do some housework

So we bought him his own dustpan and brush.

On Tuesday morning Kai and Andrew went up by taxi to explore the ancient tunnel of Eupalinos, completed in 524BC to supply water to the town, a 1 kilometre tunnel cut straight through the rock.

As soon as they got back we were ready to go.

Charlie settled down, hooked on by his harness point.

We had a gentle sail down to Agathonissi with a dying wind behind us,

where we tied up to the rocks in town.

Kai’s  Italian friends Alessandro and Katerina were waiting for us as we came in and Kai and they were soon jumping off the boat into the sea.

We pumped up our new kayak and Becky and Andrew took Charlie out for a ride.

 

In the afternoon Charlie went to the town beach

 

That night we had spaghetti Bolognese on board.

The next day, Wednesday, we chilled, swam and had ice creams.

 

In the evening we went to dinner at Yanni’s,

though Kai was invited to join his Italian friends to walk over to a tavern on the other side of the island. When they got there, they found that the owner was ill so it was closed, so they had to walk back to have dinner in a little tavern in Megala Hora, up on the hill.

Dinner at Yanni’s with Charlie was a bit of a nightmare because his greatest pleasure, once he had stuffed himself, was running away. Although not busy, it was still a road so we had to keep chasing after him.

 

We had promised Kai that Alessandro and Katerina could sleep over on the boat. Fortunately they were tired out after their walk and went straight off the sleep.

On Thursday morning Becky, Andrew and Kai went round to Spilia beach in the kayak, while Lin and Simon walked round with Charlie.

Charlie made friends with some young Greek girls

 

Charlie walked back

 

While Kai Andrew and Becky came back in the kayak.

Charlie was not too keen to have a shower

But was happy to get to bed

 

On Thursday morning we decided to move round to anchor in the peace and quiet of Spilia.

Simon climbed up to the ridge with views down to spilia

 

And to the nudist beach on the other side (so-called because it has a battered notice saying that nudism is prohibited).

We left Agathonissi on Sunday 5^th, with a good force 5-6 northerly wind giving us up to 8.5 knots. We soon reached Arki, where we went onto the quay.

 

Kai loves the café in Arki

 

And their little dog, which he tried to buy from them

 

And the square, where he can ride his bike and play football,

 

and we all love Nikolas’s taverna.

Charlie went cycling in the square with Andrew

On Monday we all (except Kai) had a hot half hour walk over the island to Paradise beach, though the sea was a bit choppy this time.

By the time we got back at lunchtime we were very hot and ready for a drink at Nikolas’

On Tuesday 7^th we had to leave Arki for Lipsi because we needed water and supplies. We had a gentle downwind sail and arrived in time to get one of the last places on the more sheltered inside of the quay.

We had missed high drama the night before. A Turkish gullet had reversed at speed onto the quay. When the skipper put the engine into forward to stop the boat the gearbox detached from the engine and the gullet hit the quay at about ten knots, smashing in the stern and injuring the passengers, two of whom had to be taken to hospital in Leros and all of whom had to be evacuated because the boat was no longer seaworthy, now tied to the end of the quay till its fate is determined.

Kai had the bike out as soon as we were tied up.

On Tuesday night we had a cheap takeway – tavernas in Lipsi are not the best!

On Wednesday morning Becky, Andrew, Charlie and Kai took a taxi over to the beach at Kapsadia.

Kai was soon moaning that he was bored, so they came back before lunch.

In the afternoon we went round to the Lipsi town beach, which is shallow, sandy and warm, though Charlie insists on trying to run away up the road. Charlie’s other favourite activity on the beach is collecting stones from the top of the beach and taking them down to throw in the sea to make a splash.

Charlie almost swam – a bit of yelling but some big smiles too.

In the evening we had spag bol on board. Kai disappeared after dinner. We next saw him on a Turkish motor yacht, watching the tele in their huge lounge.

On Thursday afternoon a fishing boat came alongside the quay and the fishermen unloaded three swordfish. Kai was after them in a flash, following them into the Calypso restaurant where they had gone to sell them.

Then he came back with two swordfish heads

Favourite pastimes

On the computer

Trashing Gran's tissues (and hiding her brush, comb, makeup and anything else he can find)

Mooching about

After John left on July 13 we decided to hang around Lakki, waiting for our new mattress, cleaning up and doing some maintenance. The town quay was too hot, and the water had been disconnected, so we went out to anchor in the bay, which was much cooler. The mattress was promised for Wednesday, but did not arrive on the ferry, the next one not being due till Saturday, so we went into the marina for a couple of days to get water and electricity and to clean and polish the hull.

In the marina Simon went up to the top of the mast to change the bulb of the anchor light for an LED bulb and to try to change the bulb of the deck light half way up the mast.

Ian and Jo came over for a drink and a good meal at To Petrino – we each shared a steak, which was enough for two. Ian and Jo had heard the latest story from Agmar, that there had been an emergency management meeting to see if they could ask the workers to work for six months without pay to save the company. How stupid can you get! Russian managers, who are experts in non-payment of wages, just tell the workers at the end of the month ‘sorry, we can’t pay you this month, but just hang on and we will pay you when we can’. People then keep working because if they quit they are afraid they will never get their back pay.

After two days in the marina we went out to anchor again. On Saturday (21 July) we were walking back from the greengrocer's when we were almost run over by Yanni, the mattress man, driving back to his shop with a load of foam. At last the mattress was ready. We went onto the town quay, filled up with water from Costa's tanker and Yanni delivered the mattress at midday. We decided to stay another night, and left early on Sunday morning for a windy beat up to Arki.

We stayed two nights on the quay in Arki, having dinner both nights at Nicolas.

On the second day we were asked to move along the quay to make room for the ferry. The little ferry came alongside the quay, perilously close to us, but with brilliant driving he managed to avoid both us and the boat behind him.

On Tuesday we left Arki for Agathonisi. The wind died on us so we had to motor most of the way. In Agathonisi we managed to get onto the town quay, but on Thursday morning were asked to move off to make way for the boats coming in for the festival that night, so moved over to anchor with a line to the rocks. The festival that night was as good as last year - good cheap food and drink, a great band and energetic dancing, though not for us!

We got home about 1 am and collapsed into bed. Next morning the beach was littered with bodies sleeping off the night before.

We left early on Friday morning to come up to Pythagorion ready to meet Becky on Sunday night. Simon went off in the dinghy to take off the lines from the rocks. As he came back, ducking under the lines of the neighbouring French boat he did a backward roll into the water. As he surfaced he saw our boat swinging onto the French boat - Lin had not realised that the engine was in neutral. Fortunately she reacted fast and drove us off very neatly, avoiding the French boat's anchor chain. Meanwhile, Simon revovered the dinghy and swam back with it and we were on our way. What wind there was was on the nose, so after a vain attempt at sailing then motorsailing we dropped the sails and motored.

There was no room on the quay in Pythagorion so we anchored off. A short time later the port policeman whistled at us to move - we were in the way of the ferry coming in. We upped anchor and moved over, only to drag on the weed. Just as we got the anchor off and cleaned off the weed we saw a couple of boats coming out of the harbou, so we belted in and got a good spot on the quay, with free water and electricity (free so far, the port police have not come by). Pythagorion is a bit of a shock - a busy tourist resort - the St Tropez of Samos - with noise, crowds and prices to match. Becky will love it, but it is not quite our cup of tea!

On Saturday evening a large (36 metre) Russian flagged motor yacht, Esperanza, came in. Boats were told to leave the quay to make way for him - money talks - and he dropped his anchor just off us and drove back over about 20 boats' anchors, so that nobody would be able to leave until he did.

Fortunately he left early next morning - probably just coming in to pick up his owners/punters, though we didn't see any.

Today, Sunday, Becky arrives in the evening and we have booked in to the garden restaurant that gets top marks on Trip Advisor. We shall see!

John's visit

We took the night ferry back to Piraeus on Wednesday June 13 - the ferry was almost empty, no more than 100 people on a giant ferry. We had booked a cabin for two, but we had a four berth, which was the height of luxury. We got the ferry from Piraeus to Aegina to spend a day with Hilary, Rosa, Fleur and Mick (though Mick went off to Athens in the afternoon to go to the Syriza pre-election demo and do some work with his Greek colleagues). Shock horror, Nikos's warning was confirmed - our favourite restaurant in all the world, Ippocampos and the restaurant at Brown's Hotel had closed and Petros had done a runner - it seems that he had borrowed a fortune from the banks, no doubt on the strength of his rave write ups in Greek gastronomy magazines, and had not been able to pay. Still we had a delicious lunch behind the fish market, then went to the beach at Marathona and back to the beautiful house that Mick, Hilary and Rosa were borrowing, where we played with Fleur and Hilary made a lovely dinner.

The contrast between Aegina and the Dodecanese was amazing. Hardly any of the Greek population in ther Dodecanese can afford to go to cafes or restaurants, but in Aegina they were heaving with the beautiful people, no doubt flush with their foreign bank accounts.
On Friday we got the ferry to Piraeus and bus to the airport and flew home for two weeks, to do hospitals, dentists and Simon's mum's 90th birthday party, which was a great success.

We flew back to Athens with Lin's brother John on June 29th and got the night ferry back to Leros from Piraeus. This time the ferry was jam packed, though a lot of people got off at Syros - probably weekenders, so we had to sleep on chairs (or in Simon's case on the floor) in the bar. We got to Leros at 5 am and collapsed into bed on the boat. Saturday was shopping and a celebratory dinner with Sue and Steve and Ian and Jo, the latter celebrating their last night in Lakki marina before moving over the bay to Evros (see my last post about the scandals and ructions).

We stayed in Lakki for the Sunday and motored up to the quiet anchorage at Arkhangeli at the north end of Leros, where we swam and chilled – Simon was still very tired from his last dose of Rituximab. The one thrill was a Greek exhibitionist, who arrived driving a small motor boat naked, anchored right behind us and spent a couple of hours displaying his large belly and appendages below before driving off into the night (no photos!).

On Tuesday we had a hard beat up to Lipsi with two reefs in the main and half the genoa (it was still very windy but it was not far), which was again a day of swimming and chilling and a nice meal at Manoli’s up the hill.

On Wednesday we had a short motor-sail up to Arki, where we tied up on the quay. Soon after we had tied up a large Turkish motor yacht arrived. He first dropped his anchor over ours and our neighbour’s, but re-anchored when we yelled at him. He then came into the gap just down from us at an acute angle and attempted to straighten up by accelerating in reverse, only to crash heavily into a moored French yacht. There was no visible damage, but the sound was the crunch of fibreglass breaking, so it is very likely that the hull was damaged beneath the gel coat. After some yelling, ‘you fucking bastard putain’ as the Frenchman put it, insurance details were handed over and it was all settled amicably. We spent two nights in Arki, with excellent eating in Nicolas’s tavern, good swimming,

and a walk over to the idyllic beach on the south of the island, only to find two Italian couples already encamped there.

Our French friend was staying in Arki till Monday because he said that force 8-9 gales were forecast, though we could find no such forecast anywhere. When we told him that we were going to Fourni he had a fit – he thought we must be mad, Fourni is hell on earth (it has a reputation for being very windy).

We set off for Fourni on Friday, with two reefs in the main and half the genoa, sailing into a force 4 northerly wind no sign of a gale. We passed several bays marked as anchorages, all but one of which were empty – the bay at the bottom had one motor yacht in it. We came to the last anchorage, south over the hill from Fourni town, to find Sue and Steve’s boat tied onto the fisherman’s quay.

It turned out that they had come up the night before, dragged the anchor overnight, then the engine wouldn’t start because the starter motor had failed again, so they had had to be rescued by a fisherman. The fisherman told Steve that there was a wizard mechanic in Fourni, who fixed their starter motor in no time.
Fourni was, as promised windy, with occasional vicious gusts, so we anchored and took four lines to bollards on the rocks, which seemed to have us secure.

On Saturday we all went into Fourni town to shop (a steep climb over the hill)

to find it is a lovely place, just like the Greece we knew nearly fifty years ago, with very few tourists. After shopping we had coffees in a little café under a big plane tree by the town square.

Suddenly there was an almighty crash and a scream – a thick branch had come crashing down from the tree and just missed an old woman who was walking past – it just grazed her ankle. The square was being filled with chairs and tables – the café owner told us that it was a ‘honeymoon festival’ and everybody was invited.

We had drinks with Sue and Steve in the evening, but decided not to go the ‘festival’, though we could hear exciting bangs, which sounded like gunshots and the occasional stick of dynamite. It turned out that it was a wedding – Sue and Steve went and left at 3 am when it was still in full swing. It was lucky we did not go. Soon after we had gone to bed there was an almighty shaking and rustling – a gust of wind probably 50 knots or more shook the boat like crazy. Lin went up and thought at first that two of our lines had broken, which would have been odd because they were not the lines that would have taken the strain. In fact we found when we pulled on them that they had just gone slack. Anxious to get back to bed we convinced ourselves that they had gone slack because of the strength of the wind, but in the morning we found that we had moved closer to the cliff – we were just off the rocks – and when Simon dived to investigate it was clear that our trusty and expensive Rocna anchor had dragged – or at least had pulled a couple of metres back through the sand.

We had planned to stay another day in Fourni, because Lin wanted to explore the town a bit more, but we decided that rather than bothering to reanchor we would move on, so we set off to Agathonisi. The forecast strong wind did not materialise but we had a very pleasant gentle sail to Agathonisi, where we anchored off the village with two lines to the rocks. We spent two days in Agathonisi doing the usual nothing much, with the usual dramas of people cocking up their mooring (fortunately not us this time). The old tavern/shop on the quay that was being painted when we were last here has now opened as a shop. Apparently the son of the old man who used to run it has taken it over after leaving the army, though the license is still in his father’s name so technically it is illegal. Construction is continuing with the six new apartments and restaurant just back from the quay.

We walked up the hill to mikro hora in the morning and over to the fertile hidden valleys, now very dry, the other side of the ridge.

The second night (Monday) a lot of charter boats arrived and tied up on the ferry quay, behind two navy boats. They were turfed off at about six o’clock because a freighter arrived to tie onto the quay to offload sacks of food for the fish farms onto a lighter. The charter boats all had to leave, milling around, dragging anchors until they finally all settled down, though they did not look too secure. Fortunately the expected wind did not blow up overnight.

On Tuesday we left after breakfast for a fast off-wind sail to Arki. We had planned to anchor in the bay by our idyllic beach, but the most sheltered spot was taken and it was still pretty windy, so we decided to come instead to Lipsi for water and electricity, where Lin and John walked over to the anchorage in the south for a swim, while Simon caught up with the blog.

On Wednesday we motor sailed down to Arckhangeli, the quiet anchorage at the north end of Leros. Lin  swam ashore to feed the goats with our old bread.

In the afternoon a small boat arrived and three men went ashore and walked over the ridge. We heard three shots - mafia execution? Goat rustling? Or just shooting rabbits (we heard four more shots early next morning).
Thursday was John's birthday. We motored down to Lakki and went on the town quay, where Sue and Steve joined us for a beer. In the evening we went to Dmitri's in Vromolithisos, where we had booked a table on the balcony with a beautiful view of the bay.

On Friday John was taking the early afternoon flight to Athens so we hired a car for the day and drove round to Alinda, where had a drink at the barrel and an excellent light lunch at To Steki before putting John on the plane and saying good bye ti Sue and Steve. After a swim at Xerocampos we returned the car and settled in to our chilling, cleaning and repairing routin to get ready for Becky, Andrew, Kai and Charlie to come in a couple of weeks time.

Friday and Saturday were very hot - up to 39 in the saloon, so we decided that we will go and anchor in the bay where it will be cooler. On Saturday morning Simon went to Yanni, the upholsterer, to collect the new mattress we had ordered. But he had forgotten to order the foam from Athens, though he promised to have it for us on Wednesday - we will see!

Another post at last!

Sorry about the long silence! We have had PC and connection problems, all sorted at last.
We left you on 22 May waiting for Panayotis, the electrician. After some persistence I was told the next day that the alternator was knackered and we needed a new one, at vast expense. Panayotis eventually arrived to fit the new alternator, but it needed a new bracket made because it was bigger than the old one (125 amps). The metal worker made the bracket, the alternator was fitted, but the engine struggled to start - no power was getting to the pre-heaters. On Friday Panayotis turned up with a new relay, which he fitted, and the preheaters got power, but we still struggled to start. However, time was passing (almost two weeks), so we decided to launch and sort things out on the water. We had booked to launch on Saturday, but were then told they were too busy, so it would have to be Monday. Despite the frustrations we had had a good time in the yard, made some good friends and had a chance to explore Leros a bit more in our hire car. Not only is Leros not a touristic island, they seem to have no interest in attracting tourists, they just want to get on living their lives the way they want to.
On Monday morning we heard that the crane driver George had walked out. I went in to the office and asked what time we would launch and there was obvious consternation, but we were eventually promised a launch in the afternoon. It turned out that they had persuaded an old crane driver to come back and to train a replacement, so we were to be launched by a learner driver! The crane arrived and moved the Italian boat that was blocking our way out, but still couldn't get back to us so they had to move a second boat before we were finally lifted and launched.

The engine eventually started and we were away, picking up a mooring buoy alongside Sue and Steve in their Nauticat, Unda who had launched on Friday but decided to stick around Partheni.

We motored off next morning,

 to go down to the town quay in Lakki, where we would try to get the engine finally fixed.
Simon decided that he needed to rethread the holes for the bolts which attach the pump for the cooling seawater, which had worked loose and destroyed the old pump. He took off the pump, drilled out and tapped the three weakest threads and inserted helicoil thread replacements (thanks to Kevin for the suggestion). The problem then was that it been impossible to keep the tapper straight, so two of the new threads were at a slight angle. When Simon tried to refit the pump he could only get three of the four bolts in. Having slept on it Steve was summoned over from Unda, by now anchored in Lakki bay, to help. We took the pump off again, decided that the fourth hole also needed retapping, which we managed to do and refitted the pump. Three bolts went in OK and tightened up rock hard, but the fourth would not pick up the thread, instead stripping the thread off the end of the bolt, so we decided that three would be enough to hold it (especially as the pump that attaches to the bracket has only two bolts). That night we celebrated with a gyros night out with Sue and Steve.
On Thursday 31st we set off to Lipsi, still with engine starting problems. On the way we were buzzed by the Dodekanese Pride catamaran, which looked as though it was going to hit us, but is so fast that it passed safely in front of us.

In Lipsi on the quay we had more work to do on the boat. The bow navlight, which Pete had fixed for us back in the UK, would not work. The light was fine so the problem was obviously in the wiring. Simon traced the problem to the stretch of wire that goes from a small inspection hatch in the forepeak, up through the deck and then inside the rails of the pulpit. The problem was to replace this wire. After a few hours of fiddling and stretching and fishing around in dark corners we managed to get the new wire up from the forepeak to the deck, before deciding that it was time for our dinner of baked pork with apples and potatoes.

With a couple of hours work next morning we managed to pull a piece of string through with the old wire, then pull the new wire back and wire up the nav lights. So now we can move in the dark in (relative) safety.
Then it was time for the engine. Simon cleaned the contacts for the glow plugs, but still it would not start. Then he removed the plugs, tested then one by one and it turned out that two of them were not heating. Fortunately we had only replaced the plugs a couple of years ago and had kept the old ones, so we replaced the dud plugs with two old ones that worked and, low and behold, the engine started first time at last. Time for a celebration dinner at Manoli's Tastes - may not be the best restaurant on Lipsi, but it is the best value.

We filled up with water and set off next morning for Arki, where we moored stern to the quay, planning to stay for a few days.

The first day we walked over to the east of the island, past the sheep sheltering from the sun in the only shade they could find,

to swim in a tiny deserted cove.

That lunchtime we ate in our friend Nikolas's taverna.

Nikolas had spent the winter in Poland with his Polish wife Karolina, where their son Alexandros was born in December, but Alexandros had already gone to bed so we had to wait till next morning, Sunday, to meet him.

After lunch we walked to the southeast tip of the island with its turquoise water and beautiful deserted beach.

Just behind the beach is an abandoned villa development. An investor from Athens had spent a fortune building a huge dry stone wall, installing two underground cisterns for water and had started building the villas,

then he died of cancer, aged only 35, and of course nobody else has been mad enough to take the project over, so it is becoming overgrown and in time will all fall down.
On Monday Simon set off to walk to the north end of the island, along goat tracks. On the way he met a column of dozens of goats, all making their way to a hole in the wall which led to paradise.

He also met what looked like a small herd of wild ponies, though Nikolas later assured us that there are Lakki donkies, which are larger and look more like horses than normal donkies.

After passing an abandoned farm

 he reached the remains of an Italian fort on the headland at the north of the island.

Amazingly, in such a remote spot on such a tiny island, he still had mobile reception and was able to text Lin that he would be three hours, rather than the one hour promised, although he managed to take a short cut on the way back, through a farmyard, thanks to a friendly farmer.
On Tuesday we walked the last bit of road that we had not been up, to the church on top of the hill, where Lin encouraged Simon to take an arty photo of the boat, which did not really come out.

On Wednesday we set off for Agathonisi, which we had put off until the wind went round from the south (Agathonisis is open to the south). We went alongside the town quay, and were all nicely tied up when the port police and advised us politely that we should move because the navy was coming and needed the whole quay.

So we moved and anchored off the fisherman's quay, with a line ashore. In the evening we walked up to micro hora, where we had never been before, to find a fertile cultivated valley to one side, and a fine view down to the harbour on the other (we are the boat nearest the camera).

Next morning, Thursday, we went back to Lipsi to get water and charge the batteries. We had planned to go to Arkhangeli on Friday, but the wind was quite strong and swinging around so we decided it would not be very comfortable anchoring there and we came down to Lakki to anchor off a beach for the night before going on to Xerocampos on Saturday.
On Sunday 10th we came back to Lakki, onto the town quay, to potter about dong odd jobs (and for Lin to do lots of polishing) before we come home. On Monday night we took Maria and Vassili and their children out to dinner and to say goodby, because Maria and the kids are going back to Tasmania on Thursday, with Vassili to follow when his contract ends at the end of the season., so we missed England's tedious draw with France. Today we are waiting for the man to come from the garage in town to fit a new cam belt to the engine, which we hope will go smoothly, and tomorrow, Wednesday, night we take the ferry to Piraeus, then across to Aegina to see Hilary and Rosa, before we fly back to London on Friday night and home on Saturday.
So that's it folks!

Back for another year in austerity Greece

We flew out to Athens on Saturday May 12th and immediately managed to get ripped off. Our bags were heavy and it was late so we were seduced by the sign saying flat fare 35 euros for a taxi to Athens. We were already a bit suspicious when he turned onto the motorway that goes round to the north of Athens, then through the traffic in the centre before getting lost on the way to Paleo Faliron, where our friend Lena lives. In the end it took at least as long as the bus and cost us 50 euros, because of course by taking the long way round he had gone further than to the centre of Athens!
We had a very pleasant weekend with Lena, with Nikos and Lena coming to lunch on Sunday, and flew out to Leros on Monday afternoon. We had arranged to pick up a car at the airport and drove the 100 metres to the yard to find the men still working on our electric winches. The boat seemed in good shape, but it had obviously been a very wet winter as all our salt pots were completely solid and we started finding things that had suffered from corrosion, including one of our two laptops – it started once, but the keyboard would not work, then died completely. The gas solenoid would not work, so we had to bypass it to have any gas for cooking.
The workers had done a great job on the winches, but had not yet refitted the ceilings or wired the engine instrument panel. They came and put the ceilings in on Wednesday, then the electrician came to work on the panel, but then disappeared. Eventually we got him back on Saturday, but there were still faults. He decided to take away the alternator to clean it (it was very rusty on the outside, having been sprayed with salt water), promising to come back on Monday. It is now Tuesday evening – we spoke to him briefly this morning and he indicated that the alternator was knackered, but until we get it back or a new one we are stuck. Various other things are not working, mostly the result of winter damp, which is trying our patience as we try to fix them.
Meanwhile there are great dramas in the yard. It seems that as a result of an inspection by the health authorities (probably instigated by the competitors) it is now forbidden to sleep on boats in the yard, and it is forbidden to paint your own boat (a rumour that people would not be able to work on their own boats at all has been denied). Though this has not yet been put into effect, it will be part of the new contracts, which will include the labour cost of antifouling and half the cost of a hotel and car hire for ten days. To cover the cost of this the fees have been increased substantially. At the same time a contract no longer entitles you to use the marina, which means that an annual contract is pretty pointless.  Moreover the yard has substantially cut the wages of its employees and increased their hours, with the promise of further cuts to come. The management pleads that this is all due to events outside their control – excessive demand for the marina, requirements of the health authorities, financial stringency. At best it is all a result of bad management, at worst it is a case of management trying to take advantage of the crisis at both ends, cutting costs by cutting wages and intensifying labour and raising revenue by jacking up fees.
The result of this has been a mass exodus of boats from this yard to the other yard and marina in Lakki, which is now substantially cheaper, without restrictions, but, apparently, with even worse treatment of its workers. Having managed to get our deposit back from the yard here, we have also joined the exodus, after I had a fruitless discussion with the smooth, nay slimy, young director of the company – he finally conceded that they were at fault in altering the terms of our contracts without notice, got very angry when I suggested that if I brought in lawyers I would win, but would not make any concessions. I can well imagine him persuading his employees that a pay cut or redundancy is in their best interests, helping their career development. Another bastard boss.
So we are stuck in the yard, waiting for the electrician to come back before we can launch. It is nice enough here – very quiet, variable but pleasant weather and good company. And we have a car so we can get out and about (the ground is a bit rough for much walking and my bike is still in pieces as I combat the rust).
No pictures yet!
Love to all our family and friends – we miss you all.