Month: April 2017

First off, some tidying up–here is a nice photo Mike took at the amphitheater in Epidavros.

And here are the two photos the lady took as we were entering the harbour in Aegina Town the other day.  You can see me fighting with the anchor in the first shot.

So Mike is now intimately acquainted with the windlass and it is purring like a Greek kitten with a bellyfull of pistachios, or whatever the hell it is they feed all these cats.  (Did I mention they grow pistachios on Aegina island? also lemons and olives)  I secretly hope they eat wharf rats too so that I don’t have to worry about one finding its way onto the boat.

With the windlass working again, we headed south to Perdika (on the same island).  We anchored in a small bay just north of town and had a delightful pork stir-fry for dinner.  Thanks Mike!  I married well, that guy can cook.

This morning Mike worked on the generator battery while I spent two hours waking up and doing nothing productive.  Then we headed into Perdika to check things out.  I was pretty excited to see the Camera Obscura, a giant 360 degree pinhole camera out on a point, south of town.  Sadly, it has fallen into disrepair and is no longer functional, but it totally made me want to build one back home, wherever home turns out to be, upon our return.

After that we just wandered around a bit and had some lunch in town.  It’s a very small fishing village with the requisite tavernas on the coast.

Check out this warning about this being a forbidden navy area.  Does it LOOK like there is a lot of navy activity going on?

Mike took more photos of flowers, and I took more photos of Mike taking photos of flowers.

And now I sit once again in the wee hours typing a blog post, listening to music, but this time–surprise surprise–it is jazz that is floating across the water from the amazing taverna we visited yesterday (thank for the WiFi, folks!).  Best calamari so far.  Feels a little surreal to hear Take Five, All of Me, The More I See You, All the Things You Are and lots of other classics.  Recorded, of course, but hey, maybe there is room for me and the new ukulele to entertain some Greek folks someday.

 

 

Yes, you read that right–we are back in Aegina Town.  That damn windlass is our nemesis.

First of all, we enjoyed our time in Palaia Epidavros a lot.  We had two incredibly calm nights at anchor.  Here is Coral bobbing happily in the bay.

Coral at anchor in Palaia Epidavros

This is the church just off our stern that woke us up at 7am each morning with bells, and kept waking me up every half hour thereafter.  Mike just got up at 7. He tells me that when I’m old like him I will wake up and not want to go back to sleep, but I still have an amazing capacity to go back to sleep multiple times in the morning, as all my past employers will attest.

This morning we got up and started puttering and Mike tried to start the generator.  No go.  He started the engine to jump start the generator, and then we decided to just move at that time since we were only planning to go around the corner into another bay where Mike could snorkel and see the remains of the old city under water.  (I’m not interested in snorkeling yet–too cold still for this fair weather swimmer.  My wetsuit is in Canada, and I doubt I could squeeze into it regardless).  We started the routine: I removed the snub on the anchor and started to bring it up with the windlass.  Halfway up it stopped.  I could feel it trying, so we thought maybe it was just caught on something, but we soon discerned that no, it was another windlass problem.  Mike used brute force to get the anchor the rest of the way up, winching by hand, and then we left the harbour to think about our options.   It didn’t take long to decide to head back to Aegina Town where we had some support.  

As a little treat, we let out the jib for part of our crossing.  Not quite full sailing since the motor was still on, but a taste of things to come.

The concern upon arrival was that we only had one chance to set the anchor, so I was nervous about the Med mooring and voted to just anchor south of the harbour.   I was overruled, because of course it is much more convenient to be a step away from shore when you’re dealing with crap.

We arrived just before 3pm and knew that the high-speed ferry was leaving at 3, so we hung back to let it leave.  In the meantime, three boats entered the harbour to moor!  I was getting a little panicky about availability of spots, but Mike assured me there was lots of room.  Indeed, our old spot was still open next to the big charter boat, so once the ferry departed we lined up to back in.

I started to drop the anchor and about 30 seconds in I realized that if it jammed I was screwed!  It had jammed almost every other time I had dropped it, but generally that just means pulling it up a smidge  and continuing down (using buttons, not muscle).  Since UP didn’t work,  a jam would have completely screwed up our momentum backing into the spot, and then it would have been a mild shit show.   It is not the same as backing up your car.  Through some miracle, for once it did not jam!  Afterward I told Mike about my revelation mid-anchor drop, and he said “look at the email I sent David before we left Palaia Epidavros”.  In that email  he expressed his concern about our one chance to drop the anchor and said “hope it doesn’t jam”.  I realized that he had been thinking about that problem all along and had avoided bringing it up since it would only make me panic.  Of course I then had one of those weird after-the-fact emotional rushes and started to cry.

It was kind of him to try and spare me the worrying, though we did agree after that it would not have been a bad thing for me to have a winch handy to try and raise the anchor by a couple of links to get things moving again, had a jam happened.  Hindsight is 20/20.   In the end, Mike’s magic horseshoe remains firmly lodged in his butt, and I am a happy beneficiary.

Shortly after we arrived in our berth, a lady showed up with two photos mounted that she had taken while we were entering the port.  They were pretty good, so I told Mike I wanted them and he kindly acquiesced.  16 Euros later we had our first personal things to hang on the cabin walls.  I will take photos of the photos tomorrow and post them.

We’ve only been gone from Aegina Town for 2 days, but in that time summer seems to have arrived–hot weather and lots of noise and people.  After the solitude of Palaia Epidavros it was quite jarring, but still comforting to know I could visit all my regular haunts.  Case in point, I headed to Tenekedakia pronto for pita gyros, this time the chicken ones.  The chicken was great, but they serve them with a mustard sauce instead of the tzatziki that is served on the pork ones.  Tomorrow I live right:  pita chicken gyro with tzatziki!  I predict they will herald me a genius!

Mike spent the rest of the afternoon working on the windlass after an email consult with David and a phone consult with Lucas.  He didn’t have the heart to try things out today, but I have a good feeling.  I’ll leave it to him if he wants to share details.

Dinner at Panta Rei (where we reconnected with our adorable regular waitress, Liberty), and now Mike is conked out while I sit here “borrowing” WiFi and listening to a bunch of drunk Greeks 3 boats down singing songs and playing guitar. It is a strange thing when a huge number of people know all the words to a song you have never heard in your life.

Ah, guitar has now stopped and I am treated to the sound of 80s pop music drifting out from the waterfront tavernas.  We are surprised at all the American (and Canadian–I heard some Moist!)  music that is played here.  Adele is ubiquitous.   In France twelve years ago I got pretty plugged into the French music scene, but I don’t see that happening here.  I guess they are catering to tourists? Ah, now I hear Dancing Queen, one of the first songs I ever truly loved (after Goodbye Yellow Brick Road).  No complaints! On to Staying Alive, and now the somewhat more contemporary Flo Rida’s Low.  Hit the floor and party on, Aegina Town!

Having read Mike’s last post, I now see that I’ve been spelling windless wrong, and it should be windlass.  Colour me embarrassed!   That said, all the names here in Greece seem to be spelled at least four different ways, so let’s just say it’s part of the acclimation process, along with eating dinner at 9pm and falling asleep to the sound of pistol shrimp (not to be confused with the basketball team, The Pistol Shrimps).

So back in Aegina, Mike accidentally knocked over a display at the grocery store with his bubble butt.  The owner of the store claimed responsibility for putting the display in an awkward spot too close to the cash, but Mike felt bad and bought a bottle of alcohol to assuage his guilt.  We decided to use it to try and make our own Greek mojitos.

To further facilitate this, we bought a mint plant for the boat.  After the first snip it seemed to get sad fast.  We have black thumbs and couldn’t decide if it was overwatered or underwatered. Touching the soil we found it hard as a rock and decided underwatered was more likely, and after a healthy douse and some sunlight it sprang back to life!  I had been on the verge of calling in to CBC to talk to Ed Lawrence, which in hindsight might have been a tad excessive.

This morning we took down the extra jib that we had mistakenly installed and put the correct one up.  Some productive boat work accomplished, we rewarded ourselves with an afternoon trip out to the UNESCO site, the Sanctuary of Asklepios, which includes the amphitheater at Epidavros (or Epidauros or Epidaurus or… you get the picture).

I enjoyed seeing the amphitheater immensely, the acoustics are insane, but I was thoroughly annoyed at the behaviour of other tourists.  There were relatively few people visiting, so there is no reason why every single person couldn’t have had a minute to stand on the button centre stage and do whatever: drop a coin, clap, sing, orate.  The smallest sound carries to the topmost seats.  But nooooo, obnoxious people have to stand there for five, ten, fifteen minutes, while polite, passive aggressive, Canadian tourists resist asking them to freaking move and give us a moment in the spotlight.  Mike said he envies their obliviousness? lack of giving a shit?  but I don’t.  I’d prefer to be silent and have no one realize that I’m secretly a jerk who hates them, rather than an oblivious dolt who others KNOW is a jerk, even if they themselves don’t.  Is that not part of what being Canadian is all about?

After the theater we wandered around the rest of the grounds, a healing sanctuary with multiple buildings and a sports field.  They are doing some interesting restoration, starting to recreate the buildings using the real pieces they have and filling in the blanks with new stuff.

At the museum they had some amazing things recovered at the site, lots of statues and medical instruments.

I’ll keep my Tweezerman tweezers, thanks very much.

We returned to town and got drinks and apps at the restaurant whose WiFi we can see from the boat, Posidon (sic). Password obtained!

On a side note, this is the picture on the toilet paper we bought.

Is this not crazy?  Who puts humans (albeit cartoon ones) on toilet paper packaging?!?!  Where are the bears?

 

 

 

Yes! Happy windlass! New carbons in the DC motor, some new gear oil to replace the stuff that dropped out when the pinion gear almost fell into the chain locker (yikes!), new longer bolts to hold that motor snug, and finally lots of finangling with the rather stripped terminal posts that started this whole process. Pantelis, the mechanic that replaced the carbons and judged the motor to otherwise be in fine health, claimed to have thrown out his back and left it to me to hang upside down for 3 hours to reassemble things. Let’s hope I’m done in the anchor locker for a while.

Right, so we really enjoyed Aegina, but after all that,  motoring over to Epidauros felt like an escape of sorts. A 2 hour jaunt via a quiet little anchorage on the SW corner of Agkistri, where we tried to set the anchor while backing in to the shoreline (Euro-style), but the bottom was very steep, and after the anchor dragged a bit, we decided just to continue on to the easy anchorage at Palaia Epi. Great workout for the windlass, no hiccups, and a very calm flat anchorage overnight.

Yesterday was a glorious day at anchor,  messing with the mainsail furling system, polishing some stainless steel (somewhat endless), Kathy cleaning the cabin sole (floor), had a little swim (cool but not cold).

A serene morning now, enjoying coffee and listening to the small fishing boats putt-putting out of the bay, fishermen’s voices drifting over the glassy water.

Sweet.

Hoping to leave in the morning, so I’ll update while I have the chance.

We got the windless motor back today and Mike has spent all afternoon trying to install it–witness his contortions.  I guess I’ll see how he did when I get back to the boat.   I hung out most of the afternoon for moral support, but then I cracked, grabbed the laptop, and hit the road.

We’re planning to skip Perdika now and head straight over to Epidavros to check out the amphitheater before settling in Poros for a few days.  CM told me there is an episode of Joanna Lumley’s travel show where she visited the amphitheater with Nana Mouskouri.  If there is no one around, maybe I’ll sing a few bars.  Requests?  Sorry, not Ave Maria, Corinna, I’m not ready!

Here is a bonus dog pic.

After a couple of visits from Lucas, the Planaco mechanic, we had all of our issues resolved–Lucas got the alternator fixed, also got the generator working again, and Mike fixed his solenoid.  Check, check and check!

As a bonus, some guys running a big charter boat docked next to us offered to sell us a consultation on the rigging.  Mike spent a couple hours with them and was very pleased with the result.  Euros well spent!

Mike got a Greek SIM card for his cell phone, and Canadians, let me tell you, our telecom industry is screwing us!!!!!  For 15 Euros/month he gets a phone plan with 5G of data.  Yes, you read that right, and for the first month we get a bonus of an extra 5G.  I was paying $90/month to Bell for a plan with 1G of data.  Criminal. I’m sure they have some song and dance about population density, but save it for the judge, phone companies.  You are horrible. My phone has been paid off for two years and there is no break for that?

One thing I wanted to mention about Aegina Town (so I don’t forget and can reminisce rereading this blog when I’m old), is that there are lots of horse-drawn carriages ferrying tourists around.  My favourite is one where the owner has a dog that runs alongside the carriage when he has a fare.   I assume this has been going on for awhile and the dog is traffic-savvy, though I did see him off-duty lying half in the road the other day.  I’ll try and get a photo, but so far no luck.

So yesterday, with batteries charged and water tanks topped up, we were all set to head down to the bay north of Perdika and wait out some storm showers forecast for this afternoon.  We removed and stowed the passerelle, hauled in our dock lines, and I went to the bow to start raising the anchor. (Hmmm, that Oxford comma is growing on me.) It came up about a foot and then just stopped.  I thought it had jammed, but no, it would go down but not up at all.  I bellowed for Mike and he was as confused as I was.   So, in total we made it about ten feet away from the dock before we had to retreat back to our starting position.  Talk about anticlimactic.  Not complaining, though, if things have to go wrong, Aegina Town is the place for it to happen as we have support here.

Mike started digging around and found a loose connection, but still wasn’t convinced we were good to go.  He called Lucas but got no answer.  As luck would have it, there was a pro helping a fellow a couple boats down, so Mike nabbed him for a look-see.  They discovered that the windless motor was corroded enough to cause concern, so buddy took it away for repair.  The guy was nabbed by at least two other boat owners while he was in the neighbourhood, so not sure how promptly we’ll get our motor back, but again, not complaining!  Mike tried to raise the anchor by hand the other day and it was damn near impossible, so this is another issue we are more than happy to deal with properly.

Mike was exhausted again after a long day of troubleshooting, so we headed back to Avli for dinner.  This time the cat deigned to grace us with her presence.  She kept reaching her kitty paw up to my plate.  Not sure why, do cats like falafel?

Today we are cleaning and polishing.  The fridge and cupboards are full of food, so we’re ready to head out, hope it happens tomorrow.  My Med diet is not supposed to include all the amazing pizza and gyros I’m eating here in Aegina.   Seriously, if you are in this town you must go to Tenekedakia for a pita pork gyro.  Best. Gyro. Ever.

I dumped some of Mike’s photos onto the laptop, so here are a couple of belated pics from our trip up to see the Temple of Aphaia in Agia Marina.  You won’t be seeing many photos of me in this blog (let’s face it, Mike is the pretty one), but here is a rare photo of the two of us.  We are indeed in Greece together.

I leave you with our new mascot, the thirsty pigeon.

Monday just before lunch Mike headed to land to grab a cab and get a fuse in Aegina Town.  I stayed with the boat, expecting him to be gone for most of the afternoon.  He returned two short hours later bearing gyros from Pita Tom.  Yay!

I was soon extra happy about his prompt return when the wind, rain, and lightning started.  The anchor alarm started beeping and Mike realized we were dragging, so here was my first trial by fire–moving the boat during a squall.  It was very wet and windy, but not cold, and I was too busy to be scared.  Of course I tried to do everything too quickly and made some errors…  Took the snub off the anchor and tossed it on the deck only to have it get caught up with the chain and wrapped around the windless.  Argh!  Mike battled the wind to head forward and unjam the works.  Consider that lesson learned.  Lots of screaming at each other (not in anger, bien sur) and we got the anchor up and moved north of the dock hoping the cliff would shelter us a bit, but the swell was bigger than by the beach so we headed back to where we had been and dropped the anchor again.  I must say I surprised myself–if you’d asked me in advance how I would react in a situation like that, tears would have immediately come to mind.  Famous last words.

By the time we were re-situated things were starting to let up, though we saw lightning  for a while after as the squall moved south.  Once the sun set we saw a ship on the horizon that was completely covered in red lights, like hundreds of them.  Does anyone know what this means?  I can find lots of info about one or two red lights (dangerous cargo?) but nothing about an entire ship.

We have a few issues to resolve, like the aforementioned alternator problem, so after a call to Lucas, the mechanic at Planaco, we decided to head back to Aegina Town to get things shipshape.  A quick visit from the fuel truck in Agia Marina and we headed back to the west side of the island

Here was the next test, our first anchoring in the harbour.  We did a quick anchor south of the port to get the dinghy moved from the back of the boat onto the deck, and then on into the harbour.  Parking (parking? doesn’t sound very nautical) wasn’t seamless, but also wasn’t embarrassing (witness accounts may vary).  More lessons learned, don’t be skimpy with letting out the anchor, and take care of any windless jams asap because if the boat loses momentum, we lose our line on the spot we’re trying to back into.  Got it!   We’re not perfectly straight, but the harbour isn’t super busy, and frankly we saw bigger boats that look more crooked than ours.

It kind of feels like we’re back home!  We hooked up to shore power, filled the water tanks, and then treated ourselves to dinner at Panta Rei, officially my favourite restaurant here.  Couldn’t get the WiFi there to work on my phone, maybe I’ve been flagged for downloading all the episodes of the podcast S-Town on my last visit.  No worries, I forced Mike to get a gelato next door at Gelato Follia so I could get their WiFi password.  It’s directly across from the boat, so I thank them for this signal I am now, uh, borrowing.

This morning I went to pick up our clean laundry that I dropped off last night (luxury!), while Mike worked on the solenoid.  Things are coming together!  This afternoon I will visit the grocery store and also try and find a pair of sunglasses with built in readers.  I currently have to wear my regular glasses and sunglasses together to do any close work on deck, and that is bound to end badly.  If I drop these new glasses in the water I am going to be very cranky.  It is quite a look, though.   Also must get a floating tether for glasses.  Add it to the list.

Here is a bonus shot from when we were working on the mainsail on Sunday. Kurt E. and/or Mark G., where are you when we need you?

We’ve had two meals at a lovely little restaurant called Paradise in Agia Marina, partly because the food is good, but mostly so we don’t feel guilty about using their WiFi–we can get a spotty connection from where we are anchored in the harbour.  Internet is now a luxury item.  This constitutes roughing it in my book, and this is what we look like when we dine in restaurants now:

Rewind a couple of days to Thursday at the Planaco boatyard. Very exciting to finally get all our crap on the boat and prepare to set off.  We were given a 2pm departure time (which became 3pm, but who’s counting).  It was easy enough to keep busy unpacking and cleaning and whatnot.  When the time came, buddy backed up to the boat, they removed the supports, painted a couple spots on the bottom that the supports had been blocking, and headed for the water.  I guess the paint dries fast?

And as my Dad would say, we were off like a terd of hurtles!  No sails available, so we kept it simple and motored.  No sooner were we out of Planaco than Mike gave me the wheel with a warning to watch for ferries and disappeared below.  Two minutes later I saw a ferry at least a km away and had a mini panic attack!   I’ll get more comfortable, I swear.  I screamed until he popped his head out and calmly throttled down.  Right.  We continued around the northwest point of Aegina with a slim hope of getting a berth at the dock in Aegina Town.  Hopes were soon dashed, the Easter weekend crowd had descended, but I confess I wasn’t too distressed that there wouldn’t be a hundred witnesses to my first attempt to help Mike lay anchor.  We anchored just south of the marina and had a rocking and rolling first night.

Since we didn’t do much exploring while staying at the hotel in Aegina Town, we decided to head for the east side of the island to check out their #1 attraction, the Temple of Aphaia.  Thankfully it was an uneventful motor (no ferries in sight, still no sails installed).

Upon our arrival in Agia Marina we were greeted by lots of jellyfish in the water.  Pretty, but creepy.  I was mildly concerned, but we’ve been here two days now and I haven’t seen one since.   We anchored for our second night and had an even rockier and rollier night.  A cruise ship must have gone by in the wee hours because there was one point where we were knocked about enough that I tried to get up and quiet a rolling bottle in a cupboard only to give my head a good crack on the next roll.  Yes, hilarious.   Mike was unimpressed enough with our anchorage to roust me out of bed at 7am to move the boat closer to the beach.  You can imagine my mood for the next few hours, but it did give me more anchoring practice, I guess.

Our task for the day was to install the mainsail, but that turned into installing the jib when we realized we had the wrong sail unfolded.  We headed into town for a late lunch and were surprised to see that what we assumed was a little town with not much on the go was actually a tourist mecca coming out of hibernation.

The aforementioned Paradise restaurant had just open for the season that day, but they had it all under control as the WiFi was operational and I had a damn tasty spaghetti carbonara.  Mmmm, cream sauce and pig.   Bellies full, we started our trek up to the temple.  No joke, I walked up this freaking hill!  Of course we got there at 3:05pm and the site had just closed at 3pm because it was Easter Saturday, but we got the picture.

A quick visit to the grocery store and back to Coral for dinner and backgammon.

We spent all day today fighting to get the mainsail installed and furling straight and then rewarded ourselves with another visit to Paradise so that we could have a well-deserved drink (or two, in my case–Mike wants to keep his wits about him while we’re at anchor) and dinner.  When we got there we asked the waitress if there was an outlet I could use to charge my laptop (alternator issues, I’ll leave that to Mike to discuss or not).  She thought for a second and then unplugged the outside cooler.  God love her, an Easter miracle for Kathy.

No Mass for these heathens, but we did hear lots of church floating over the water, along with lots of little explosions–the Greeks sure seem to enjoy their firecrackers or guns or whatever the hell they’re blowing up.  I hope that’s just a holiday weekend thing–there are so many dogs here it seems cruel!  Daisy always hated loud noises…

 

 

Yup, got in the water on Thursday just as hoped. That’s Coral parked on the right, just off the beach of Agia Marina, a little summer beach town on the east side of Aegina Island.

Still working on getting settled,  putting sails on, sussing out whats working, or rather,  how it all works. Got the generator started after considerable reading, priming, and cranking, and I didn’t flood the exhaust manifold (what’s that now?), so when it finally started it felt like an accomplishment. Of course the generator is a critical component of making a fine afternoon cocktail (it helps power the freezer), so it’s a big relief to see it humming along.

Cheers!

Mike

 

While Mike was on his gas errand to Athens yesterday, I took the opportunity to swipe his bike and go for a spin along the coast.  I took the GoPro, but it is an insanely bumpy video.  I need a mount with shock absorbers or something.  I’ll add it to the list.

I was looking for a turnoff that seemed to be a pretty major road on the map, but I missed it and accidentally biked all the way to the boatyard.  When I backtracked I realized that my road was little more than an alleyway.  Very steep and narrow, but again, drivers were fast but careful (I assume, as I did not get hit, knock on wood).

I was very smart and wore my bathing suit under my clothes on the bike ride.  I had a grand plan to jump in the glorious, empty pool as soon as I returned to the hotel.  The pool was indeed empty, but it was surrounded by about thirty kids on a group home vacation who’ve been staying at the hotel the past couple days.  Moment of truth–screw it, I hopped in.

Today I walked to town in search of a WiFi antenna extender.  Timed it just wrong as all the electronics stores were closed for siesta, but I did manage to get a couple of nice, new pillows for 6€ each and in the process got rid of my torn 50€ bill that no one seemed to want to take.  Faced with a torn bill or no sale, the lady chose torn bill.  Whew, I was starting to think that money wasn’t going to work anywhere.

Today is the last day of boat prep, planning to put her in the water tomorrow.  We are about to begin life in seriously close quarters.  I’m sure it will be fine…