Final Countdown to relaunch next week
Friday 1st April...
Linda - Yuk, Yuk, and Treble Yuk!!! Is this an April Fool's Joke? NO, NO, AND TREBLE NO!!!.
Just look at the state of Thesee's deck 😞. What's going on? Wednesday night earthquake, Thursday night Sahara sand rain. All Dean's hard work scrubbing on his hands and knees (well not quite) has been ruined. It was a right mess. No rest for the wicked, Dean had to get the hose and scrubbing brushes out again and wash it all off before he could carry on with hull polishing.
What the heck?
Finished!!
They don't sell rum. That's right, I said they don't sell rum. Huh! I suppose wine will do this time. We did however have nice chips and a cheese pie, which was actually a feta cheese pasty. In fact, I think I drank a little too much wine 😀
Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd April...
Linda - All systems go.... well really they've been going since we arrived. The countdown is really on now. I can't remember all of the jobs going on, but here are a few...
- Finish burnishing the copper coat patches
- Fit the jackstays
- Thread the sheets through the genoa cars ready to attach to the genoa (once the wind stops) 😏
- Remove the genoa sail cover (which was quite easy given we had never done it before)
- Wash the genoa cover laid out all across the car park, and stop it from blowing away
- Attempting to pack away everything securely
- Fit the log
- Test the chartplotter
- Test the windlass
- Remove the covers (which we made last year) from the sprayhood windows
- Last minute shopping at 5.30pm, we misjudged the local shops opening and had to go to the supermarket
The boat was in a mess during the securing operation
The bloody steps up into town once again for shopping
Nice view looking down though
Back at the boatyard, the little Church
The boatyard office
A huge catamaran here.
It's so big they can park their car underneath it.
Catamaran line up
The important essential last minute shopping.
Wine, Cider (yay), crusty bread, tinned peaches.
Cherry ice-cream (yay again)
Saturday night/Sunday morning was very windy and Dean was awake. I've got a stiff back and finding it very difficult to move in bed and to get up. Tricky when I need the loo, although coping OK during the daytime.
Sunday the boatyard manoeuvred us onto the hydraulic boat lift so that Dean could paint antifoul under the keel. He's never managed to get under there before. They also moved the cradle stands holding Thesee up so that Dean could burnish the copper coat patches that had been hiding behind the supports. Dean was (to put it nicely) having kittens whilst watching the manoeuvring going on. I must admit it's very nerve-wracking. I went into hiding in the laundry room with my puzzle book, keeping well out of the way.
We're pretty much ready now. To celebrate we went for drinks with Matt and Karen again, then to our favourite taverna for dinner. As always it was a lovely meal. We will miss this place for sure. Considering this time last year I had never heard of Aigio, it's been a complete delight.
Monday 4th April...
Linda - Relaunch Day. Up before dawn at 6am for an 8am lift off. We managed to put the staysail on before they came to get us. We had been on the tractor all night with some cradle supports too which was comforting. It was an extremely calm morning and the whole operation went text book perfect.
Ready
As they pushed us back into the water, if you like, Dean switched the engine on, burped the stern gland, and reversed us off the trolley. Don't get me wrong, it was still a hair-raising experience. In what seemed like no time at all we were on our way to Trizonia, 6 miles north of the boatyard.
On our way
Happy me
Relieved Dean
We were here at Trizonia last October before going into the boatyard for the winter. By 10am we had arrived. There was a lot of space, so we chose a nice spot and tied up, easy peasy. We were elated that everything went so well, and cannot speak highly enough of the TKS boatyard and staff that had looked after Thesee all winter.
Bye Bye Aigio
Hello Trizonia
Our new spot
Three boat arrivals today.... the locals getting excited
We've already made some new friends here, one of them even remembered us from last October. It's a lovely little peaceful place, just what we need to unwind for a day or two.
Linda - We were so tired last night, but somehow stayed up until gone 10pm. We had only been in bed for a few minutes when the wind picked up and started bashing some of the halyards against the mast. We usually move them but hadn't, as we didn't expect the wind. I knew Dean wouldn't rest and so we got up and sorted it out, moving them forwards to stop the clanking. Also, we do have neighbours and don't like to be a noisy nuisance. So back into bed again, then the bow line started squeaking with the small bit of movement being generated by the wind and sea. Up we got, clothes back on for the second time, and attached one of our compensator lines to take the strain and stop the squeaking. Back to bed for the third time to find an annoying mosquito trying to land on our heads. We were so tired having got up at 6am, we just put our heads under the quilt and were asleep in no time at all.
A little lie in this morning followed. A couple of jobs for Dean today. The main one being to re-align the engine again, now that Thesee is back in the water where the boat is at ease with itself. After completing this job Dean uses some of my pink nail varnish to mark the bolts, which is a quick reference to show if they come loose in the future. The nail varnish will crack.
You can just see the four pink nail varnish dots
on the coupling between the engine and the prop shaft
After some polishing of the cockpit and the stainless steel bits, we went for a stroll along the footpath which takes us along the north shore of the island. It was a lovely afternoon. So many flowers along the way, even a cat sleeping in the bushes, two hares, a bunny, and three tortoises!!! At the top end of the island we found ourselves scrambling across the scrubland and thicket to get back onto the main track. This is where we came across the tortoises. Good job Dean had his phone so we could see where we were, or we'd still be out there now. Lots of flower photos today for a bit of a change....
Looking across to the mainland
Lonesome kitty
Tortoise 1
Tortoise 2
We emerged from the undergrowth here !!
Tortoise 3
Up on the top of the island it was so pretty
Easter Bunny
Linda - Early starters today, for a 7am departure heading west. The morning was beautiful, as we slipped the shorelines and said cheerio to Trizonia.
As we went under, Dean checked the height of the bridge with the rangefinder, and it was 57 metres. Our air draft is 23 metres, so you could have fit two of us underneath it. It doesn't feel like that at the time. As soon as we were through, and as we thought, the wind kicked in and we turned off the engine and rolled out the genoa for the next 3 hours moving along at a steady 6-7 knots. The wind was 20 knots from behind, we were only expecting around 12 knots.
Peacefulness
Mirror-like
We chose today as the weather looked appropriate to navigate the narrow straight at Patras. The wind funnels here where you transit under the massive Rion Antiron bridge. We motored for two hours until we reached the bridge. On the way a very low flying military plane passed us twice flying up and down the gulf.
This was our second time going under the bridge and we felt more comfortable on approach. Dean called the Rion Traffic control on VHF 14 to request permission to transit underneath. We were surprised to be given clearance to go under the centre gap. We had previously been led to believe that this was for commercial ships only. So we felt very important. Normally there are also ferries that go from coast to coast but we heard that they were on strike today. And indeed, we didn't see any ferry movements.
Approach
Getting close
Holding our breaths now
Passing the cardinal before turning starboard
towards the Messolonghi channel
Almost there
It feels so different here
Once we had anchored and had a bite to eat, Dean inflated the dinghy and took it for a trial spin. The outboard worked well after its long winter hibernation.
Later on we met up with friends of ours Thomas, Irene, and Skipper Dog. I'm afraid a little too much alcohol was consumed.
So we have officially left the Gulf of Corinth. Now in Messolonghi and will probably be here for a few days as the weather looks unsettled and we are expecting some wind tomorrow.
The next blog post will be called 'Settling into the new sailing season'
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