Wednesday 24th April 2024
It's the very start of our new season back on board, and we want to say a warm WELCOME BACK to all our lovely and dedicated Thésée Followers out there.
Normally we leave home and arrive at Thésée all within the same day, but this time was very different. It actually took 4 days to get to Leros! Two trains, two planes, two different overnight hotel stays, and a number of taxi rides was the plan, but this actually turned into not one, not two, but three different hotel stays.
Our two flights were both very early departures meaning we had to take hotels the night before each flight. But... on Day 3 as we were queueing at the boarding gate in Athens airport for our flight to Leros, the airline staff informed us that the flight had been cancelled due to adverse weather. It was quite a shock being so close yet so far to getting on that plane. We were told that we would be put up in the Sofitel airport hotel for the night, and a new flight had been arranged for us the next day.
Dismayed but still in shock, we (everyone from the flight) collected our baggage and traipsed across the road to the Sofitel. We soon came to terms with our disappointment when we walked into the hotel and found it was a luxurious 5 star place with a spa, rooftop bar, posh rooms, panoramic views of the runway (me, plane spotter), and all expenses paid including all meals throughout the day, night, and next morning. What's not to like??
The only downside on everyone's minds was the question "Would the plane be cancelled again the next day?" because the weather forecast was actually going to be worse.
Our lovely (and free) 5 star Sofitel at Athens airport
Well the next day (4th day of our adventurous journey) came and fortunately all went to plan and we boarded our plane and it flew us to Leros. A slight downside was that the sky was full of sand which had come across from the Sahara, and the whole way was like flying through thick fog. So we didn't get any nice views of all those lovely Greek island scattered across the Cyclades. But the up side was that the strong winds didn't make the flight as bumpy as expected, and we arrived happily and safely in Leros.
After picking up our hire car at the airport we drove the few hundred yards to the boatyard and were finally re-united with Thésée once more. After giving him a big hug we gave him a quick check over. He was quite grubby on the decks but mostly everything seems OK. So this was yesterday when we arrived.
One of the props had fell away from under the bow
The duty free made it in one piece, and
Saffy's photo was still upright
And so after a really good night's sleep (albeit winds gusting 40 knots), this morning we began checking everything in more detail. We've found a number of small issues to deal with. The main problem today was that Dean found the starter battery has failed. It was over 6 years old after all. We had to go out and buy a new one.
Checking the starter battery before finding it was kaput
The battery condition tester was also kaput
Dean fitted a new seacock in the aft heads
Here's the new starter battery
Other items to mention today were....
Tested all batteries (inc house batteries, bow thruster batteries)
Fitted anodes to keel coolers & the prop and checked continuity.
Fixed the battery tester
Trying to fix our special wifi router after we found it was kaput....still kaput at the moment
We're due to relaunch on 2nd May fingers crossed we are ready. It's a nice warm 20 degrees here and we're back in our shorts and Tshirts.
Thursday 25th April...
Linda - Oh dear, I seem to have gone a bit rusty with my blogging, let alone try to remember what day it is. Then there's trying to remember how to upload photos and get onto the internet. I had to make a few alterations and edits to yesterday's blog, I think I'm happy with it now. Hopefully, I will soon get back into the swing of things.
Well I've just also realised that I didn't take any photos today either. I'll be getting the sack at this rate. The Captain will be threatening me with 'keel hauling' or 'walking the plank'. In fact he talks of this quite often for some reason.
Unfortunately, more boaty issues raised their ugly heads today....
1. The Wifi router seems to be totally kaput, which means we have to rely on connecting directly to the marina wifi which is usually not easy because the signals tend to be weak. Saying that though, I'm on it right now.
2. The battery thermometer has stopped working and failed to detect the problem with the faulty starter battery yesterday. Dean is annoyed that he buys gadgets which are supposedly good enough for marine use, but actually they aren't.
3. The printer had a full day meltdown and wouldn't print a single thing. This seems to have something to do with the kaput wifi router, and it even wouldn't print a single thing when we connected the computer directly with the cable. In the end we decided to uninstall it from the computer and re-install it. This was mind blowing in itself, but did work and we finally got to print our important documents which we need for paying the TEPAI (Greek cruising tax) next week.
Dean spent ALL DAY LONG washing and scrubbing Thesee's decks. He made such a good job of it, as always. Also, I saw him washing down some of the canvas in the cockpit..... wheel covers etc.
The Sahara sand is still hanging around in the air but the weather man said it should be clear by tomorrrow. We went out for dinner which was very nice. Our first choice restaurant at Blefoutis was closed, so we headed down to Alinda and enjoyed a good meal at a place we visited last year.
Friday 26th April...
Linda - I'm still trying to get organised with my duties on board. This first photo is a snapshot that I took from the aircraft as we were coming in to land on Leros the other day. I told you it was murky! This was the first view we got of any land since we took off from Athens. Up higher we couldn't see a single thing.
Not the sort of weather we were hoping for
The first day and night we arrived was a bit haphazard as we tried to remember what to do and where things were. We made a big mistake in not closing up the hatch when dusk fell, and failed to realise that we had been invaded with mozzies.... well not quite invaded but it sounds good. Next morning (Wednesday) I counted more than 20 mozzie bites on the one side of my face and forehead alone! If I run my fingers across my forehead it feels like the Himalayas! I had been eaten alive overnight. Dean fared a little better because I subsequently found out that he had been up most of the night fighting them off and splattering them with great force and anger.
What idiot coined the phrase 'Glamourous Cruising Lifestyle?'
Spotty, but strangely not itchy
Now on to other things.
These first two photos are of Thesee's nice clean sparkly deck after Dean spent all day on it yesterday. You can see the weather has improved also, with a nice clear blue sky.
Down below in the dungeon Dean decided to replace the second seacock. He brought two with him, one to replace the broken one, and one as a spare (purchased with a discount if you bought two, clever clogs). He decided to use the spare and change the unbroken seacock too, as it was likely to break at some point because the other one had. Are you still following me?
On seeing the nasty crud and calcium deposits that came out of the pipe when he changed it, he's more than happy that he cleverly had the spare seacock.... AND used it.
Nearly as unpleasant as my spotty face
The seacock removed, you can see right through the
bottom of the boat. Sunlight coming in 😮
Nice new seacock in place. Good Job Dean
Next job - Patching up Thesee's bottom with Coppercoat. There's a number of places on the hull which need rectifying. This always seems to be the case, but this time there's extra work to be done. Do you remember last year when we got lifted out of the water and the boatyard were pretty rough with the jet-washing?? Hmmm.
Rubbing down to prepare for the coppercoat layers
One of the bigger patches
Saturday 27th April...
Linda - I think I've broken my camera 😨. I was indoors this morning when I heard the travel lift moving nearby and saw that it was moving a boat right past us. So I quickly grabbed the camera to take a photo, but on switching it on I realised hadn't got the SD card in it. I popped it in quickly and got one snapshot, but after that I just now have a black screen. Everything is normal except there is no view when I try to take a photo. I must have damaged the lens somehow. I performed a factory re-set on it but it's still not working 😨😨.
The travel hoist taking a boat for relaunching.
My last photo before the camera went haywire.
I'm pretty sure I have an old camera stashed away somewhere, so it might not be as drastic a situation as it could be.
Tonight we went out for dinner with two sailors that Dean has met while here in the boatyard. Being on a boat you get to meet new people all the time, so life is never boring on the high seas.
Sunday 28th April...
Linda - We've got an Aloe Vera plant that was a gift to us from the marina in Gaeta, Italy back in the winter of 2019-20. It's been with us ever since, apart from one winter when we were separated from it as we went home for six months. At that point, Cris & Phil from Bora La took it with them to Turkey to care for it whilst we were away.
We call it Vera (for short). Vera came back to us in 2022 and has been with us since then. BUT we had to leave it with the marina this last winter just gone. When we returned last week Vera was still there waiting for us, albeit looking a bit ropey and brown. I took it back to the boat and gave it some TLC, cutting off six brown outer leaves, just leaving a few inner ones. Vera was looking better already, but after six days of care and attention the leaves have already sprung themselves back into their green-ness with abundance. Here's the before and after photos....
Before...and brown six days ago
After.... and green today 👍
Whilst I've been busy with Vera, Dean has finished painting the layers of copper coat patches. You have to do it all in one day apparantly, whilst the layers are tacky. Next job, hull polishing. I know how much he detests this job. Sometimes I think that the thought of it is worse than actually doing it. But today he got stuck in. He managed to find a trestle to stand on in the yard. It's going to be a few days job. Thesee is a big boy, and being blue makes it twice as difficult to polish and wax.
You can already see the very shiny difference in these next photos... I'm looking forward to seeing the gorgeous shiny Thésée once more.
The bow is always time consuming
Touching up the scratches on the white seahorse too
P.S. Camera is still not working, so I'm having to use the old dodgy camera for now. Guess what I want for Christmas??
Linda - Dean was up at 6.30am to start polishing early before the boatyard staff arrived. He was hoping to keep the trestle that he was using yesterday because it has wheels on. Unfortunately, when the staff arrived they asked for it back and replaced it with an inferior model....one sided with no wheels 😞. Still, he got on with job and was out there for HOURS, right up until gone 4pm. He's taking such care and precision with the polishing, everyone stops and admires the progress with awe. He's over half way point with the polishing now.
Boats are always being moved around the boatyard and past us. I took a photo of this one because it was unusual, being transported on a trailer rather than with the usual travel hoist.
To have a few hours chill out after Dean packed away at 4pm, we drove to Vromolithos beach for sundowners. It's on the east side of the island. We anchored here once last year. It's very scenic with a stony beach and some nice sunbrellas. There were three boats at anchor today, fairly calm waters considering the wind isn't letting up.
Vromolithos beach, looking north,
taken from the taverna
Looking south
One of the anchored boats was flying an unusual flag. Yellow background with a black cross , and a red dragon. We both said that we recognised the flag but couldn't remember where from. When we got back we eventually found out more on the internet. Turns out it is a provincial flag of Brittany, France. The province being Tregor, capital Treguier. Of course! Treguier was one of our stops back in 2018 when we started Thesee's big adventure.
The boat with the unusual flag
Found this photo on the internet
The flag of Tregor with its old version pre 1998
I like flags 💙.
Wednesday 1st May...
Linda - The skipper's on polishing day number 3. I absolutely think this first photo is fabulous because you can actually see the reflection of the next door neighbour's boat in Thesee's extremely shiny hull.
💙 Shiny as shiny can possibly be 💙
Looking down the port side
Just this small dull patch left to polish tomorrow
Dean's hands are aching after all this hard work. I can't believe he's not got any blisters by now. I think he'll be polishing in his dreams tonight.
We grabbed some dinner on board then went for a drive to Gourna beach in the hope of finding a bar. Gourna is on the west side of the island and particularly quiet as it's a residential area with no shops of any kind. But we did find a bar and it was open. It was called the 'Exotic Sunset Cafe'. Not quite as exotic as it sounds, but it was very nice with some pretty plants and flowers, and a kitten of course. And we did in fact get a great view of the exotic sunset. All this for a mere 6 euros.... half a litre of red wine (2 glasses each), and they brought us a plate of hot meat snacks and salad too. Just lovely.
Tucking in
A nice setting by the garden
Sunset behind the headland
Wednesday 1st May...
Linda - Hoorah! The polishing is finished. Thank goodness. But first today, we went on the off chance to the Customs Office. The last two days have been stressful. We (.... correction, I) have been fretting my little cotton socks off over our Greek Transit Log. The marina have booked us in to launch at 8.30am tomorrow morning, and also to be at the Customs Office in the main town Lakki at 9am to get our Transit Log back. Obv, we cannot be at two places at once. The marina expected us to launch the boat then blow up our dinghy, get back ashore and drive 20 minutes to get to the Customs for 9am. Not to mention the stress of relaunching and then immediately leaving our boat empty when we've just fitted new seacocks. Also extending the car hire to coincide with everything.
To make matters worse today was due to be a public holiday so everywhere should have been closed. We did some research on Facebook and the news, and it looked like that this year the May Day public holiday has been moved to May 7th instead because today is in fact Holy Wednesday, whatever that means. Then this weekend it's Easter. Strange how in the UK we had Easter one month ago??
Anyway, I'm ranting..... On the off chance that there was the slight possibility that the Customs Office would be open today, and indeed the fact that they would actually see us without an appointment, and then actually return our Transit Log to us as well, we decided to give it a try and off we went. It must have been our lucky day, because BINGO, they were open, saw us, and returned our Transit Log too. This means that tomorrow morning all we have to do is leave the hire car as planned, and relaunch the boat. Everything else is now taken care of.
I've probably mentioned this before, but the Greeks insist we have an 18 month Transit Log. If you are out of the water the 18 month clock stops if you hand your ship's papers in to Customs until you go back into the water. This makes the Log last longer. Then after the 18 months you have to leave Greece. Legally we are entitled to an Unlimited Time Transit Log because we are VAT paid and was in the EU on Brexit Day, but the Greeks make their own rules and so will only allow us an 18 month log. It's a pain is the A~* but what can you do if you want to be here??
Moving on.... Dean finished the rest of the little jobs needed for relaunch tomorrow. Then we ate dinner and went for another little ride. Just near where we were last night in Gourna there's a small causeway leading to a chapel in the sea. We thought it would be nice to walk the causeway but when we got there the waves were breaking over it. It would have been do-able but what's the use. When you've seen one chapel you've seen nearly all of them. So we went off to Alinda instead and found a new bar to sit and have a glass of wine.
Causeway to the Chapel in the sea
Close up
Cats in the bar
The bar
Rare photo of me in the bar with the vino
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