Kalimera Thésée Followers - It's 2026 sailing season time

KALIMERA ! 

Good Morning to all faithful Thésée Followers and Friends around the World

The crew have returned to sunny Greece for the exciting 2026 edition of the 

💙 Adventures of Thésée 💙

I'm beginning to lose count of what 'Thesee's Big Adventure Sailing Season' number this is, we've been at it for quite some time. Now, let's see... Wow. I'm running out of fingers to count on. Well, we sailed away from the UK in 2018, and now it's 2026, so I make that 9 seasons in the sun. Sitting here now thinking about all those memories and places which we've visited, I honestly can't believe it. 

We are back at it even earlier this year, and it was a small three day adventure to get here. It took us a day to take four trains to London Gatwick airport for a flight on the second day to Corfu. Why Corfu? It's because the airport by the boat in Preveza isn't open yet for international flights. In fact, we believe that our flight into Corfu was the first international flight into that airport this year. The Easyjet airline pilot with the very nice airline pilot voice told us so. 

The flight was great, 

with a fabulous view of the Swiss Alps

On board entertainment adds to the enjoyment

This is one of the many Croatian islands we saw.

I think this one is called Vis.

Coming in to land in Corfu

Arrival

Everything was going perfectly at that stage, until we got to Passport Control to find that they had started this biometric lark with face recognition and fingerprints,  hence the queue went down VERY SLOWLY. It's called the EES (Entry Exit System). We knew that it was in the progress of coming into force across Europe, but were quite surprised that the Greeks had already got it up and running. In fact, our fully loaded plane must have been the first load of guinea pigs to arrive, and test it out! Hence, the VERY SLOW QUEUE. It's a good job that we had time to spare. 

Next was to get across Corfu town to the ferry port. The planned bus trip from the airport didn't work out for us, so we took a taxi. Turns out it was a good choice because the taxi driver took us right up to the correct ferry (there's quite a few here), and we even had time to get a bite to eat before we embarked. Then it was just a 90 minute ferry ride across to Igoumenitsa on the Greek mainland. where we had a room booked for one night at the 'Thirsty Dog' Urban Port Studios. A good name, but in fact we weren't 'thirsty' because we had already opened our duty free 'Captain Morgan' rum on the ferry. Dean's idea, not mine... I might add.

On the ferry with our rum, coke, and huge doughnut

Next day we went to a local cafe for breakfast.... OK, chocolate croissants and coffee. The biggest croissants I have ever seen, so I saved some of mine for later. Then we picked up a hire car and started our trip down the coast towards Preveza. We had loads of time to spare, so didn't rush. In fact, we stopped off at a couple of bays....just because we could, and also looking for anchorages of course. The first stop was a lovely village called Ammoudia. The beach was huge, it was very quaint with a small river running alongside. No tavernas open for food, too early in the season. But it was a nice little stroll and the sun was shining. 

The hire car... a little Skoda Citigo

The little river at Ammoudia

The huge beach at Ammoudia

Checking out anchoring possibilities at Ammoudia

From there we moved down to Mytikas, just north of Preveza. There's a small harbour which we walked around, too shallow for Thesee to navigate, but possibly OK to anchor outside on a calm day or night. Probably never then!!

And so, we arrived in Preveza about 2.30pm. We had decided this year to stay in an apartment for a week whilst we prepare Thesee ready to launch. The apartment was lovely and in the town, which meant we had to go through the underwater toll tunnel and back every day to get to the boat. It's only 3 euros a go, so not expensive. And it meant we didn't have to use the showers in the boatyard. Plus, it's difficult living on the boat in the yard because you have to keep climbing up and down the ladder, and we can't use Thesee's loos either. And at our age, using the loo is a regular occurence! Hence, we treated ourselves to an apartment. It worked well actually because we were able to walk from the apartment to the town's restaurants at night. And we did......a different one each night! 

Our apartment

So it's now the 11th March. This morning we left the apartment and have moved onto Thesee, for a relaunch in two days time. Ove the last week Dean has been so busy preparing the boat. He spent the last week cleaning the deck, polishing the hull, replacing the four house batteries, and doing loads of  smaller jobs. Polishing the hull is a back breaking task, he hates it, but has to be done. Thesee looks absolutely fantastic again now, almost raring to go. We've managed to get the staysail and genoa up, just the mainsail to do now. And thankfully, it hasn't rained since we got here, and the sun has been shining every day. The wind has a chill in it still, and I think next week we might see some rain. 

Here are some photos taken this week preparing the boat...

Thesee has new coppercoat on his bottom.

Dean paid a local contractor for this to be done recently whilst we were still at home.

First day back at work for Dean

Our 2nd night out at a very nice restaurant on Preveza quay

We just lurrrrve Greek salad

Vera, our Aloe Vera plant was looking sorry for itself when we arrived

After some deck cleaning

Hauling up on board, the very heavy new batteries

They're very heavy

New house batteries

In situ

Sprayhood and bimini back on

Now attaching the mainsail lazy bag

The newly cleaned and gleamingly white deck

Looks brand new

We gave Vera some TLC, and hope we can revive her once again

As it was our last day with the hire car, we drove 30 minutes south for dinner at a small town called Palairos. Our first time here, and they have a marina to check out too, of course. And butcher's shops, yippee, so we loaded up our cool bag with chicken, pork, and beef mince. Most of the tavernas were closed. Fortunately we came across one that was open and it was quite good, so we'll go back there again with the boat hopefully. 

Thursday 12th March...

We thought it would be cold sleeping on the boat last night, but it was just fine, quite cosy really. It was quite an early start though. Today we had to return the hire car, dropping it off at Preveza airport. They actually gave us a lift back to the boatyard. Thank you Europcar.  Luckily we could take it back a little earlier than planned which worked out well for us, because it meant we could be back at the boat for 10.30am to enable us to fit the main sail during the midday lull in the wind. 

Our Greek courtesy flag on Thesee

And our Welsh flag flying too

Here in Preveza the wind comes from the east in the mornings, then before midday it dies down for a couple of hours and then comes from the west. So this lull meant we could fit the mainsail. We've never actually put the sails on in the boatyard before, so things were going well for us. Normally we have to wait until we are launched and in the water. The mainsail takes us about an hour and half to fit. It's a very big fully battened mainsail with three reefing lines, quite a beast really. So we have to get a move on once we start the job. Fortunately we did manage to get the job done whilst the wind was behaving itself. 

Mainsail up and almost finished

There it is

Dean putting the finishing touches to the outhaul

Dean did some other extra jobs, including fitting our new wifi unit, painting teak, plus many other things. There's always something to do to keep Thesee looking spik and span. Now time to celebrate with our proper Thesee drinking glasses. Well it is Thesee Thursday after all. 

Yamas 

Friday 13th March...

This morning, at 8.45am the big daddy tractor/trailer came to take Thesee away for launching. We were all ready to go of course with fenders and lines attached. As I seem to have said many times before, it's rather quite scary to watch as the trailer as it's manoeuvred under the boat, and the steel cradle is dismantled and removed.

Dean on the ladder doing the last minute jobs

Here's the big daddy tractor coming.

You can hear it bleeping through the boatyard even before you see it.

And in no time at all, Thesee is on the move

Off we go. Dean cautiously watching as always.

Then the boat is moved from the trailer and into the hoist

That's it, easy peasy

And that's the slip which Thesee is going into

Dean's back with his bag of beer for the boatyard lads

By 9.20am we were sorted, and on our way across the channel to the anchorage. Almost all legalities completed, just two more to do. That's, collect our Transit Log from Customs, and then go to Port Police to get the Transit Log stamped. 

We anchored like professionals, cool, calm, collected. Well there was an enormous amount of room to choose from because only four other boats here today. In the summertime this anchorage is heaving. Time now to display our British Ensign and get a couple of pics now we're on the water. 

Next was to get the dinghy out and blow it up. Our dinghy is inflatable, made of hardwearing hyperlon. We always deflate it, roll it up,  and put it away in the aft locker when our season ends, but last year Dean decided to put it away into the sail locker instead (at the bow). Reason being it's very heavy when rolled up, and quite difficult to get it into the aft locker. But now, our new system means we can lift it in and out of the sail locker using the Spinnaker halyard. This has made it so easy to do, no more heavy lifting. It worked a treat. There was a little glue repair that needed attention. 

Whilst we were waiting for the glue to dry, a local fisherman came past and told us we were anchored too far out, and we should move closer to shore. Oh yes, he wanted to lay his fishing nets. But hang on a minute..... This is the ANCHORAGE..... grrrr. Well we couldn't move anyway because he carried on laying his nets around us.... Doh!

A short time later we dinghy'd ashore to finish off the aforesaid legalities, replace an empty campingaz cylinder, and buy our first fresh crusty bread loaf of the season. Yum Yum. 

Tomorrow I'll start a new blog heading, because we are planning to get seaward and head North up the coastline.