2016 – Its All Greek To Us!
Hurray, we are back!
We arrived in Preveza on the 11th May, picked up a charming orange Nissan Note for a hire car that had clearly seen better days, and with Seaclusion still on the hard, and a week’s work ahead of us, we checked into a cheap and cheerful hotel. By a week’s work, I mean a week for us, fully expecting the marina to have done the jobs they were tasked do in October last year, the main 2 being replacing our rudder bearings and treating our keel for some rust spots! Sadly when we arrived at the boat we found the rudder lying flat on the ground and the keel still not treated! Suffice to say we administered a wee kick up the arse, to make sure she was ready for launch on the booked date of the 19th! We then set about our own jobs which included treating the teak decks for mould as it had obviously been a very wet winter in Preveza, cleaning and polishing her hull, replacing her stripes and generally getting everything sorted for the summer.
It wasn’t all hard work, we did manage to take a day off on the Sunday and ventured across the bridge into Levkada the main town of the island of Levkas, which is an odd sort of place, a real working town that has been rebuilt after the 1953 earthquake, sadly not to any style and is a riotous jumble of corrugated iron and brick houses leaning over narrow streets, but with its own charm.
We also took a drive around the island, visiting Nidri which is a busy little seaside town, Vasiliki down south which in contrast to Levkada and Nidri is a sleepy fishing village, but one that still afforded a bar with the Barcelona Grand Prix, so inevitably we had a drink or two!. We also followed some winding little roads to come across some absolutely stunning coastline scenery. Some of which were affected by recent earthquakes and were more than a little risky to navigate, but a 15 point turn up against a sheer drop brought us back to safety !
VASILIKI, South of Levkada
We also secured a Greek mobile phone and had a giggle as it was one of the old fashion non-smart phones that took me (Chantal) 3 attempts to work out how to actually answer a call on it. Actually it was 4, this David’s true version of events !
We asked a guy called Nikos, to put the new stripes on the boat for us, as trying to apply an 11 metre stripe we thought too difficult to apply ourselves, but after watching him making a reals cods of it, decided we could actually do better and save some money in the process, the secret evidently is lots of water and a little Fairy liquid, it goes a long long way….
Finally the 19th arrived, our lift-in date. Having been lifted out back in October 3 hours late, we returned to Seaclusion after paying our bill with half an hour to spare to sort out her lines and fenders, only to find her already lifted off her stand and on her way to the water! Thankfully we had already put all her plugs back in!!!
All went without a hitch and we moored up safely, washed the decks to remove the treatment and get everything ready to pick up her sails and re-rig her in the morning. That however was not to be, as the heavens opened during the night and didn’t stop for 2 days, bringing with it thunder and lightning and high winds, plus our wet weather gear, and we hadn’t even left the marina yet! Provisioning the boat and collecting the sails saw us get thoroughly wet.
Having finished all the running around we needed to do, David went off, in the rain, to drop the hire car back, and pick another up from the airport. All he had to do was to refill it with fuel before returning it, which under normal circumstances should even stretch his abilities, that was until he arrived at the petrol station, pulled the petrol cap release lever and nothing happened. He drove dutifully to the Avis site and was told it was not a problem and that they would charge him 80 euros for the fuel as it was nearly empty, to which he thought that is nearly double that it should cost, so asked them to get him a screwdriver, where he then prised the cap open, drove back to the garage and filled it up for 40 euros.
On the 22nd May we finally got her sails and lines back in their rightful place, the dinghy blown up and re-named and everything just how we wanted, shattered but ready to start our summer trip.
We set sail the following day, through the Levkas Channel and skipped past Levkada, heading southwards to Nidri, or more precisely an almost landlocked bay called Vlikho, to drop our pick and rest up for a couple of days.
We tested the dinghy and its little engine, ensuring we had enough fuel on board (having learnt from past experiences) and visited the little village of Vlikho for refreshments. We returned to the boat for some dinner, cooking some fabulous pork chops, that were about 2”s thick and David managed, whilst trying to extricate it from its bone, to send it flying across the saloon table, bouncing off the cream suedette and onto the floor. But some fast action managed to mitigate the damage.
That night was a peaceful one, but the next day brought winds gusting over 30 knots and we experienced our first, and no doubt, not our last, anchor drag of the season. Thankfully it was in broad daylight and we were on board!! Having re-anchored, this time with over 40 metres of chain on the bottom, (10 times the recommended amount and 6 times more than we had before) we weren’t going anywhere we didn’t want to for the rest of the day!
Finally refreshed, we left our safe little haven and headed northwards to the fabulous island of Meganisi to meet up with some friends from Cabrera in Spain, who are there for the summer and moored up safely in the Port of Vathy, the nominal capital of the island, with lots of charm and waterfront cafes and bars. We had a lovely dinner with Carol and Jeff by the water and the following day went out with them for a great day’s sailing, going wherever the wind took us, tacking and gybing all the way to our anchor stop for lunch, much to Jeff’s amusement on the first tack when he exclaimed, what a wonderful noise, it sounds like everything is breaking all at once! (thankfully it wasnt!!). We then returned to Vathy and swapped the water for wheels on land and Carol and Jeff took us exploring around the little island of bliss, ending up near where they lived in Spartichori for a bite to eat of chicken souvlaki and a carafe of their local wine, before they dropped us back at the boat and bid their farewells.
This took us to Sunday 28th May and we spent the morning hosting me up the mast to change the bulb on our steaming light and rigging our assymetrical spinnaker with its new UV cover, I would like to point out at this stage, that it was very fortunate that David had been doing some gym work before we came out, as he had to hoist the spinnaker 4 times in one hour, Arnie eat your heart out.
Finally we headed back to Vlikho as we had decided to invest in half a day’s tuition on how to get the best out of our asymmetrical spinnaker. John and Catherine came aboard from Sail Ionian and we had a fabulous afternoon finding some winds and flying our wonderfully huge and colourful sail! It must also be said that they enlightened us as to one or two other pearls of wisdom, where clearly previous instructors should probably attend a refresher, so all in all a very valuable afternoon.
Having spent a lovely night in our peaceful bay, we then ventured back up to Levkada and dropped our pick just outside the marina, just in time to jump in the dingy and go to watch the Monaco Grand prix, Get in there Lewis!!
In a couple of days, after some more provisioning we intend to set sail to Kefalonia and the lovely town of Fiskardo, where with a bit of luck we hope to catch up with some of ours, Laurence and Emma.
