It’s a hard life

Our last blog was written just before we left Gouvia after the Dublin crew had gone home. We were heading for the yard to lift out so I could replace the dead seals in the saildrive. We left Gouvia on 17 June after doing a final shop in the AB supermarket.  This blog comes to you from the hard in Ionion Marine near Preveza.

After a night at anchor off Corfu town, we spent one night in Ormos Valtrou, tucked up away from the wind and two nights in Lakka on Paxos, catching up with friends from the yard and making new ones. We were going to spend a third night in Lakka but a study of the weather forecast and a need to be in Preveza by 11am the following day led to an early departure. A pity in one way as we missed out on supper ashore with John, Margaret, Eelko and Marlese (who’s birthday it was) but we did get a cracking sail and it was much easier being only a few hundred metres away from the yard for our lift out next morning, rather than 40 miles or so.

A flotilla, all neatly following the leader, enters Ormos Valtrou as we leave for Lakka.

We were delighted to find our new friends Mike and Sandy waiting to meet us as we arrived; we’d had them on board for drinks a couple of nights before, in Lakka.  They come from a village near Falmouth and keep their boat in Mylor – a small world indeed!  We agreed to meet up in Preveza town that evening for a meal.

Out of the water, we found that the keel had some rust patches despite our efforts before launching this year, so I ground out the rust and J then painted four coats of epoxy primer whilst I tackled the Saildrive. There are two seals which stop water getting in and oil getting out; ours had failed and the oil resembled milky chocolate. Getting the thing into its component parts proved to be a tiresome job involving much swearing and improvisation in the absence of special Volvo Penta tools. Then disaster struck! Having cherished a new set of seals carefully for two years in my spares box, in a fit of impatience, I managed to wreck them when I resorted to a hammer and the wrong sized bit of metal as I tried to fit them. Cue much cursing and bad humour which was, however, cured by an excellent meal out with Mike and Sandy and a good night’s sleep.

No,the keel hasn’t caught some nasty disease, just patch painting antifoul in the only colour we could get in a hurry.

As an aside, we’ve had a couple of folks ask “What is a Saildrive?”. Well, it’s the bit that takes the drive from the engine and connects it to the propeller. The traditional way of doing this is to have the engine connected via a gear box (forward and reverse) to a straight shaft which goes through the hull and has the propeller on the end of the shaft. A nice, simple solution but it is relatively expensive to build and takes up more room inside the boat. The Saildrive is a neat little unit which takes the drive from the engine and by means of two right angle turns puts the propeller just the right distance below the hull for it to work properly just in front of the rudder. It is very compact, easy to fit and is therefore much cheaper for builders than the traditional shaft arrangement. Photos show how the shaft and Saildrive look from the outside.

The repaired Saildrive with polished prop back in place. The engine is all of about a foot in front of the drive.

Anyway, the following morning I drove to Lefkas, where I purchased new seals and the right sized piece of metal to fit everything back together. I was much impressed by the girl in the Volvo Penta dealer, who not only knew what I was looking for but quoted (from memory!) the part number to me to confirm she was talking about the same bit! Back in the yard, I used the little workshop that is provided for such jobs where the vice pressed things back together in a few minutes with no cursing whatsoever! Lesson learnt: right tools and patience works, hammers and impatience don’t!

A traditional shaft drive propeller. The engine here is probably two or three feet further forward.

We spent Wednesday 24 June mainly in Preveza, booking our ferry back to Italy on 2 September, doing a monumental Lidl shop and then stowing it all back on board. We’ve also booked our lift out for the winter on 31 August and have generally had a good day sorting things out. All being well,we relaunch tomorrow at 11am. The plan is to spend a couple of days in Vonitsa before heading north to Corfu to meet up with Rob, Katie and Eric the Viking.  We will then head south again, ready to pick up Helen and Mark in mid July.

The other point of interest is watching the Greek financial crisis as it unfolds, both via newspapers and BBC online and by listening to what the locals are talking about. There is no doubt that things are going down to the line: if the EU is taking a soft line, then the IMF are playing tough or vice versa, the Greek government offers something and then it doesn’t…. You couldn’t write a script like this and have anyone believe it. Rumours abound about what is going to happen and when, all completely without foundation. The one thing we’ve come across is from Mike and Sandy, who have had problems with the debit card and have had to resort to the bank counter service for cash rather than the ATM: the banks are all extremely busy with people making withdrawals from their accounts. We shall  be filling up with diesel as we leave tomorrow, keeping a good deal more cash to hand than normal and keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn’t all go horribly wrong.

Celtic Celebrations and Fun in the Sun

Oh dear, we had planned to add a short new post to our blog every few days this season but it’s been nearly a month since our last one! Our excuse? Well, frankly, it all got a bit hectic so now you have another of standard Byrne length!

D remained in Corfu, replacing caulking in the cockpit, installing a salt water tap in the chain locker and at the sink and servicing the engine. This last led to two sobering discoveries: the seals on the bottom of the sail drive had failed, letting sea water mix with the oil to produce something resembling hot chocolate and rendering it about as useful in terms of lubrication! In order to replace the seals we will have to be lifted out of the water and we are now booked to go back to the yard at Preveza on 22^nd June. In addition the coil in the calorifier (hot water heater) had developed a hole and was leaking water into the engine cooling system. The choice before us was to live without hot water or replace the calorifier. I made a swift decision as soon as I returned and we now have a splendid, (even larger!) new calorifier!

In the meantime, I flew to Ireland to join other family members for the 1^st Holy Communion of my eldest granddaughter, Jessica.

Charlie, Jess and Lily at Jessica’s 1st Holy Communion

Now, this is a very important occasion in the life of any practising Roman Catholic but in Ireland it takes on even greater significance. It really cannot be overstated and I think it is fair to say that it can be likened to a Bar Mitzvah for a Jewish boy – it is a rite of passage and preparations begin months ahead. I arrived in time to help with the last minute preparations and soak up the mounting sense of excitement. For Jess, the excitement was almost off the scale due to the fact that 3 days later she would be celebrating her ninth birthday and the day after that she would be flying to Corfu for 10 days holidaying in the sunshine! The child almost spontaneously combusted! The cake was iced, the house cleaned, nails painted and the hairdresser came to put curls in the hair of our little Communicant. Friends and family from across the Irish Sea flew in to join in the celebrations – indeed a couple of aunts, who shall remain nameless, had clearly been celebrating before departure! (There was a splendid rendition of New York, New York on the staircase in the hotel lobby on the night of their arrival, the memory of which I shall treasure for a long time!)

The great day came and we all had a fabulous time; the sun shone and little Jess was beautiful, composed and serene. I hope she will treasure the memories into her old age!

The days that followed were a blur of birthday cake, packing and preparations until finally we were all on the plane and flying east, quite literally towards the sun, just as dawn was breaking over Ireland.

Charlie and Naomi at the bow of Rampage.

The next 10 days were water-filled – we were almost always either in it or on it! There was a day at the beach, snorkelling and building sand castles, plus two short expeditions out in Rampage, (in view of the chocolate mix in the sail drive, we couldn’t go far,) when all three children took turns at the helm.

Lily at the helm, under instruction from the Mate.

We also had two days at Aqualand, rediscovering the delights of water slides and wave pools. I had a fabulous time and I think the children did too! Most of the rest of the days were spent at Spiti Prifti, the family-run apartment hotel right by Gouvia marina where the family stayed. D & I already knew Spiti Prifti as our lovely friend, Glynis, runs the pool bar. The pool is set in a lovely garden and there Jess learned to duck dive to retrieve things from the bottom, and do multiple handstands and underwater somersaults. By the end she could do 11 without pausing for breath whereas I feel dizzy after two!

Lily practices her snorkelling technique.

Lily plucked up the courage to shed her arm bands and swim a width unaided and by the end of the week was doing star jumps and “cannon balls” into the water, while we all played different ball games, plus underwater counting games and underwater charades, (more information upon request!) Out on Rampage, Charlie discovered the joy of leaping from the pulpit at the bow and did so repeatedly and unhesitatingly into maybe 8m depth and all three children, having mastered the use of snorkel and mask, spent ages looking at the fish that gathered, enticed by a bit of stale bread.

Jess relaxes off the stern of Rampage!

It was a wonderful time for me. One of the few downsides of spending so much time aboard Rampage is that I see very little of my grandchildren so any time that we do have together is very precious. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, including Naomi who took the opportunity to read voraciously and Ken, who could just unwind and spend time teaching his son the finer points of pool.

Now they have gone, our next appointment is in Lakka to meet up with new friends made while we were in the yard at Preveza and then we shall continue south to be lifted and get the sail drive sorted.