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!

Wandering Around Until Friends Arrive

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Marina:  The next few days were pretty lazy. We were still getting up really early but it helped us be productive. 

Matt:  I got up sometime around 06:00 and started working. I closed the door to Jess’ cabin — now Marina’s, and made myself a cup of coffee and did my email correspondence. Around 7am Marina opened the door, made a cup of tea and did her email. We had a few things still to do on the boat, most notably raise the jib. We took a chance on the wind and got it up fairly quickly — though pulling 75 feet of 2mm round luff rope up the forestay groove requires patience as well as liberal amounts of spray silicone. That’s the trick ... I remember showing that to Marcel who struggled like mad getting his jib up and he nearly fell over about how easy it was once he used the silicone. Now that we did our chore we needed to go to town for marketing. I had some challenges with the dinghy motor and needed to do a little McGyver’ing to get it working. Fuel was spilling out of the bowl .. I didn’t close the drain screw so it was the first problem, then the o-ring wasn’t seated correctly plus the fibre washer on the bottom failed ... so reseat the set screw working it in and out with some grease, reinstalling the o-ring with a little grease to hold it in place, then used some RTV Silicone to be the washer on the bottom of the bowl. I’ll need to keep an eye on it as oil is OK, but not 100% sure about gasoline. Marina hopped in the dinghy and took it for a spin ... she was a little intimidated by the faster speed than Bonnie. 

Matt testing out the new dinghy.

I took it for a spin too ... not too bad, definitely more squirrelly than Bonnie. We didn’t want to landfill Bonnie so we resolved to put a “Free” sign on her and let her go. We pulled up behind a fish boat ... and they took it. He has a son at Lefkada and knows how to repair them and were delighted to take her off our hands. Awesome pay forward for some young Greek guy. 

Bonnie and her new owners behind. 

Then we decided to walk around town — all the way past the bus station and then back, stopping for lunch with a terrific chicken souvlaki ... then 116 Euros of groceries — about 4x what you get at home plus we had a couple bottles of wine, 12 beers and a bunch of other stuff. We walked back to the beach where BB2 was ...what we think we'll call her ...and went back to Tara to unload. 

We have definitely started a trend as there are now four boats anchored out, rare in Preveza... but awesome. There was quite a bit of weather coming through with rain and wind (also rare here) but as we got hungry we hopped in BB2 and headed to shore for pizza. Marina and I both remember having excellent pizza at this place in Preveza ... unfortunately it wasn’t the one that we went to and we ordered two large pies, which gave us leftovers for 2 days. It's still amazing to go out for dinner, get a bottle of fizzy water, a beer, and two large Pizzas for 30 Euros — or $45. At home it would have been $9 for beer, $20 each for the Pizzas and $5 for a bottle of water for $54 plus $7 tax and $8 tip for $70 ... quite a bit cheaper to live over here in Greece.

Next morning we were up at 04:00 ... wow quite a bit of rain. Loud enough to wake both Marina and I up. We closed the different hatches and buttoned Tara up. The wind is howling too. Wow, weird weather. Also in Preveza the current is crazy fast ... like 2-3 knots. Last night when we came back to the boat in about 10-15 knots, the boat was 90 degrees to the wind, weather cocked into the current. If you ever fell off the boat, start swimming to shore ... because unless you’re a really strong swimmer you’ll never make it back to the boat! We got up in earnest at 07:45 and started our day. The sun is trying to peak out, hopefully it will burn off all these clouds and we’ll find our way to Pargas or Lakka today.  We powered for about an hour in Preveza at idle to get the fridge going and for Marina to get to the Cleopatra mini-market for her British Cheese and humous. Unfortunately the greedy Brits got the good cheese (extra old) so she settled for just old. Out through the channel ... which is bloody long, and then turned north where we split the difference between Paxos and Pargas, no wind, just big waves ... like 2 meter rollers with the occasional breaker on top. Pretty lumpy and enough to get a few burps (Balderdash!) out of Marina and I felt a little woozy after being below for 5 minutes. Anyway, we started to get our sea legs and a couple of other boats coming out of Lefkada (Bavaria 46’s each with 6 Austrian men aboard) were powering behind us catching us up little by little. We were doing the slow-power at 1900 revs but ... us being us, we couldn’t let them pass so we ended up going to 2300 and picked up another knot keeping them tantalizingly close but unable to pass. The wind kept getting stronger so we eventually said “let’s sail” so we popped out the Jib (had to tack onto starboard to get the port sheet on) and then headed as high as we could. Luck would have us getting lifted the entire way to Pargas. Eventually we passed the two boats that passed us while we put our sails up, out pointing and badly out-speeding them (hee-hee-hee) and got into Pargas on a close reach in the mid-7 knots range. Pargas was a little packed but we found a spot and dropped our hook a respectful distance away from others ... something the Austrians neglected to do for us. 

The sun going down in Pargas. 

Anyway, we hunkered down and Marina made a simple but delicious meal of chicken, leftover pasta and a Greek salad. Awesome. We watched the moon a bit, but it was howling with wind and occasional rain. We ended up going down below at around 21:00 and both ran out of gas at the same time ... Marina was more energetic through the day as she had not had a nap (I had a 2 hour nap after we anchored) ... but in the end we went to bed at 9, just like old people.

 

Got up early — like 06:30 and sent out our emails and messages. An early morning cereal and coffee fest, emails and reading. Around 9:30 we had a swim — for about 20 seconds. 19.85 degrees C was a little bit cold for us. We lizarded on the forward deck for a little while and then we headed down below for lunch. Lazy lazy lazy. We lit the engine at 11:30, we left Pargas and decided to sail as much as we could so we pulled out the sails and then got headed, then tacked out and tacked back in some decent breeze — well, let’s be honest here ... some wimpy breeze. We were doing 3-4 knots of boatspeed for a couple of hours tacking up towards Corfu. The westerly finally arrived and we rolled up the mainsail and went on with just the jib at around 7 knots of boatspeed — pretty good. We still had 20 miles to go — wow 3 hours in and we had knocked off 7 miles, so we just kept going. Part-way up Corfu we got headed some more and the wind lightened up ... somewhat regretting putting the main away ... we just carried on with just the jib in a dying breeze. 15 miles to go still ... at 16:00 ... we normally think in terms of 7 knots on a passage ... 28 miles, 4 hours. Today we were at 6 hours and still hadn’t made it half way ... but we kept on going until our boatspeed dropped into the 3’s and we were 30 degrees off our desired course ... on came the Yanmar and we made it there in 20 minutes. We pumped up the SUPS and I had a chuckle at Marina trying to maneuver the SUPS around bumping into shrouds and the main sheet, nearly knocking herself overboard. We decided to go ashore for dinner and took BB2, where when I tried to plane the boat the prop spun ... grrr ... need to go buy a new prop. Oh joy. We wandered around Corfu and selected our Olive Garden restaurant and shared a pasta dish with our favourite -- caprese salad, and mushrooms in garlic. Quite delicious. We forgot but the price of wine in Corfu is double that on the mainland ... keep that in mind. On Corfu -- drink beer! We made it back to Tara without further wrecking the propeller and watched the moon come up over the horizon while drinking tea on the back of the boat.

Bonnie Blue -- 2010-2018 RIP

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Bye Bye Bonnie Blue

As they say, all good things must come to an end. The winter two seasons ago was very hard on our RIB Bonnie Blue (continuing with our theme around Gone with the Wind that we unwittingly got ourselves into some 30 years ago when I bought Scarlet). When she was delivered to the boat she looked very weather worn and she also had some leaks. We found a patch kit for 30 or 40 euros and we tried patching her up and, for the most part, it worked. Our new routine became before we used the dinghy, we pumped it up a little bit … or a lot … depending on how long it had been since we had pumped it up last. We also got used to sitting on a very soft RIB in the evening … like really soft ... like butt nearly in the water soft

Bonnie looking a little bit deflated

This winter we resolved to purchase a new RIB and bid adieu to Bonnie Blue. When we got to Cleopatra however, Marina unpacked her and she actually looked OK, she pumped her up with our trusty Dewalt Vacuum (turned around it becomes a blower) and hey … maybe we could get another year out of her … or at-least sell her for 100 or 200 Euros. We had her launched along with Tara and we docked into our spot … and Bonnie was floating between the laid mooring lines. A couple of hours later it became woefully apparent that Bonnie Blue – Blew up. She was a sad sight and a mere spectre of her former glory. That dinghy has sailed 20,000 miles with us, been in big storms, been horribly overloaded, rescued other dinghys and was actually rescued herself once on the Island of Gaios when an unnamed M242 sailor didn’t tie her up tightly enough, She outlived 4 propellers, two outboards and several gas tanks … she was a real trooper.

We then tried to figure out what to do with her. Can we sell her quickly became .. can we give her away. We didn't want to land-fill her ... and we weren't sure we could sink her ... make an artificial reef with her had some charm. In the end we fashioned a sign “Free” in Greek and we pulled up at the fishing dock. There was a fisherman on his boat there with his wife and a deckhand. It took a minute or two to get through that we were giving Bonnie away.

Turns out his son works at Lefkas Marina and has the time and inclination to repair these older RIBs … so there you go. Bonnie is off to her new home, we have a new dinghy … now what to name her?