2023, And We Are Off (almost!)

So, after our usual manic 2 weeks getting Casa Del Mar ready for her summer season, we set off for Greece on the 19th June. Our initial intention was to go straight to Greece but after being told that one of Chantal´s oldest and best friends, Nova, had suffered a stroke, we made a 24 hour stop in the UK to go and see her, to give her the hugest hug and all our love and wishes to get better as quickly as possible, popping in to see both Mum´s and Steven as well.

For those of you who know Nova, it is likely to be a long road for her, but she is doing remarkably well, and has now been moved to a rehabilitation centre in Haywards Heath, and Steve and Alex were even allowed to take her home for the weekend, which was a great success! She will be in our thoughts throughout this trip and hopefully will be home permanently by the time we get back, and able to have a holiday with us in sunny Spain.

We therefore arrived in Greece very late on Sunday night after an almost 3 hour delay spent sitting on the tarmac at LGW, found our little apartment that was to be our home for a few nights whilst we woke Seaclusion up, and crashed. The following morning we went to inspect our summer home after all the work she had had done on her, teak, engine, and canvas work. Whilst the new sprayhood and bimini etc hadn’t been delivered and fitted, everything else looked pretty sweet, after we had given her a thorough wash, well as thorough as possible given the very weak water pressure at the yard. A far cry from last year´s disappointment, for sure! The canvas work arrived the next day and at first all seemed fabulous!

That night, we returned to Preveza in search of our favorite giros place and had a giggle at its description again, washed down with some local Greek wine, which is the stuff of dreams, giving you no hangover in the morning…

The next day we set about organising Seaclusion & ourselves, undertaking some of the jobs to make our sailing as soon as possible, including the very mucky and intricate job of servicing our winches, with some help from YouTube. After the first 2, we were quite proud of ourselves, particularly as you all know we are not the most DIY minded couple in the world. Here´s the before and after images, and one showing our frustration when we came to service the 2 genoa sheet winches… let´s see if you can work out the problem… a classic bit of french engineering!

So finally it was launch day…the images probably say it all, but still it went without a hitch and the engine just purred, she was so sweet, and we made our way over the water to moor up on the quay in Preveza.

The rain was actually a good thing as it highlighted 2 issues, first, where the black caulking on the teak decks hadn’t quite taken and the gap between the sprayhood and bimini was just too big now. As a result we have actually spent the last 4 days still here in Preveza whilst these issues were resolved, doing our provisioning at a leisurely pace and meeting up with 2 sailing chums we haven´t been able to catch up with for the last 6 years, and making some new ones!

Quirky Preveza!

So with fingers crossed and fair winds, we are hoping to leave tomorrow (Tuesday 19th June) to head north towards Paxos & Corfu.

Our plans this year is to leave the wonderful Greek hospitality, head north to explore Albania, then across to the eastern coast of Italy, round the boot, head north through the Messina Straits to do Northern Sicily and its islands, which we were unable to do when we came though this part of the World in 2014 due to bad weather, and then if the winds allow us, head north to Sardinia and Corsica and then to the South of France where we have an option for wintering at a yard just west of Marseille, or if the northerly winds are just too much, to head south to Malta. No doubt there will be many a story to tell en route, so we really hope you enjoy coming along for the sail with us!

19th June 2023