Monday 1st July...
The day has arrived, Thesee is tonight ashore in Ionion Marine Boatyard in Preveza. Before we left the anchorage Dean flaked the mainsail nicely because we intend to leave it on, along with the genoa. It's a complete pain taking the sails down and folding them on deck. They are just too big to handle in a small uneven space, with just two of us.
Our lift out time was 9.30am, they had told us to arrive at 9am, hang around, and wait to be called into the slipway. We arrived at 9am and had to 'wait around' on the water for an hour before they were ready for us. Not a good start. Plus, there were other boats as well as us waiting to get in.
Once they had lifted Thesee, jet washed the hull, and put him into his position it was way past 11am. It's a good job I had an umbrella to keep the sun off me whilst we waited to get back onboard. Our dry berth is right at the back of this very large boatyard. The water supply is abysmal with no pressure. We're a little peeved at the moment. Let's hope it improves over the next day or so.
The lovely flaked mainsail
Our travel hoist
Tuesday 2nd July...
Our feelings this morning have improved a little, both of us not so down-hearted. We caught the free mini-bus from the marina which takes you into Preveza town. The boatyards and town are separated by a large inlet channel. The roadway goes through a tunnel underneath the inlet channel so a little unique. Mind you, our driver was a bit hap-hazard. Dean said he thinks it was because he'd had a row with him beforehand about our non-existent water supply!
Our reason for going into the town was to visit the Customs Dock to hand our Transit Log. By doing this the boat becomes out of commission, and the time spent ashore is added to the validity of the Transit Log...... we hope....
Preveza town quay
Well, still no water supply here at our berth. One is not amused. Dean can only get a trickle out of it. Somehow he managed to wash and clean the dinghy. We've deflated it, rolled it up, and it's now safely stored in the lazarette.
I don't think I'll write about all of the boatyard jobs.... been there, done that, many times before. However, one interesting photo came about when Dean removed the paddle wheel (speed log) from the hull. It was totally covered in those dried on little worms.
Wormy Wheel
Tonight we decided to eat out at the neighbouring boatyard. It's called Cleopatra Boatyard, and out of the three boatyards here, Cleopatra is by far the best from what we can tell. People we've spoken to in the past say all three boatyards are pretty much the same, but clearly that is NOT the case.
Wednesday 3rd July...
Day 3 in the boatyard, Things are improving. The marina have told us that we must take the sails off, so Dean has employed two guys from the sailmakers to come and remove our genoa and mainsail. When they arrived this morning it was too windy to remove the genoa, but they got to work on the mainsail. It was interesting to see their techniques. Dean was keeping watch over the proceedings, and although there were a couple of small issues, all went very well. In fact it felt like no time at all when the sail was being rolled up perfectly and being popped into its bag. They even helped Dean to bring it down into the cabin. It's so heavy and big when I'm usually the only one trying to help Dean with it.
Mainsail hanging the other side of the boom
Just before rolling it up
All done. Dean getting animated.
Next job on Dean's list was washing the mainsail lazy bag. Yes, we actually have water flow today with good pressure. We can't believe it. There's no sail/canvas washing area in the boatyard, which we find really strange. Dean's answer was to lay down an old sail cover, pop the lazy bag onto it and scrub away. The boatyard is very dusty, although you can't tell from these photos which I took from the deck looking down.
Dean made his own little drying area too
It's been a very stiff breeze all day today. It may be something coming down from yesterday's bad storm up in Montenegro, where huge cranes were toppled over in the port of Bar. Our annoyance here is the boat next door being a Clanker W**ker. The halyards clanking away against the mast every second of the day in this wind.
Plenty of time left in the day for fender cleaning. Here I am dropping the fenders over the side for Dean to catch and clean......
Catch
Flushing the outboard with clean water and a
product which removes salt from the engine
Fenders drying neatly in the sun and wind
Thursday 4th July...
Seems the Admiral is getting lackadaisical forgetting to write today's blog. Here it is now, just one day late....
Here are a few views around the boatyard
From Thesee looking South East
South west
North West
The North West view is actually of the boatyard next door (Cleopatra). It's a bit posher than us. The fence and hedge is the partition between us and them. In fact there is also a banana tree too. In winter all the boatyards will be jam packed full. I think they may already be fully booked. Since Brexit the berths are becoming harder to get. Like us, we can only stay for up to 90 days in every 180 days, so more boats are requiring summer berths as well as winter berths.
Thankfully there wasn't a breath of wind first thing. The sail men turned up early to remove the genoa sail. Dean lowered the sail over the side of the boat, whilst the sail men were on the floor folding it as it came down. Don't panic, they had an old sail to lower it onto to save our sail from getting mucky and dusty.
Dean lowers the genoa over the side
Sail men folding as it came down
Farmer ploughing his field at the back of us
There's an old wooden boat the other side of the fence (in Cleopatra) to us, and it's very close. Dean says the boat looks like it's been there since it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and Noah's flood receded. I think he's right. We are a little concerned about Noah's sails unfolding so we took some photos just in case of a problem whilst we are away.
Noah
Continuing with the jobs list, Dean greased the prop...
Fenders dry and waiting to be put to bed
Dean back flushed the engine to remove barnacles
I go down the lazarette to help with seacock maintenance
I'm right inside the lazarette now with the dinghy
Friday 5th July...
Yesterday the water was off again, but today it was back on. That's only two days this week Dean's been able to use water to clean all the canvas and deck. He's been going like a steam train getting through it all (amongst other things). I made the most of it too, by getting the laundry done (once the cleaner had turned the electric on!). Nothing is simple here.
No photos today, but most of the work is done. Only four more full days until we fly back home next Wednesday.
It's so hot!! Shouldn't complain really, but it's just stifling on the boat. We did our online check-in for our flight, and EVENTUALLY managed to print our boarding passes. The boatyard is so big and we are basically at the far end of it, so we use the bikes when we go to the office or sea-front. In fact we use them to go to the shower block too. This afternoon we rode the bikes to the taverna on the seafront to get some cold refreshments. Then we decided to ride on further to a small cafe bar about 2 km away. We didn't stop there though, just turned around a came back to get an ice cream.
The main town is across the water, only reachable by small ferry or by road through the tunnel. Unfortunately the ferry only runs once a day, and it's not allowed to go through the tunnel on a pushbike, so we are kind of stuck here in our own little area. On the way back to the boat Dean's phone sounded a loud alarm noise. We knew instantly it was one of those automatic emergency messages (like we had last year in Rhodes when we were told to evacuate). Today it was warning of a wildfire but the location is quite a way inland from here and the wind is blowing in a favourable direction so it doesn't come this way. We can't see anything happening, so no urgency.
Sunday 7th July...
I keep forgetting to take photos and Dean has to remind me when he's doing jobs. I'll try to explain today as the photos are not very descriptive.
Job 1 - Fix the Duogen
The duogen is our combined wind & water generator, which in turn supplies power to the boat. We only really use it as a wind generator. Dean reckons it's not worth the money he paid for it. However, it's also been very noisy this last two months and although he's been trying to improve it the issue still remains.
Today I caught him trying a new type of repair...hitting the bottom (generator) part in order to separate it from the stem. Once he'd got it apart he found a badly damaged screw, see photos, so he replaced it. We won't be able to tell if that's the problem sorted until next time we're back here.
Bear in mind he's standing on the back step of the boat, way up in the air, doing this job.
The white part is the generator
Not long before we lifted out, an AW (anchor w***er) swung into us and hit the hydrovane (self steering device), denting it very slightly. The damage appeared to make the operation of the hydrovane a little stiff. Today, Dean did his best to try to straighten it out but it's not easy, and he really needs a car jack to be able to do it. Today all he had was some wooden blocks, which kept ejecting themselves at the crucial moment.
This job also on the back step, up in the air
Monday 8th July...
Really on the countdown now. Minimal amount of jobs left to do. Today was more cleaning, packing, and removing the sprayhood which covers the companion way, lines, and winches. Dean's going to use the big plastic cover to keep the weather and sand off whilst we're away. That's the big plastic cover he's been using as a base to wash and scrub all the canvas. I'll get some photos tomorrow. I did the last minute laundry, a bargain because someone had left 5 euro credit in the washing machine, so it only cost us an extra 1 euro. Late afternoon we cycled to Cleopatra bar to sit in the cooling wind and have a cooling beer and orange juice. Last full day tomorrow.
Tuesday 9th July....
This is the last blog post of this spring sailing season. Tomorrow we fly home, and are looking forward to spending time in our 'green life' mode. Our last day here was a scorcher. The thermometer inside the boat registered 39.2 degrees. We have no canvas left on deck to keep the sun off. The fridge defrosted in an hour, and the water was off when we tried to cool ourselves down in the showers this afternoon.
39.2 degrees
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