A One Star Day - Tara Escapes her Chains

We got up around 9 am and decided that since the wind is shifting to the NE we will move the boat to the other side of the bay. It was pretty windy, but Marina did a great job of keeping us into the wind and away from the other boats. I initially let out 25 meters, we held, then we let out another 15 meters. The water is a little deeper here, around 8 meters, so we aren’t really all that extreme with 40 meters. Apparently it is going to blow hard this afternoon — like 25, so we need to make sure we’re dug in deep. 

Was that foreshadowing or what ... We went to town to buy a few things, nothing important. We were out for quite a while having left the boat around 2pm. We missed the stationery store's opening hours so we sat down and had a beer and waited until 17:30 when it opened again ... turned out it opened in the afternoons only on Mon, Tues and Thurs and it was Wednesday of course, so ... missed it. We then tooled around the rest of Corfu town and found another stationery shop and bought a couple of binders and pens and stuff. Marina finally found her mechanical pencil — woo woo. It is now around 18:00, and we had spent from 16:00 to 17:00 watching Tara from the bar ... we we were coming back from town and the wind blowing 25. Holy crap  ... is that TARA a boat length from that 100 foot powerboat?!? 

Naw. It must just be the perspective... but we ran down the stairs at NAOK, jumped in BB2 and roared back as fast she’s would go back to TARA. When we got there we were only a boatlength away ... we had made it just in the nick of time. Our luck was holding. Phew.

Tara is moving backwards fast but no problem, we're pros at boathandling. Marina jumps downstairs, throws me the key, disaster averted ...YAY. Turn the key. Nothing. The engine that has worked flawlessly for 4920 hours wouldn’t start. ... correction, wouldn’t turn over. Nothing, nada, zero. 

!#*%!, this is now a real problem. I pull out the generator. Marina is hauling the anchor up using the windlass and it draws 100 amps, and without engine power it causes a low-volt on the windlass that trips the breaker. We get the genset running and the anchor windlass is working ... slowly because its hauling a 20 ton boat upwind. This buys us another boatlength or two, and gives me time to try to get the engine working.  Marina was waiting for the boat to ‘sail’ up the anchor chain and tack and she would reel in the anchor while it was loose — relatively speaking.  I’m quickly doing PD on the engine. I’m trying to short out the starter motor but its so deep in the guts of the Yanmar it’s almost impossible to see let alone get access to. I get the starter drive to go — whirrr — but the Bendix drive isn't engaging so the engine isn’t turning over. All we need is a momentary crank because this Yanmar runs so well it will light right away. I’m running out of time. Marina yells that now we’re really close ... like going to hit close.

Gotta stop screwing about with the engine. Plan ... what the eff’s the plan now???

Lya, from Slovenia. 

Marina yells to pull out the jib and try to sail away from the other boat up-wind.  I simultaneously pull in on the jib sheet while easing the furling rope and steering with my knee/foot. Careful not to let too much jib out .. we don’t want to have an even bigger problem with 70 sq meters of jib flogging about. I pull out about 2 meters worth and  we are able to sail away a bit .. basically giving us some forward momentum to help pull the chain up. 

The anchor windlass, oops, better clean up the oil
(spills out when strained)

As I had feared, due to putting too much strain on the battery it goes low voltage, which causes the resistance to increase, Ohm’s law and all that jazz ... anyway the anchor windlass trips the breaker and Marina is now pulling up the last 20 meters of chain by hand.  Click 6 inches, click 6 inches, click 6 inches ...  Marina reckons the sailing creating more problems than it is solving ... so she tells me to  roll up the jib again ... now the boats are really close. They come together and we have 3 massive round fenders in place but a wave hits ... we’re OK ... except the BBQ hits. I think it bent our pushpit a bit. S&*t ... ! Did we scratch the chrome on that lovely boat? The boats tack away from each other,* we only have another minute or 2 before we come together again.

*(You may not know it but in wind over say 10 knots for a boat our size, the boats tend to tack up the anchors chain ,,, the wind pushes the bow one way ... the wind causes the boat to sail maybe 100 feet or so, and then the anchor pulls the bow the other way, and you go the other way for a 100 feet or so. Marina calculated the math and it is a significant distance ...)

Meanwhile, Marina keeps lifting the anchor ... inch by inch, Oh no! It’s caught In the 100 footer's anchor chain SHITBALLS. We’re in real trouble now. Marina looks in exasperation at the guy on the other boat who raises his hands in agreement that the anchors are now at risk of hooking up. Somehow, after a few minutes of tacking up the anchor chain it seems to free itself. Marina yells that the anchor is now clear of their chain and is up of the bottom. With the anchor off the bottom we’re doing 2.5 knots in whichever way the wind is blowing and, thank the gods, it was blowing from a favourable angle. We glide by the other boat at a 90 degree angle only 5 feet off the side of their boat with transom facing them. Phew, we could have left a 90 foot scrape on the side of their boat but ... disaster averted for the time being.

The immediate crisis was over and we have a few minutes again. Marina hand winches the rest of the anchor chain back on board. I didn’t notice until she was almost done that she was using the clutch to lift the anchor and had to remove and re-insert the handle each pull ...  instead of the manual lifting system that has a ratchet in it and would have made it much easier and faster. Oh well, heat of the moment and she pulled in 40 meters of 12mm chain, half by hand, in a 25 knot breeze in crisis conditions. Did I marry well or what?!

Now we are past the 100 footer and we’re drifting towards a 250 footer .. you know the kind worth say 50 million euros. And 5 million more for the Eurocopter parked on the top. Marina gets the anchor all the way up, we’re a sailing boat again. This we know how to do. We pull out small amount of jib.  Get on beam-reach and start reaching out of the harbour. We don’t put out very much, we want to keep the boat going slow but under control. Heart rates are probably a little high, we’re just trying to get our feet back underneath us. A few deep breaths, alright, let the dinghy out a ways so it doesn’t swamp. Get the boat sorted, tie the cushions down that the wind is trying to rip off the boat, take the generator off the front deck, put the crap away. 

Deck cushions all tied down. 

Tara is moseying along under control at 4 knots or so. Marina has the conn ... I go work the engine problem again.  I reckon it might be the relay between the key switch and starter motor. I had to replace that once in Preveza when the original Yanmar part packed it in. I replug the connections ... yell to Marina try it now ... the engine lights instantly. Ok, now what about the windlass? I check the windlass breaker. It had indeed tripped. So, motor running, windlass operational, time to go set another anchor.

We drop anchor (we really dropped the anchor this time not the metaphorical anchor) fairly close to where we were originally, but behind the 100 footer. Marina thought we had dragged the first time we set it so , we reset it, backed it down twice. At dusk we decided to let out another 10 meters of chain so now we have 50 meters out. It would be like parking your car, putting it in park, emergency brake on, blocks under each tire, and tying the bumper to a nearby tree. We were safe.

BBQ slightly off kilter and lifelines at right are a little loose. 
Nothing compared to what could have happened. 

Man I feel like having a rum drink now but our hearts weren’t really in it. Marina re-heated the Lithuanian soup we had left over and made a very nice Carprese salad. 

We  then debriefed on what we could have done better and have some new rules:

1) we dig the anchor in hard every time. 

2) if it’s blowing 20+ somebody should be on the boat at all times, 

3) I put together a quickie manual on how to fix stuff under pressure — jump-starting the motor, fixing the windlass if it blows the breaker, if we spring a leak, how to winch the anchor in if the power side of it blows ... just a few things that Marina needs to know while I’m off in Germany with Ross, Philip and Christian testing the limits of my beer drinking and pork eating capacity.

Emergencies Manual

Now ... wouldn’t it be nice if the evening ended there ... but it didn’t. Two more things: 

First: another 100’ boat decided to anchor right beside us literally 100 feet away. We could tell they were a bit nervous too but still stayed there for about an hour and a half before the lifted up at around 23:00 and moved to a few hundred meters behind us. Maybe they could tell we were rattled a bit, might have been me throwing the fenders over the side. I stayed up until 00:30 serenading the harbour and when the wind subsided a bit more I went to bed. 

Second: At around 3:15 am the second thing happened. Corfu’s Mandraki harbour, that I really love, is open to the east and cruise ships, freighters and ferries all go by in the middle of the night. This one must have been big and since the wind had stopped, we were directly broadside to the waves. The boat started to rock really hard — like 20-30 degrees in each direction and I start hearing dishes rattling — we didn’t put them away after washing up after our dinner, and then the full bottle of rum I had bought the previous day fell onto the floor, breaking into a million pieces and spilling a litre of rum on the floor (at least it was Baccardi). Great! Marina got our trusty Dewalt shop-vac out and we sucked up most of the glass and rum and finally called it a night. And did I mention that it appears that our freezer has packed it in. ... yikes, what a trip. I gave this evening in Mandraki one star — because we cannot go into the negative 👎.

Our "track". Top left is anchoring and falling back to settle in the blob of yellow.
Wind comes up and the straight bit in the middle is a solid drag.
Some "sailing" while dragging follows that.
At least we now know what it looks like.

The next morning we powered by the 100 footer and asked them if there was any damage. They said there was a small scratch on their chrome but not to worry .... we apologized profusely ,,, Marina then hopped in the dinghy and delivered a bottle of Stoli to them. They were very gracious and I hope the next time this happens to us, that we can be as gracious as they were.

If you think it’s butter but it’s not ...

In Greece, you can make funny mistakes when buying food, like the time that we thought we were buying Ross chocolate milk and it turned out to be Goat’s milk — hey, it looked like chocolate milk to me ... except maybe for the outline of the goat on the label — a big swig of that and out it came ... pronto.

Bitam Classic Lard ... mmm mmm good

Well, we experienced something similar this trip. Marina bought butter in a bright gold foil package (just like at home) and we were having a nice breakfast with eggs, bacon and toast ... I put butter on the toast but said ... you sure you bought salted butter??? ... this stuff tastes like nothing and is just like fat. Marina tried it too and she didn’t like it much either so we put it back in the fridge and thought it was unsalted butter and we’d just need to add salt to it ... and all would be fine.  

A couple of days later we used Google Translate to come up with Salted Butter at the grocery store and we asked for some help. She showed us a package that had salted butter ... then we asked what the gold package was ... it was Lard.

So .. if you think it’s butter but it’s not ... it’s Lard. At least in Greece.

Guests Arrive for a Week

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Jun 30

Waiting ain't so bad with a frosty beer in hand

We got up fairly late for us .. 08:00 and then spent an hour or two doing stuff ... the usual email, paid visa bills, etc. Then we dragged ourselves off the boat and into BB2 on the way to Corfu town. We went to a coffee shop and had an extra breakfast then I hopped off to get the new propeller at the Suzuki store. This time I opted for the Solas propeller — three props from Suzuki that have broken means that it’s time to switch suppliers. I phoned on the way back and the ladies (Donna and Janice, two of Marina's tennis buddies) were on the boat. We reckoned that we might as well meet at the same place we had breakfast. 

I was waiting with a Heini in hand by the time the ladies walked by. As it turned out we also decided that we really only needed 3 people grocery shopping so I stayed back and had another Heineken at the cafe. I was just about to drain my 2nd beer when the ladies walked by with the groceries and rescued me from my naturally wicked ways.

Donna and Janice enjoying the sunshine and the
little wind that we had to work with 

We headed back to the boat, stopping for ice on the way. When we hit the boat, went for a swim and and picked up the anchor by 2pm. Marina is preparing for when I leave for Germany and she will be Captain in command. She was at the back driving and the anchor was really weird how it was way off to the one side ... she had to fight the wind to get the bow that direction but she got it and we pulled up the anchor and headed roughly SE towards Muertos. We tried sailing for a while, it looked pretty good but the 2 knot rule was in effect and we turned on the Yanmar for some help. We dropped the hook, had cocktail hour (a daily event on Tara including wine, beer, rum, cheese, olives, humous and crackers) and later, after some discussion regarding whether the new propellor would work, went into town for dinner ... (it worked).

Jul 1

We had a very leisurely morning, getting up late and having a coffee. The ladies woke up about 09:30, about 2 hours after Marina woke up and started on her math homework. She is prepping to tutor Grade 12 Pre-Calculus.

CELEBRATING CANADA DAY 2018

Ross' head had filled up again (not planned) so we decided it was time to change the pump. Marina went at it with the two key ingredients: alacrity and gloves. In the mean time I took the carburetor off of the outboard engine and cleaned it thoroughly as it quitting part way home seemed like a bit of a liability.  Once that maintenance was done we headed into the town of Sivota and I had “breakfast” which is a euphemism for a coffee and "dropping anchor". The ladies went out for a walk. They came and joined me an hour or so later and I had lunch, then they went marketing while I took a walk up and over to the beach resort outside of where Tara was moored. Marina came and picked me up in BB2 but not without some confusion as to where I was — having gone to the other shoreline a mile or so away. 

Out for a walk in Sivota

In the early afternoon we lifted up the hook and headed out towards Lakka some 12 miles or so away. We only powered around the point and set our sails, and the wind was pretty much on the nose so we were heading more towards Antipaxos than Lakka but we kept with it and coming around the Corfu point we were lifted nearly all the way to Lakka. We dropped the hook on the south side of the entrance in about 4 meters of water (only 21.35 degrees though) right beside a 1970’s vintage superyacht called Royal Tara from Valetta. We settled down and saw a guy  on a SUP with the paddle the wrong way ... I asked Marina when we saw him whether we should tell him ... she said no ... but he came up to the boat, introduced himself as Gareth whose wife is from Vancouver so we shared a beer and a nice chat. Then Marina and I hopped on our SUP boards and paddled around the bay finally helping some guys in a dinghy with getting it started. I joked about owing us a beer and lo and behold they showed up with some beers and we had a very nice chat with this Latvian couple who live in Germany with their daughter and their friend who is still from Latvia. Perfect English skills plus very social. Nice young people in their late 20’s. What a terrific group of people our world produces on a regular basis. Now after a few beers and rum drinks it was time for dinner so we headed into Lakka and our normal place for dinner. We shared some lamb and some prawns and, of course, more wine. I skulked off now and then to see the different soccer scores — Russia advancing on penalties over Spain, Croatia also advances on penalties. Wow.  We made it back to the dinghy and then the boat ... turned in and, after drinking a torpedo of water, went to bed.

Jul 2

Up late today — like 09:00 ... in reality woke up earlier but laid in bed listening to radio dramas. 70 years later Lucille Ball is still very funny. Finally got up and got going started doing email and stuff and headed up top for a "coffee" -- see euphemism for "breakfast". Not sure what the plan is for today, there is fairly thick fog here in Lakka, something we haven’t seen before. Dew point must be equal to the temperature outside. We turned on the motor to get some juice into the batteries as we are at 70%

 ... yikes, maybe we turn on the generator for an hour or two today while we are away... it was a pretty lazy day and I decided that I would work on the new regulator, which while it isn’t really all that complex, I believe that I am finally figuring out electricity generated from Alternators.

Nothing like a forest of wires to make things interesting

The hangup was the brown wire that is switched to the ignition. I had to find an ignition switch wire to tap into, which I did finally — the red wire that is at the top of the “T” fitting that connects to the Alternator. I also noticed the brown wire from the alternator was not connected to the diode, which is likely why the charge light kept coming on ... anyway, after a couple of hours work to figure out how to do about 10 minutes worth of work, we were in business. Now all I need to do is learn how to program it!  

Meanwhile Marina and Donna went of SUPping, with Donna looking a bit shaky as we took off but she managed to circumnavigate Lakka until she came back to Tara when I asked her why she was so far forward on the board — causing her to rapid-step back and into the water with a big splash and a middle finger sticking up. This all wrapped up about 4:45pm and the Brazil-Mexico match was at 5 so we piled in the dinghy to head to town found a bar and watched the game — which was highly entertaining except for Neymar Jr. falling down as if he were shot. The worst one being when he was slightly stepped on and he was rolling around on the ground for a couple of minutes ... the slo-mo made him look like a total whiner. Anyway, he goes and scores the first goal and sets up the 2nd so he’s a good player, not such a good person. We made it back to the boat and our neighbours told us that the anchor had been lifted by another boat while we were away so we made dinner and decided to reposition the boat — twice — to get it right. Not really much of a chore in a 4 meter deep harbour where you can see the bottom clearly. Anyway, back to the boat, I got my guitar restrung and sang a bunch of songs that I knew then off to bed at a reasonable hour as we want to get to Antipaxos and Pargas today.

Jul 3

We actually got up on time and had a coffee and got underway to Antipaxos by 09:00, early enough to avoid taking a pit-stop in town. A long quiet power down to Antipaxos was followed by a very nice lunch at the top of Antipaxos, pricey but nice. 

Taking photos of the incredible view ...
Matt deep in thought ,,, Heineken or Mythos ... decisions decisions

The view from the top is breathtaking

There are some 216 steps up to the top and the beach is still very nice. We anchored close to the shore on the south side where the tripper boats go and we had to move once and we also had a large tripper boat lay his chain over top of our anchor which caused some fancy maneuvering. 

Walking around Pargas is really like walking
around the Grouse Grind ... it is all up and down

We headed off to Pargas under power and arrived an hour or two later (I had a nap so I am not exactly sure how long it took). We anchored between a couple of big cats and took the shuttle to town for 5 Euros each and watched a pretty good soccer match between England and Columbia. The English had the play and a 1-nil lead through 90 minutes but the Colombians tied it up at 93 minutes and there was no score in the two 15 minute halves of overtime. In PK’s it looked bleak for the Brits as the Colombian goal keeper had made a save and Columbia had a 3-2 lead, but that was followed by a crossbar and a terrific save by the English goalie and then the striker for England potted a goal to make it 4-3, quite a dramatic turnaround. We headed back for the midnight boat and it was too full, so he did a quick turnaround and we made it back for around 12:30 thoroughly entertained by the game.

Jul 4

I had some work to do, an RFP response for the Government that took me several hours, so the ladies headed off to town in the dinghy while I worked away on the RFP for Victoria.

Can you see them waving at the top of the hill? Don't
Feel bad ... neither can I

I got a call from the ladies asking me to take their picture at the top of the local fort (I think they will be pretty small in the picture) After working for a few more hours, I took a break and paddled the SUP around the bay for a walkabout and a very quick dip. Not sure why I was wigged out by the water but I was. 

Anyway, back on the boat the fridge stopped working — the electric one. First time in 9 years so I guess it doesn’t owe us much. Anyway it means that we are down a fridge unit — geez warm beer and bread ... (Jimmy Buffet Cheeseburger in Paradise reference in case you missed it) 

 We decided to head to Preveza for the night and tie into the mole. We wallyied about getting ready and then nailed a perfect into the mole landing, though I was going fairly fast at the end and needed a bit of a bounce in forward to cushion against the wall. Anyway we came in and our Lithuanian friends from Lakka came and said hello. They had a puncture in their dinghy and needed some glue so I lent them my glue kit — in return they brought back some lovely soup. 

The soup delivered from our
new Lithuanian Friends

Apparently a German recipe, it was delicious. The Port Police lady Nicole from Brooklyn came by and we had a nice half-hour chat with her learning about her Big Fat Greek Wedding family — 17 kids and 41 first cousins from one set of grandparents. We went over to the Lithuanian boat for a drink or three and had a nice chat until the wee hours of the morning. The world is in good hands if these guys are the future generation

Jul 5

We left Preveza after the world’s largest (and best priced) breakfast for 5 Euros. Did a little marketing,, though forgot to buy rum, picked up a couple bags of ice and shipped 225Euro of fuel. Fridge is still on the fritz but the result is that we’re using way less electricity so it works out about even. We left Preveza around 13:10 and did a lazy cruise at 1200 Revs out the passage, the wind picked up so we sailed to Lefkas, even reefing on the way there. We arrived at the entrance of the Canal at 14:45 so we just did a few lazy racetracks until 14:57 and then headed into the canal. There were only a half dozen or so boats with us and only 2 going the other way, so it was low stress. We puttered through Lefkas and then passed the French Catamaran around the fuel dock and through to the other side. 

We raised our sails and sailed to the Ormos Varko bay ... originally thinking it was the one that was further east but getting it right. It was pretty windy and Marina didn’t want to manage the helm but I convinced her it wasn’t going to get any better than this so .... she did a grease job. It’s a nice bay here, quite open to the south but the wind was from the North all day so it seemed like a good place to hang out. The beach is pebble and there is a beach bar here that isn;t very well attended ... maybe on the weekend it gets busier. Marina and Donna headed off on SUPs and explored the beach while I had a swim (very short) and lounged about doing next to nothing. Donna prepared some pork tenderloin for dinner and I BBQd it. We ate dinner while I played guitar and tried to learn some new songs ... I can play them, just remembering them takes some time. Maybe I need to write them down and build a playlist with the lyrics to make them stick. Early to bed, relatively early to rise ....

Jul 6

Coming towards the end of Donna and Janis’ stay with us we figured we go to Nidri and eat at the Italian place. We didn’t power to Nidri until late in the afternoon and we secured a good spot at the head of tranquil bay ... perhaps a little close to the Lyra of Wight boat that appears to be stapled to the bottom of the bay as it is in the same spot as it was the previous year as we recall. 

Watching World Cup Football -- England crushes Uruguay

Anyway we did some marketing at the grocery store and went to Nidri Marine to get some rope for bracelets and a spark plug. We also got some colour coding for the anchor chain — see if that works before we buy a lot of them. We watched two quarter-final soccer games seeing Belgium triumph over Brazil at the bar, then we went to the Italian restaurant D’Opprodo and watched France triumph over Uruguay. We then went back to the boat put wrist bands on everyone and had a talk about the weather. 





Marina was concerned that we don’t want to go to Preveza too late as the wind was coming up — like Force 8, so we don’t want to be slogging into that, or perhaps worse, trying to dock at Preveza in that kind of situation, so we will play it by ear for tomorrow. In the end we stayed in Nidri and Donna and Janice caught a cab from our favorite Italian restaurant to the airport -- and Marina and I watched another World Cup game!